Holman Melcher

Holman Melcher (1841-1905), was born in Topsham, Maine. Melcher attended Bates College (Maine State Seminary) from 1858-1862 until elisting in the Union Army. During the American Civil War, he served with the 20th Maine Regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg.

His journals and letters to his brother at Bowdoin were published in With a Flash of His Sword, and they suggest that it was he, and not Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who led the impulsive charge that helped to rescue the Union forces at Little Round Top. Melcher served to Brevet Major and was wounded in the Battle of Spotsylvania in Virginia, but survived the war.

He served as president of the 20th Maine Regiment Association (1876-1905). He went on to become a successful wholesale grocer in Portland, Maine, and was elected to two terms as mayor of the city (1889-1890). He married Alice Hart and had one daughter.