Melvin Clark(e)

(1813 - 1862)
Home State: Ohio
Command Billet: Commanding Regiment
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 36th Ohio Infantry

Before the Antietam Campaign:
"Before the Civil War, Nimrod Burke was employed by Melvin Clarke, a prominent attorney in Marietta, Ohio. On April 12, 1861 when the Civil War erupted, Clarke was commissioned as a Major with the 36th Ohio Infantry in the Union Army. Major Clarke hired Nimrod Burke as a civilian teamster and scout for the 36th Ohio Infantry. Clarke's unit was sent to fight Confederate forces in eastern Virginia. Clarke was promoted to full Colonel on the day he was killed in the Battle of Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Maryland on September 17, 1862".1

In the Antietam Campaign:
Clark assumed command of the Regiment in Maryland after Colonel Crook was given command of the Brigade (probably on 14 September).

The remainder of the War:
His only son Joseph D. Clark had enlisted in the 148th Ohio Infantry and was killed at City Point, Virginia on 9 August 1864.2

References, Sources, and other notes:
The portrait above looks like a drawing from a photograph, and is from the Scott Hann collection, posted at the Colonel's gravesite on Find-a-grave.

Birth Date: 11/15/1813 Place of Birth: Ashfield, MA
Death Date: 09/17/1862 Death Place: Sharpsburg, MD Burial Place: Mound Cemetery, Marietta, OH

Notes

1 Nimrod Burke continued as a teamster in the 36th Ohio Infantry until March 1864, when he enlisted in and was appointed First Sergeant of, Company F, 23rd Regiment, US Colored Infantry. He mustered out with his Regiment in November 1865 at Brownsville, Texas.
Burke, Henry Robert, Burke Family History, Ohio Underground Railroad Association, Published 1999, first accessed 14 November 2005, <http://www.ohioundergroundrailroad.org/>, Source page: /OldPages/s_east_co.htm [AotW citation 300]

2 Bent, Allen Herbert, The Bent Family in America, Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1900, pg. 63 [AotW citation 1147]

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