Samuel Melvin Morgan
Samuel Melvin Morgan, another soldier whose biography reads like a novel, was born in Boston, Mass., Feb. 3, 1847. His mother being left with four children, her brother, who was a sea captain, took young Sam on shipboard when he was but six years old, and for eight years the vessel was his home. They were engaged in the merchant trade and circumnavigated the globe several times. He has "rounded" the cape, "doubled" the Horn, and sailed through the straits of Magellan. He was in China before he was nine years old; has been in every clime, in almost every country and seaport in the world. He was never a sailor before the mast, but assisted his uncle in various ways from cabin-boy to clerk. This is giving the story briefly in a few lines. Eight years upon the high seas is a longtime and fraught with adventures and dangers, but those eight years gave to Morgan a knowledge of the world that he could not have acquired in any other way. Returning to Boston a few months before the outbreak of the civil war, when the call was made for troops he enlisted April 17, 1861, in the First Massachusetts infantry and was in the battle of Bull's Run. After his discharge from the three-months service, he enlisted for three years with the 74th. New York Infantry, which was a part of Gen. Daniel E. Sickle's brigade, and when the general was wounded at the battle of Gettysburg, Morgan was one of the four soldiers who carried him off the field. Comrade Morgan participated in all the battles in which the army of the Potomac was engaged. His company went into the battle of Antietam with 72 men and came out with 41. When Gen. Hooker was transferred to the west, Morgan, who was on detached duty, accompanied that gallant officer, as a member of his staff, to Lookout Mountain, and participated in the memorable battle above the clouds. At another time Morgan was temporarily detached and for several months served with a New York Battery. On the 5th. of February, 1884, Morgan re-enlisted as a veteran for three years, was appointed sergeant and was honorably discharged at San Francisco, Cal., Oct. 1865, having, while on detached duty, crossed the plains with the 18th. United States infantry, his last service in the army being at the Golden Gate. From April, 1861, to October, 1865 -- four years and six months' service for his country before he was 19 years old! After his discharge from the army he became a wood-workman, his specialty being carriage building and worked at different times in various parts of the country. He also sailed a season or two on the lakes, and has made three trips across the Atlantic since the war. He came to Mansfield about 20 years ago, as foreman of the Kintner's carriage works. He later worked with the McCoy brothers at house-building, and upon the completion of the Memorial Building he received the appointment of janitor and policeman, and has so efficiently performed his duties that he has been retained throughout the management of the different board of trustees. Sam, as he is familiarly called, is kind-hearted, generous and obliging and he is never so happy as when he can do some one a good service -- especially his G.A.R. comrades, or the management of the hospital association.
From The Mansfield Semi-Weekly News: October 11, 1898, Vol. 14, No. 84
