Focus on Melrose: the Morse brothers

The Civil War broke out on April 12th, 1861; One week later, on April 19th, two Melrose brothers, Sidney and George Morse, volunteered for the Union Army. They had grown up on the corner of E. Foster and Florence (the house long since demolished), across from the elm tree where the Melrose militia had gathered on April 19th in 1775.

They were assigned to Company D of the 13th Mass. Regiment, a unit that was attached to the Army of the Potomac. In August of 1862, on the eve of the Second Battle of Bull Run, after months of constant marching, Sidney fell ill with Typhoid Fever, and was found in a state of utter exhaustion. He was placed on a cart with other sick men bound for a hospital in Washington, but was left exposed on the cart without food or water for two days. He died on September 16th. He was 17.

Meanwhile, his older brother George had been shot through the hand at Bull Run. After recuperating, he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant of the 2nd United States Volunteers, an all-Black regiment commanded by white officers. After spending 43 days in the trenches at the siege of Port Hudson, he was wounded in the head, suffered sunstroke, and contracted Malaria. He was discharged and returned to Melrose.

Despite the protests of his family, he reenlisted, this time as a Lieutenant in the 59th Regiment. In April of 1864, during the Wilderness campaign, he was wounded in the head by a falling tree. With a bandaged head, he led his troops at Spotsylvania, where a bullet killed him. His last words were “Tell the boys I die like a soldier.” He was 24.

He left behind his wife, Elizabeth, whom he had married a month after enlisting, and a son, Horace, who had been born six weeks after the wedding. They lived at 531 Lebanon Street, the home of Elizabeth’s parents.

Following the death of his brother, George had written to his mother “….I only look forward to that time when I shall meet him in that life where there are no wars, nor “rumors of war,” but where all is peace and love. And oh, what a joyful meeting it will be! Father, mother, brothers and sisters, all united in one happy family—never more to part!”