History of the 151st field artillery, Rainbow Division, by Louis L. Collins, lieutenant governor of Minnesota. Edited by Wayne E. Stevens, PH. D. Pub. by the Minnesota War records commission.

I. EARLY HISTORY OF THE REGIMENT1

The history and traditions of local military units are always a
source of pride and interest to their members and it is therefore fitting to outline very briefly, by way of introduction, the beginnings of
the 151st Field Artillery, Minnesota's contribution to the 42nd (Rainbow) Division of the American army in the war with Germany.
The 1st Field Artillery, Minnesota National Guard, which during
the World War was designated the 151st Field Artillery, traces its
origin back to 1881, when John S. Pillsbury was governor and Horatio
P. Van Cleve, adjutant general, of Minnesota. On January 1, 1880,
the military organization of the state of Minnesota consisted of the
following four units: the Governor's Guards, located at New Ulm;
the Faribault Guards; the Winona Guards; and the Minneapolis
Light Infantry. Three months later, on April 5, the St. Paul Guards
was formed and on May 20 the Ramsey Guards, at New Ulm. On
February 14, 1880, was organized the Minneapolis Zouave Corps,
which, in July of the same year, was increased by the formation of the
Minneapolis Zouave Corps Battery and the Minneapolis Zouave Corps
Lancers. Dr. Albert A. Ames, a Civil War veteran and several times
mayor of Minneapolis, was the first captain of the Zouave Corps.
In the following year there was organized at St. Paul a unit
easily identified as the nucleus of the st- Field Artillery. This was
the Emmet Light Artillery, of which Cornelius M. MacCarthy, a St.
Paul lawyer, was the first captain. In his report for 1882 the adjutant
'This chapter is based upon orders and reports of the adjutant general
of Minnesota for the years 1880 to 1916, excepting, in the case of the reports, the
years 1881, 1909 to 1912, 1915, and 1916, when no reports were issued; Minnesota, General Laws, 1907, ch. 443; 1913, ch. 44; War Department, Annual Reports.
1916, pp. 7-12, 953, 1039; 1917, pp. 140, 141, 196, 197; Franklin F. Holbrook,
Minnesota in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection, 82-84,
128 (St. Paul, 1923); and accounts in local newspapers, including a brief sketch
of the history of the regiment in a special edition of the St. Paul Dispatch and
St. Paul Pioneer Press and a more comprehensive account in the St. Paul Daily
News, both of May 8, 1919.
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