George Sumner Merritt

A not-quite 18 year old master builder's son in Hartford, he enlisted as a Private in Company G, 16th Connecticut Infantry on 5 August 1862.

He was in action with his Company at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was discharged on 3 June 1865. When he died at age 83, his obituary notice in the New York Times of 18 October 1925 noted that he had

... secured the original Constitution of the Confederate States of America at the fall of Richmond (now in the archives of the War Department in Washington).

By 1870 he was back in Hartford and was a carpenter. From 1880 to at least 1910 he was a clerk and agent for the Aetna Life Insurance Company (as was his son, George P., who lived next door from 1900 to at least 1920). In 1920 he was head of Aetna's Tax Department, and his son Harry was a clerk in the Department.

His service from the Record.1 His presence at Antietam from his recollection of the battle in the Hartford Daily Times of 17 September 1915; thanks to John Banks. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1920. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Marie Louise Illingworth (1847-1935) in Boston in August 1867 and they had 4 children.

08/16/1844; Hartford, CT

10/17/1925; Hartford, CT; burial in Fairview Cemetery, West Hartford, CT