New monument for African-American civil war veteran at M State in Moorhead

Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – A new monument in Moorhead honors a Black civil war veteran.

Felix Battles joined the Union army at Fort Snelling in 1864. After the war he settled in Moorhead and worked as a barber until his death in 1907.

The monument is set on the campus of Minnesota State University Moorhead and is just feet from where the house in which the Battles lived once stood.

Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County program director Markus Krueger said the monument could be a social gathering space, or just a space to sit and contemplate.

Krueger said, quote: “Putting yourself in a place where history happened, even if the history that happened was a barber raised a family here.”

He added there are few Civil War monuments that honor colored troops and there were 209,000 African-American soldiers and sailors who helped win the Civil War.