William J. Colvill

William J. Colvill Jr. (April 5, 1830 – June 12, 1905) was an American Union colonel in the American Civil War who led the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry in the Battle of Gettysburg. He was Minnesota Attorney General from 1866 to 1868 and he also served in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

Early life Colvill was born in Forestville, New York, on April 5, 1830, to Irish and Scotch parents. He was graduated from the Fredonia Academy and taught a country school for one year. He studied law at Forestville and Buffalo, where he read law in the office of Millard Fillmore. He was admitted to the bar in 1851. He practiced law in Forestville about three years and, in 1854, migrated to Minnesota. He spent the first year, or more, in St. Paul, during which time he was, first, enrolling clerk and then secretary of the Territorial Council. He then moved to Cannon Falls and took a tract of land upon which part of the city now stands. He opened a law office in Red Wing in 1854 and in 1855 established The Red Wing Sentinel, a Democratic newspaper. His papers were always Democratic in politics, but always for the Union and against secession. Those who held such views before the war were known as Union Democrats and generally supported the policies of Stephen A. Douglas.

Civil War Captain William Colvill c.1860-1861. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society. When the Civil War broke out, the 31-year-old Colvill was the first man from Goodhue County to volunteer. The local men elected him captain of Company F, 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment. On June 26, 1861, the regiment arrived in Washington D.C.

First Bull Run A month later, the regiment, with the Union Army, marched south into Virginia. On July 21, they met the Confederate Army outside Manassas, Virginia, at the First Battle of Bull Run. The regiment saw heavy fighting on Henry House Hill where they were ordered to support Rickett's Battery. The 1st Minnesota was one of the last regiments to leave the battlefield, and suffered the highest casualties of any northern regiment (48 killed, 83 wounded and 30 missing).

In 1905, Colvill traveled to the Minnesota Soldiers' Home in Minneapolis to attend a reunion of the veterans of the First Minnesota. While there, he died in his sleep on June 13. The now extinct town of Colvill in Cook County was also named in his honor. A plaque at the wayside on Hwy 61 at the Kudunce River indicates that he had a summer home in the area.