Over achiever

This week we continue to look in the rich lineage lode of one of my multi-great grandmother, Orpha Morse.

The Battle of Chickamauga

Orpha married the Rev. Phineas Morse, and they produced four children, one of whom, Gershom Morse Barber, will be the primary subject of this missive. I have written somewhere else -- a Facebook post, I think -- about looking through photocopies of original documents I have concerning Phineas. Among the items I found was a document showing that his first wife, Orpha,  died and that he subsequently remarried. 

One of the documents concerning this second marriage seems to show that he performed the marriage himself, something I wondered about in terms of legality. I subsequently learned that it was and is possible in some states to officiate your own wedding, but ...

After I had scanned all the documents about Phineas, I took a last look through them before putting them back in storage. His second wife, Roxana, had applied for a widow's pension based on his service in the War of 1812. In her application, Roxana states that they were married in Ohio in 1834 by the Rev. Benjamin Wright, a minister of the gospel. I assume the note in the first document I found was an error on the part of whoever recorded the marriage.

One of Phineas and Orpha's children was Gershom Morse Barber, named for his maternal grandfather. I found a short biography of Gershom that is credited with appearing in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 2, published in 1906.

Gershom was born and lived his childhood on a farm in Erie County, Ohio. By the time he was 15, he knew he wasn't cut out to be a farmer and began pursuing formal education, attending a couple of colleges before landing at Michigan University, where he graduated. 

He became a professor at what was at the time Baldwin College -- possibly Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio -- teaching for four years and holding a position in administration for another two years.

In 1857 he was admitted to the Ohio bar and practiced until the Civil War broke out. He joined the Army of the Cumberland, participating in numerous battles, one of which we'll look at shortly, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Upon retiring from service he was brevetted -- a kind of honorary promotion that carries no change in pay or actual duties -- as brigadier general.

After the war he returned to the practice of law, settling in Cleveland. By 1875, he became a judge of the court of common pleas of the 4th judicial district of Ohio.

The biography states that in this position Gershom participated in a number of important cases. I haven't found any yet, but if I do, I'll come back to this aspect of his life in a later post. In addition to all this, he served as a member of Cleveland's city council, had some of his writings published (still looking for those as well), and was a charter member of the Cleveland Art Academy. I expect he'd be disappointed in his multi-great nephew for my lack of achievement.

This post is already too long, but I want to leave you with some info about one of the battles he took part in, the Battle of Chickamauga. This is one of those battles that shows up in lots of movies about the war and life after the war. Seems like I'm always running into a Western with a cowboy who fought at Chickamauga. So here are some facts about the battle from the American Battlefield Trust website.

1. The battle was the second costliest battle of the war in terms of total casualties behind Gettysburg, and the deadliest battle fought in the Western theater.

2. Chickamauga was the largest Confederate victory in the Western theater

3. The Union army did not expect to encounter the Confederates at Chickamauga

4. State-of-the-art repeating rifles played a decisive role in the battle

5. Despite No. 1, the Confederate commander's failure to pursue and destroy the Federal army turned the victory into a strategic defeat.

6. The Chickamauga Battlefield was a part of the very first National Military Park

For more information visit https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/10-facts-battle-chickamauga