EDWARD MURAT/MERRILL -- 16th and 96th INFANTRYTHE MYSTERY OF EDWARD MURAT/MERRILL - According to the 1863 DraftRegistration Record for the Town of Peru, Edward Murat, a 28-year-oldfarmer who was born in Canada to John and Sophie Murat, was a dischargedsoldier. That is because he had already served for 1 year in the 16thInfantry.Edward enlisted in the 16th Infantry on May 15, 1861, under the nameMerritt, the day the regiment was formed. Maybe the recruitedmisunderstood the spelling of his name. He was living in Peru at thetime and was assigned to Company K that was filled mainly with men fromWest Chazy and Mooers. At the beginning of the war, everyone wasoptimistic that it would be over soon, and the regiment only expected tobe in existence for 2 years, so each man promised to serve for thatlength of time. They organized near Bethlehem, NY, a little south ofAlbany and, after drilling for a month, they started for Washington bytrain on June 26th.They were first assigned to McDowell's Army of Northeastern Virginia andmoved to Alexandria on July 11th and from there to Fairfax Court Houseon the 17th, and Manassas on the 21st. At the First Battle ofManassas or First Bull Run, as the Confederates called it, they wereengaged for a very short time, but still had one officer, 1stLieutenant Wilson Hopkins, wounded.On September 15th, the regiment was ordered to Fort Lyon and joinedthe Army of the Potomac. They spent the winter of 1861-62 at CampFranklin near Fairfax Seminary, VA, where they remained until April 6,1862, when they were ordered to Catlett's Station. They returned at onceto camp and then were sent to Yorktown when it arrived on May 3rd. OnMay 7th, they had their first men killed in action. Six min werekilled and 11 injured. On May 22nd, their second engagement of theyear, near Mechanicsville, they had a small engagement. It's possiblethat Edward wasn't with the regiment when they left the Washington areathat spring. He was discharged for disease on a Surgeon's Certificate inWashington on May 20, 1862.Edward returned home to Peru, and the year after his return, he appliedfor an Invalid's Pension. He retained the name under which he hadenlisted. On September 13, 1870, he was enumerated under the nameMerritt living with his wife, Harriet, in Peru. Strangely, theapplication for Harriet's Widow's Pension was dated September 8, 1870.Edward was buried in the old Catholic Cemetery in Plattsburgh, but thestone was destroyed in the 1980s when the cemetery was bulldozed. TheMcLellan records of 1933 say that only this was left on the stone -- Co.K -- 16th Inf. Luckily, the Register of Headstones Provided forDeceased Civil War Veterans shows his date of death -- July 29, 1869. Inthe history of the regiment, "From Bull Run to Chancellorsville," hisdeath is given as, July20, 1870. Was Harriet living with a ghost in Peruin September 1870? When, exactly, did Edward die? Yet another mystery tobe solved.
