Military unit
The 49th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was a regiment of infantry that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was one of the 18 Massachusetts regiments formed in response to President Abraham Lincoln's August 1862 call for 300,000 men to serve for nine months. The regiment was recruited in Berkshire County and rendezvoused for mustering in at Camp Briggs in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. William F. Bartlett, a veteran of the 20th Massachusetts was voted colonel in command of the regiment. The 49th Massachusetts was assigned to the Department of the Gulf and saw heavy combat during the Siege of Port Hudson.