Edward Denison Bugbee was born on March 13, 1843, in Bennington, Shiawassee County, Michigan, the son of New York natives Denison Salmon (1815-1901) and Mary Ann Hill (1824-1879).
Denison and Mary were married on November 2, 1837, in Pontiac or Bloomfield, Oakland County, Michigan, and they eventually settled in Shiawassee County. By 1860 Edward was a farm laborer working for with Isaac Keeler, a farmer in Middleville, Barry County; working at the same farm was Oscar Gaines who would also enlist in Company K. He was also living with his family in Thornapple, Barry County. His parents were still in Thornapple in 1860.
Edward was 18 years old and probably living in Hastings, Barry County when he enlisted in Company K on May 13, 1861. (He was the nephew of Alpheus Hill of Company K, and possibly related to George Bugbee who was also from Barry County and who would enlist in E company in 1864.) Edward was reportedly sick in the Queen Mansion House hospital in Alexandria, as of December 12, 1861, but by the end of April of 1862 was in the regimental hospital probably near Yorktown, Virginia. In any case, he died of pneumonia on May 3, 1862, at a hospital in Yorktown, Virginia.
According to the Regimental Surgeon Dr. Zenas Bliss, the regimental hospital was about a mile and a half to the rear of the regiment’s camp. It was “composed of log huts or barracks, built and formerly occupied by the 53d Virginia Volunteers (Confederate), upon a sandy soil, where we obtained an abundance of excellent well water. These barracks were well ventilated, and accommodated a large number of sick and wounded from both the regulars and volunteers. I saw all of the sick and what few wounded there were at this hospital and had immediate charge of very many sick who were members of various regiments; and nearly all of the cases were either low remittents or typhoid fever.” With the exception of one case of typhus, Bliss held autopsies on the six men who died under his charge.
He was presumably among the unknown soldiers buried at Yorktown.
In 1863 Denison was reportedly operating a flouring mill in Middleville. His parents were still living in Middleville in 1870. His father Denison eventually settled in Oregon, and in 1892 applied for a dependent’s pension no. 565453. He was boarding with the Mclarren family in Soda Springs, Oregon in 1900. He died in Washington state and it is likely that his remains were returned to Michigan. Denison is apparently buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Middleville
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