Morton W. Post – 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry – Civil War

The following information was provided by Grace-Marie Moore Hackwell who operates a webpage devoted to the 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. You may send e-mail to Grace-Marie by clicking on her name above or you may visit her website by clicking on the link provided above. In addition, Morton W. Post was the great-great-grandfather of Art Courtright who wrote to me recently telling me about his “Arlington relative.” Thanks to each for sharing this information with me.

Morton W. Post was born at Chillicothe, Ohio, 13 September 1807, the second son of Russell E. Post and Mariah Easterly. His father had a private school at Delaware, Ohio in 1817. That is the only knowledge that I have except that we was in the War of 1812 and served in a unit from Fairfield, Ohio. Morton’s parents obviously divorces as his mother remarried to a Quackenbush at Albany, New York, about 1816. Which parent raised him I do not know.

Morton married Eleanor Russell on 25 January 1829 at New Lebanon, New York. According to his pension papers he had seven children. He was a paper-maker by trade as was his older brother, Russell E. Post. The two brothers and their families migrated from the Berkshire, Massachusetts, area to Orange County, New York, then to Ithaca, New York, then to Niagara Falls, New York, back to Dalton, Massachusetts and then finally to Stuebenville, Ohio, and Wheeling, West Virginia.

They were living in Wheeling in 1861 when Morton made a visit to Delaware, Ohio, and where he enlisted in the 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry on October 24, 1861 for a term of three years. It appears that he lied about his age when he enlisted beause, although the roster shows him to be just 44 years old, he would have actually been 55 years of age.

He was captured at the Battle of Port Republic and was sent to Belle Isle Prison Camp. He was so debilitated when released from prison that he was discharged from his unit on November 23, 1862 at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, on a surgeon’s certificate of disability.

In the 1880s he spent time at the Soldiers Home in Dayton, Ohio, and later at the Veterans Hospital in Washington, D.C. He died in Washington on April 16, 1892 and was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

Michael Robert Patterson

Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.

Reviewed by: Michael Howard