Edward W. Marsh

Edward W. Marsh was born in 1839 in Madison, New York.

Edward left New York and moved west, eventually settling in Michigan by 1860 when he was working a sawyer and day laborer living in Lansing’s Second Ward, possibly at the Butterfield Hotel. Soon after the war broke out he became a member of the Lansing militia company called the “Williams’ Rifles,” whose members would serve as the nucleus of Company G.

Edward stood 5’10” with blue eyes, brown hair and a light complexion, and was 22 years old when he enlisted in Company G on May 10, 1861. By early September he was convalescing from typhoid fever, but he eventually recovered and by early 1862 Marsh, along with Riley Kent and Samuel Mathews, were detached from Company G as pioneers, probably serving with the Brigade. He remained detached through October and by November was reported absent sick in the hospital where he remained through April of 1863.

Edward was reportedly detached, temporarily, to the Veterans’ Reserve Corps from May through July, and he reenlisted on December 24, 1863, at Brandy Station, Virginia, crediting Lansing’s First Ward. He was presumably absent on veteran’s furlough in January of 1864 and probably returned to the Regiment on or about the first of February. In May of 1864 he was absent sick in the hospital. He was still absent sick when he was transferred (as “Edwin W.”) to Company F, Fifth Michigan infantry upon consolidation of the Third and Fifth Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864, and he remained absent sick through December of 1864. He was mustered out on July 5, 1865, at Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Edward returned to Michigan after the war. He was probably the same Edward Marsh who was working as a sawyer in a mill and living with the William Ellis family in Saginaw’s Sixth Ward, Saginaw County. In 1880 he was single, working as a teamster and living with William Leek in East Saginaw. By 1890 he was working as a teamster and living at 1113 or 1118 South Washington Street in Saginaw’s Fifth Ward, Saginaw County and in the Fifth Ward in 1894.

He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic Granger Post No. 38 in East Saginaw, Saginaw County. In 1890 he applied for and received a pension (no. 630073).

He died at his home 704 South Park in Saginaw on June 12, 1903, and was buried in Forest Lawn cemetery in Saginaw.

His widow applied for and received a pension (no. 559833).