George Merrill (Medal of Honor)

George Merrill was a United States Army soldier and American Civil War veteran whose defining act of courage came during the final months of the war at Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Serving as a Private in Company I of the 142nd New York Infantry, Merrill voluntarily moved at the head of an attacking Union column on January 15, 1865, and helped cut down the formidable wooden palisading protecting the Confederate fort. Nearly fifty years later, that action was formally recognized with the Medal of Honor. George Merrill was born in 1847 in Queensbury, Warren County, New York. He belonged to the generation that came of age during the American Civil War, and while still a young man he entered Union military service. His verified Federal service places him in Company I of the 142nd New York Infantry, one of the volunteer regiments raised in New York for service in the United States Army. The 142nd New York Infantry had been organized at Ogdensburg and became known as the St. Lawrence County Regiment. Long before Merrill joined its ranks, the regiment had accumulated extensive wartime experience. It served in the defenses of Washington, operated in Virginia, participated in operations around Charleston, South Carolina, and later became part of the Army of the James. During 1864 the regiment endured heavy fighting around Bermuda Hundred, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Fort Harrison, and Darbytown Road. By late 1864 the Union high command turned its attention toward Fort Fisher, the enormous Confederate defensive work guarding the approaches to Wilmington, North Carolina. Wilmington had become strategically critical because it was one of the Confederacy’s last important ports still accessible to blockade runners. Supplies arriving through Wilmington could move inland through the Cape Fear River system and then by rail to Confederate armies, including the forces defending Virginia. Fort Fisher protected this lifeline. Built along the narrow peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape Fear River, it was one of the strongest Confederate coastal fortifications. Its extensive earthworks were designed to absorb naval bombardment, while defensive obstacles protected the landward approaches. Among those obstacles were heavy wooden palisades intended to slow attacking troops and leave them exposed to Confederate fire. The first major Union expedition against Fort Fisher in December 1864 did not capture the fort. Although naval forces subjected the position to heavy bombardment and Union soldiers landed nearby, the operation was abandoned. Officers of the 142nd New York, however, had approached close enough to the Confederate defenses to become convinced that Fort Fisher could be taken by a determined assault. A second expedition returned in January 1865. This time Major General Alfred H. Terry commanded the Army force, while Rear Admiral David D. Porter directed the supporting naval fleet. The operation involved an enormous naval bombardment followed by a coordinated land assault against the fort’s defenses. The 142nd New York Infantry served in the assaulting force under the brigade commanded by Newton Martin Curtis. On January 15, 1865, the Union Army began its decisive attack against the landward face of Fort Fisher. The advancing infantry had to cross exposed ground while Confederate artillery and small-arms fire struck the attacking formations. Before Union troops could fully enter the fort, they had to overcome the physical barriers constructed in front of the defensive works. The palisading was particularly dangerous because it could halt or disrupt an assault column directly in front of the Confederate position. Soldiers attempting to remove the obstruction were necessarily exposed while the troops behind them depended upon openings being created quickly. It was at this critical stage of the attack that Private George Merrill performed the action for which he would eventually receive the Medal of Honor. Instead of remaining farther back within the advancing formation, Merrill voluntarily went forward with the head of the column. His official Medal of Honor recognition summarized his conduct in remarkably direct language: he voluntarily advanced at the front of the column and cut down the palisading. The simplicity of that description should not obscure the danger of the action. Merrill was moving toward a fortified Confederate position during a full-scale assault. The men working against the palisade had to remain near the front while attempting to remove a defensive obstacle under battlefield conditions. Their work helped create a path through which the attacking infantry could continue toward the fortifications. For a Private soldier, the action required personal initiative rather than the execution of a routine protected task. Merrill did not hold command rank, and there is no verified later promotion that changes his military status. Private was both his rank during the Medal of Honor action and his highest verified rank in the United States Army. The assault on Fort Fisher developed into fierce close-range fighting. Union troops eventually penetrated the defensive works and fought through the fort traverse by traverse. Confederate resistance continued for hours before the Union forces secured the position. The fall of Fort Fisher effectively closed the sea approach to Wilmington and eliminated the most important remaining Confederate Atlantic port available to blockade runners. The capture had strategic consequences extending far beyond the battlefield itself. With Fort Fisher lost, the Confederate ability to receive overseas supplies through Wilmington was crippled. Union forces soon advanced against additional positions along the Cape Fear River, and Wilmington fell in February 1865. By that time the Confederacy was entering the final months of its existence. Merrill’s regiment continued its operations after Fort Fisher. The 142nd New York participated in the subsequent advance through North Carolina, including operations connected with Fort Anderson and Wilmington, before joining the broader Carolinas Campaign. The regiment later reached the Raleigh area as organized Confederate resistance in the Carolinas collapsed. The 142nd New York completed its wartime service in 1865. Merrill returned to civilian life as part of the enormous generation of Union veterans who had fought through the final period of the Civil War. Unlike many soldiers whose battlefield decorations were awarded shortly after their actions, however, Merrill would wait decades for official recognition. The Army Medal of Honor had been established during the Civil War, with Congress authorizing the Army decoration in 1862. During the conflict and in the decades afterward, it became the nation’s principal military decoration for extraordinary individual conduct. Many Civil War Medals of Honor were awarded years after the events they recognized, particularly as wartime records, recommendations, and veterans’ testimony were reviewed. George Merrill’s case became one of the most striking examples of delayed recognition. His heroic action had taken place on January 15, 1865, but his Medal of Honor was not issued until December 28, 1914. Almost fifty years separated the battlefield action from the formal award. That distinction between action date and award date is essential to correctly recording Merrill’s Medal of Honor. He performed his act of gallantry during the Civil War, but the medal was actually issued during a much later historical period of the Army Medal of Honor. By 1914 the decoration had undergone changes from the form used during the 1860s. For the project database, Merrill’s verified decoration is therefore represented as Medal of Honor 1904–1944 Army — 1914. The 1904–1944 designation identifies the historical Army Medal of Honor period applicable when his award was issued. It does not change the date of his heroism, which remains January 15, 1865, at Fort Fisher. No additional star, bar, clasp, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified for George Merrill’s Medal of Honor. He was a single Medal of Honor recipient, so the decoration remains plain in his verified ribbon record. A later Army Civil War Campaign Medal has not been added to Merrill’s verified medal rack. He survived well into the twentieth century and therefore lived during the period when the later Civil War service medal existed. His service in the Civil War is also unquestionably documented. However, qualifying wartime service and survival into the medal’s authorization period do not by themselves prove that an individual veteran personally received or was specifically issued the medal. Without recipient-specific issuance or medal-roll evidence for Merrill, it remains excluded from his verified record rather than being added through assumption. Merrill lived for more than sixty years after the fall of Fort Fisher and more than a decade after receiving the Medal of Honor. He died on August 29, 1925, in Glens Falls, New York. He was buried at Glens Falls Cemetery, where his status as a Medal of Honor recipient became a permanent part of his memorial legacy. George Merrill’s place in American military history ultimately rests on a brief but exceptionally dangerous moment during the final assault on Fort Fisher. As a Private of Company I, 142nd New York Infantry, he voluntarily moved forward with the leading elements of the Union attack and helped cut through the palisading obstructing their advance. The fort fell after hours of severe fighting, closing one of the Confederacy’s last vital supply gateways. Nearly half a century later, the United States formally recognized Merrill’s conduct by awarding him the Medal of Honor on December 28, 1914. His final verified medal record remains Medal of Honor 1904–1944 Army — 1914, with no verified additional device or clasp.