Charles Fessenden Morse (September 22, 1839 – December 11, 1926) was a

Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

in the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

and, afterward, an influential businessman and civic leader in

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

Early life

Morse was born in Boston, and spent his childhood there. He attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, graduating in 1858 with a B.S. degree.

Civil War

Soon after the start of the Civil War in 1861, Morse joined the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, where he fought alongside some of his Harvard classmates, including the future colonel of the

54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The unit was the second African-American regiment, following the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry ...

Robert Gould Shaw Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863) was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born into a prominent Boston Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist family, he accepted command of the firs ...

. The two became close friends, maintaining near-daily correspondence until the latter's death in the

Battle of Fort Wagner The Second Battle of Fort Wagner, also known as the Second Assault on Morris Island or the Battle of Fort Wagner, Morris Island, was fought on July 18, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army troops commanded by Brig. Gen. Quincy Gillm ...

in July 1863. Morse was promoted to captain of the regiment's Company B, and served in this role at the battles of Cedar Mountain,

Antietam The Battle of Antietam (), or Battle of Sharpsburg particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union ...

, and Chancellorsville. After Gettysburg, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts, a rank he held until the end of the war. During the Atlanta campaign waged by Union General

William T. Sherman William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

in 1864, Morse served as

provost marshal Provost marshal is a title given to a person in charge of a group of Military Police (MP). The title originated with an older term for MPs, '' provosts'', from the Old French ''prévost'' (Modern French ''prévôt''). While a provost marshal i ...

of the city following its burning and Union occupation, where " all accounts, ekept strict order."

Business career

After the war, Morse tried his hand at cotton farming in Georgia, but was unsuccessful. He traveled west in 1870 and found greater success in a series of positions in the railroad business. In 1878, Morse left his post as general manager of the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

in Topeka, Kansas at the suggestion of his friend,

Charles Francis Adams, Jr. Charles Francis Adams Jr. (May 27, 1835 – March 20, 1915) was an American author, historian, and railroad and park commissioner who served as the president of the Union Pacific Railroad from 1884 to 1890. He served as a colonel in the Union Arm ...

, and relocated to Kansas City, where he served first as general manager and eventually president of the

Kansas City Stockyards The Kansas City Stockyards in the West Bottoms west of downtown Kansas City, Missouri flourished from 1871 until closing in 1991. Jay B. Dillingham was the President of the stockyards from 1948 to its closing in 1991. History The stockyards w ...

. Morse also served for several years as president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Street Railway company. He was one of the first residents of the city's exclusive Hyde Park district, a gated suburb established outside the city limits near the frontier town of Westport in 1882. During the 1880s and 1890s, Col. Morse helped establish several elite civic institutions, including

The Barstow School The Barstow School, formerly called Miss Barstow’s School, is a secular, coeducational, independent school, independent university preparatory school, preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, USA. It was co-founded in 1884 by ...

and the

Kansas City Country Club The Kansas City Country Club (KCCC) was founded in 1896 in Kansas City, Missouri and today located in Mission Hills, Kansas. The Country Club District and Country Club Plaza of Kansas City are named for the club, which claims to be the third ol ...

. Morse maintained a summer residence in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to which he retired in 1913.''A sketch of my life written for my children and A buffalo hunt in Nebraska in 1871'' (Cambridge : Privately printed at the Riverside Press, 1927).

In popular culture

A young Captain Morse was portrayed by Donovan Leitch, Jr. in the 1989 film '' Glory'', though this appearance was fictionalized. (Morse is shown as an officer of the 54th Mass., while in reality he never left the 2nd Mass and never participated in the attack on Fort Wagner.) His battlefield letters to Robert Gould Shaw served as primary sources for the books that inspired the film. Lt. Colonel Morse is cited in several sections of the 2009 non-fiction novel, The Bonfire - The Siege and Burning of Atlanta, written by Marc Wortman. Lt. Colonel Morse appears in the Index eighteen times, which provides quotations and references to his military role in the Union Army and as the Provost Marshal of Atlanta following the battle of Atlanta.

References

External links