Charles B. Lewis

Charles B. Lewis was born in 1841 in Medina, Ohio, the son of George (b. 1812) and Clarissa (b. 1814).

Connecticut native George married Ohio-born Clarissa and settled in Ohio where they resided for some years. His family moved to Michigan from Ohio sometime after 1850, and by 1860 Charles was working as an apprentice chair-maker and/or printer and attending school with his siblings and living with his family in Lansing’s First Ward where his father worked as a carpenter and joiner.

Charles stood 5’5” with gray eyes, auburn hair and a fair complexion and was 20 years old and residing in Ingham County, probably in Lansing, when he enlisted in Company G on May 13, 1861 -- he was possibly related to Albert Lewis of Company G. (Company G, formerly the “Williams’ Rifles,” was made up predominantly of men from the Lansing area.) Although Charles was officially listed as discharged on September 1, 1861, for chronic rheumatism, according to Frank Siverd of Company G, Lewis and two other men of Company G had in fact been discharged and sent home the first week of August.

In any case, Charles soon returned to Michigan where he reentered the service in Company E, Sixth Michigan cavalry on February 17, 1865, at Jackson, Jackson County for 1 year, crediting Lansing’s Fourth Ward, and was mustered the same day. He joined the Regiment on March 19, was on detached service from July through September, and was on detached service at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas when he was transferred along with the veterans and recruits to Company H, First Michigan cavalry on November 17, 1865. The First Michigan cavalry served was on duty in the District of Utah from November of 1865 until March of 1866.

Charles was reported on detached service with the First Michigan cavalry from November of 1865 through February of 1866, and honorably discharged on August 17, 1866, at Fort Leavenworth. (The regiment had mustered out on March 10, 1866, however.)

It is not known if Charles returned to Michigan after the war, although it is possible that he was living in Detroit in 1870. He was probably residing in New York in 1904 when he applied for and received a pension (1099565).

Charles died on August 21, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York.