Pitchforks to Rifles

Join Truman Andrus as he is recruited into the 8th Minnesota just days after the Dakota Rebellion of 1862 in Acton Minnesota. Picture yourself among friends and neighbors-all young men-as they report to Fort Snelling in Minneapolis. There they undergo brief training learning how to protect the farming and lumber communities on the Minnesota frontier. The 8th Minnesota guards this frontier until they are led by Colonel Minor T. Thomas to the Missouri River to meet General Sully and his regiment. The journey is grueling as they travel through the blistering summer heat with a wagon train full of military supplies. They escort more than a hundred settlers and their wagons to the Yellowstone River. From there the settlers head off to the gold camps of Idaho and Wyoming.The 8th Minnesota fights two major battles in North Dakota: Killdeer Mountain and the Badlands. Throughout these battles they struggle with a lack of drinkable water and endure relentless heat. They travel up the Yellowstone River to Fort Union at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers and patrol the area known as Mouse River near the Canadian border. Finally they return to Fort Snelling covering over 800 miles in four months.With only a few days of rest the 8th is shipped by boat and rail to Murfreesboro Tennessee where they fight a brutally cold battle which proves to be a pivotal confrontation against Confederate forces and tests their endurance to the limit. They defeat forces led by the infamous Confederate general and cavalryman Nathan Bedford Forrest. From there they are sent to Washington D.C. where they endure freezing weather. They camp near the Potomac in canvas tents with very little firewood. Soon after they are deployed by sea to Fort Monroe. From here their mission is to resupply General Sherman's 60000 men at Goldsboro North Carolina in hopes of meeting Grant in Southern Virginia to crush Lee's forces and end the war..By early 1865 they find themselves in Raleigh North Carolina experiencing the joy of Lee's surrender followed by the sorrow and anger of Lincoln's assassination. The Civil War officially ends when General Johnston surrenders to General Sherman at the Bennet Farmhouse near Hillsborough.The 8th Minnesota is mustered out of the Army and travels back to Pleasant Grove Minnesota to resume their lives.Experience the battles and travels of the 8th through the eyes of the three main characters: Truman Andrus a dedic