M. Clarke

Federal (USV)

Lieutenant Colonel

Melvin Clarke

(1818 - 1862)

Home State: Ohio

Command Billet: Commanding Regiment

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 36th Ohio Infantry

Before Antietam

In 1860 he was a 41 year old lawyer in Marietta, Washington County, OH.

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...1

Clarke was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the 36th Ohio Infantry on 30 July 1861. He was promoted to Colonel to date from 7 September 1862, after Colonel Crook was appointed Brigadier General, but probably did not receive his commission before his death.

On the Campaign

Clarke assumed command of the Regiment in Maryland after Colonel Crook took command of the Brigade on 12 September but was killed at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

References & notes

His service from the Roster.2 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a photograph shared to the Historical Data Systems database by Steve Meadow.

He married Dorcas Dana (1821-1852) in May 1844 and they had a son, Joseph. He married again, Sophia Browning (1836-1873) in June 1854 and they had 2 sons and a daughter.

His son Joseph Dana Clark (b. 1846) had enlisted in the 148th Ohio Infantry and was killed at City Point, Virginia on 9 August 1864.3

Birth

11/15/1818; Ashfield, MA

Death

09/17/1862; Sharpsburg, MD; burial in 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 State of Ohio, Roster Commission, Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866, 12 Volumes, Akron: The Werner Company, 1893-95, Vol. 3, pg. 637 [AotW citation 29477]

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

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