Background
Morse was born in Boston, and spent his childhood there.
Businessman Lieutenant Colonel
Morse was born in Boston, and spent his childhood there.
He attended Harvard University, graduating in 1858 with an South.B. degree.
Soon after the start of the in 1861, Morse joined the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, where he fought alongside some of his Harvard classmates, including the future colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Robert Gould Shaw. Morse was promoted to captain of the regiment"s Company B, and served in this role at the battles of Cedar Mountain, Antietam, and Chancellorsville. After Gettysburg, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts, a rank he held until the end of the war.
During the Atlanta campaign waged by Union General William T. Sherman in 1864, Morse served as provost marshal of the city following its burning and Union occupation, where "y all accounts, kept strict order."
After the war, Morse tried his hand at cotton farming in Georgia, but was unsuccessful.
He traveled west in 1870 and found greater success in a series of positions in the railroad business. Morse also served for several years as president of the Kansas City Metropolitan Street Railway company.
He was one of the first residents of the city"s exclusive Hyde Park district, a gated suburb established outside the city limits near the frontier town of Westport in 1882. During the 1880s and 1890s, Colonel
Morse helped establish several elite civic institutions, including The Barstow School and the Kansas City Country Club.
Morse maintained a summer residence in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to which he retired in 1913. A young Captain Morse was portrayed by Donovan Leitch, Junior. in the 1989 film Glory, though this appearance was fictionalized. (Morse is shown as an officer of the 54th Mass, while in reality he never left the 2nd Mass) His battlefield letters to Robert Gould Shaw served as primary sources for the books that inspired the film.