Those who held such views before the war were known as Union Democrats and generally supported the policies of Stephen A.

The local men elected him captain of Company F, 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

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.

On June 30, 1862, at the Battle of White Oak Swamp, Colvill received a bullet wound in the shoulder.

The 1st Minnesota was on the extreme right of the leading brigade (commanded by the regiment's former colonel, Willis A. Gorman) as John Sedgwick's division ill-famed assault on the West Woods, resulting in a Union rout from that part of the field.

Two days later, on June 25, the unit was attacked by General J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry at the Battle of Haymarket.

On June 29, Colvill was arrested for allowing the men to cross a three-foot deep river on logs whereas the orders were to wade across.

Late in the afternoon, Confederate General Cadmus Wilcox's Alabama Brigade broke through the III Corps at the Wheatfield.

Hancock knew that the charge was suicidal but hoped to delay the Confederates long enough to get reinforcements to the ridge.

Wilcox had begun the day's fighting with some 1,800 men in his unit, although it is not known exactly how many were left at the time of the action with the 1st Minnesota.

One bullet entered the top of his right shoulder and tore across his back, clipping off a part of his vertebra and lodging under his left scapula.

The surgeons at first wanted to amputate his foot, saying it was necessary in order to save his life, but Colvill would not allow it.

Immediately after the adjournment of the legislature, he received an appointment as colonel of the 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery Regiment, which was stationed in Chattanooga.

[1] Colvill married Elizabeth Morgan (a direct descendant of Elder Brewster, one of the Pilgrim Fathers)[2] of Oneida County, New York, in April, 1867.

[4] In 1905, Colvill traveled to the Soldiers Home in Minneapolis to attend a reunion of the veterans of the First Minnesota.

In addition, a section of Minnesota State Highway 19 from Gaylord to Red Wing is named in his honor.