Letters from a Minnesota soldier in the Civil War

The next installment of our journey with a Civil War soldier from Minnesota finds him in a slow time between battles.

Our guide as we trace Edward Bassett's Civil War experience 150 years later is historian Annette Atkins. She has seen the letters that Bassett wrote back home during his service with the First Minnesota.

In previous conversations with Atkins, we heard Bassett describe what it was like to be a new Union soldier and to fight in battles with Confederates.

At this point in the war, the first week of April 1863, Bassett wrote about life away from the fighting.

MPR's Cathy Wurzer met Atkins, a history professor at the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University, at the Minnesota History Center's exhibit about Minnesota and the Civil War.

Gallery

Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide

1 of 1

Next Slide