The 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry captured a blood-stained, bullet-pierced Virginia battle flag at Gettysburg on this date in 1863. Virginia has been asking for it back for over 100 years. When asked about it at the @WhiteHouse in 2000, Governor Jesse Ventura said, "Why? I mean, we won. … We took it. That makes it our heritage.” The previous day, the 1st Minnesota had suffered 82% casualties when they heroically charged headlong into enemy forces to shore up a gap in Union lines. It is not an overstatement to say that their gallantry possibly saved not only the battle, but the war. Of their sacrifice on July 2nd, General Winfield Scott Hancock said that "no soldiers on any field, in this or any other country ever displayed grander heroism," and insisted that "there is no more gallant deed recorded in history." In a speech in Cannon Falls, Minnesota on the Fourth of July 1928, President Calvin Coolidge went so far as to say that these men's heroism that day entitled them to the rank of "saviors of their country."