Union. XXIII Corps. Civil War Badge to Stephen Merrill of the 39th Massachusetts Volunteers. Silver.
30 mm x 30 mm, shield shape. 3.3 grams. Inscribed S. Merrill / CO. I / 39Th MASS VOL, with filigree around periphery. Pin on back. Stephen Merrill, born June 6, 1826, to Joseph and Catherine Merrill, enlisted in Natick, Massachusetts on July 30, 1862, as a private. At that time, he was married to Rebecca Blake and had two daughters and a son. Late the following month, he mustered into I Company of the Massachusetts 39th Infantry and served with that regiment for the next two and a half years. The 39th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was particularly active in the War following Gettysburg, when it joined the Army of the Potomac at Funkstown, Maryland. The engagements near Spotsylvania at Laurel Hill in May 1864, and the Weldon Railroad in August 1864, were particularly brutal, with many killed and wounded in the unit. Tragically, near the end of the war on February 6, 1865, Merrill suffered a severe wound in his right leg at Hatcher's Run, resulting in the amputation of his leg. He died of his wounds about a month later on March 3, 1865, in Washington, D.C. A large research is included with this lot.