Confederate Veteran Earned his Scars and Bars
By Van Craddock
Captain S.E. Melson knew all about stitches.
The Longview sewing-machine salesman had served in a Mississippi regiment during the Civil War, a conflict he was fortunate to survive. Melson had been wounded in battle 15 times, including injuries from 13 bullets and two exploding shells.
It is a remarkable story of survival, possibly unparalleled in the bloody 1861-1865 war. After all, Civil War surgeons generally treated battle wounds by simply sawing off limbs.
Melson was born April 13, 1828, in Pontotoc County, Miss. He was 33 years old when he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862. He was appointed captain of Co. F of the 41st Mississippi Infantry, composed of 11 companies of men from Pontotoc and four other area counties.
It was a rag-tag group, the first muster roll noting Melson's company was "badly clothed and poorly equipped" with shotguns and squirrel rifles. But they turned out to be some of the South's best fighting men.
After training at Tupelo, the regiment headed to Kentucky. On Oct. 8, 1862, Melson participated in his first major battle. It almost was his last.
At the Battle of Perryville, Melson's company was ordered to take a hill from Union forces. Years later a veteran recalled that the Mississippians were "outnumbered at least two to one, and the enemy behind fence on top of the hill, but those heroes never faltered for one minute. They moved steadily, but rapidly, up the hill, and over the fence into the open field."
Thirty-six men of Co. F were killed in the battle. According to an 1893 newspaper article, Melson "received 12 minie balls in his body and was taken to the hospital to die."
But somehow Melson survived his dozen wounds, kept all of his limbs and "in 60 days again reported for duty."
Not long after returning to action, Melson was "struck in the face by a spent ball" at the Dec. 31, 1862-Jan. 2, 1863, Battle of Murfreesboro, Tenn. But the captain "did not leave his company for so small a matter, remaining in command."
Nine months later, in September 1863, the 41st Mississippi found itself at Chickamauga, Ga., one of the bloodiest battles of the war. (Almost 35,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded.)
Melson received a flesh wound in the hip, this time taking him out of action for a month. Then, at the November 1863 Battle of Missionary Ridge near Chattanooga, Tenn., a Union victory, Melson "was struck in the side with a piece of a shell that came near ending his career."
After yet another extended convalescence, Melson was transferred from the front-line to recruiting duties. In the spring of 1865, Melson was ordered to rejoin his old company. By that time the Confederacy had surrendered and the war was over. Only 26 of Co. F's original 200 men had survived the conflict.
After the war Melson relocated to East Texas, settling in Gregg County and raising a family.
"Few of our citizens know when they see 'old man Melson' drive his sewing machine wagon by with his quiet horse always in a slow walk that he was a real hero of many battles," a Longview correspondent wrote for the Dallas Morning News in July 1893.
"The old man … is old and gray, but hearty and hale, doing the work of a sewing machine agent successfully. He is noted for his modest and quiet demeanor … He has a large family of girls and boys, all of whom, with the exception of two, are married and in good circumstances."
When the 1893 article was published, Melson was one of only three surviving members of the old Co. F. The oft-wounded, much-scarred old captain died Sept. 25, 1897, and lies buried in Longview's Greenwood Cemetery.