— Photos by Bobbie Toner

Milk Row Cemetery opened to celebrate Veterans Day. The following was read at the wreath presentation at Civil War Soldiers Monument, Milk Row Cemetery:

Four days after President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve the Union, on April 15th, 1861, the men of Somerville, the Somerville Light Infantry, initially organized in 1853, left for Washington, D.C. at Faneuil Hall Boston.

In 1860 Somerville’s male population eligible for military service was approximately 2,500, out of a total population in excess of 8,000. Sixty percent of Somerville’s men served in the military for the Union during the Civil War! The men of Somerville were asked to volunteer five times during the Civil War and served in the 5th Massachusetts and the 39th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. They served with distinction in the battles of Bull Run, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and Appomattox.

1,485 men from Somerville, 10% more than required, enlisted in the Armed Forces of the Union from 1861-1865. The men of Somerville paid a high price for their service, 98 soldiers died directly due to their war service, 44 were killed in action or wounds, 51 died in hospital, camp, or as a POW, 3 were missing in action approximately 250 suffered battle wounds, a 23.4% casualty rate, double the Massachusetts casualty rate for the Civil War.

The men of Massachusetts have a proud tradition of service in the American Civil War. 136,000 Massachusetts men served (6th in number of troops furnished). Massachusetts Regiments were the BEST TRAINED, FIRST to MOBILIZE, FIRST to DEPLOY, and the FIRST to FIGHT in the Civil War. The 5th Massachusetts and 39th Massachusetts were among these units.

The Somerville residents felt there needs to be erected a monument fitting for the sacrificed and service the men of Somerville were making in defense of the Union. In 1861, the only burial ground in Somerville was Milk Row Cemetery. Enoch Robinson, locksmith and builder of the Round House on Atherton Street, donated his cemetery plot in Milk Row Cemetery for the proposed monument. This monument, erected under the supervision of the Military Committee of the Somerville Light Infantry, was paid for by contributions and funds contributed by citizens of said company. It was constructed by Charles E. Hall of Powell & Hall, was dedicated 150 years ago in July 1863. Somerville’s Milk Row Cemetery Civil War Monument is the First Civil War Monument of the American Civil War.

Source: “Somerville Past & Present” by Edward A. Samuels, 1897
Prepared by Historic Somerville, Inc by Lawrence Willwerth