Battle Flags of Minnesota.

2nd Minnesota Volunteer Cavalry Regiment - Regimental Flag

Organized in fall 1863, the 2nd Minnesota Volunteer Cavalry Regiment spent the winter of 1863-1864 on garrison duty at Minnesota frontier posts. In the summer of 1864, it joined the 8th Minnesota, the 3rd Battery Minnesota Light Artillery, and other volunteer regiments from Iowa and Nebraska in General Alfred Sully’s expedition against the Dakota and their allies west of the Missouri River.

The regiment was involved in encounters throughout Dakota Territory, including the Battle of Killdeer Mountain or Ta-Ha-Kouty (July 1864) the largest battle of the campaigns in the Dakota Territory. The expedition moved as far west as the Yellowstone River before returning to Minnesota in October 1864 for a year of garrison and patrol service at small frontier posts and Forts Wadsworth, Ridgley, Abercrombie, and Ripley. The regiment continued to serve until the summer of 1866, a year after the Civil War ended.

This standard has a painted Federal seal of an eagle with a ribbon in its beak that reads “E PLURIBUS UNUM” (“Out of Many, One”) in gold lettering. On the reverse side is a similar painted eagle that holds a ribbon that reads “2D. REGT. Minn. CAVALRY VOL.”