Right, forgot to mention that step.

Yes, I did use the SDL project template. The only thing I changed in the source was a slight edit of the include header (as mentioned above). The project would compile, but would NOT link.
As far as the SDL package I used, that turned out to be the problem. I checked the SDL website again and discovered that there are seperate packages for VC and for mingw... the mingw package turned out to be what I needed. It works with the mingw compiler and the SDL template "out of the box" as it should. Well, mostly... the program compiles and links, although running it doesn't produce the expected result.
Thanks for the help!