Harvard memorial biographies ...

Edward Lewis Stevens.

39I

EDWARD LEWIS STEVENS.
Private 44th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), September 12, 1862-June 18, 1863;
Second Lieutenant 54th Mass. Vols. January 31, 1864; First Lieutenant,
December 16, 1864; killed at Boykin's Mills, near Camden, S. C., April
18, 1865.
EDWARD LEWIS STEVENS was born in Boston,
Massachusetts, September 30, 1842. His father, Silas
Stevens, at the time resided in Boston, but afterwards removed to Brighton. His mother was Jane, eleventh child
of Nathan Smith, who fought in the battle of Lexington. She
was descended from Thomas Smith, who settled at Watertown
in 1635.
Stevens was fitted for Harvard University in the public
schools of Brighton, and entered the Freshman Class in 1859.
He left College, however, at the end of the Junior year, to
join the Forty-fourth Massachusetts (Colonel F. L. Lee), a
nine months' regiment. He returned at the expiration of
his service, in time to study for and receive his degree, and
to write in the Class-Book his autobiography, of which the
principal part here follows:" During the vacation of the summer of 1862, I enlisted as a
private in Company E, Forty-fourth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. For a long time previous to enlisting I had felt it
a duty to be doing something to save my country in this terrible
civil war. The captain of my company was Spencer W. Richardson of Boston. I went into camp at Readville, Massachusetts,
August 29, 1862; was mustered into the service of the United
States, September i2th. The regiment left camp October 22d, for
Newbern, North Carolina, arriving on Sunday, A. M., October 26th.
I was with the regiment. in every march, bivouac, and skirmish.
The regiment had been in North Carolina but four days before
General Foster began what is called the Tarborough march. We
went to Washington, North Carolina, on the steamer George S.
Collins, From Washington we marched towards Tarborough. I
was in the skirmish at Roll's Mills, November 2d. We entered Wil