Lewis’s family left Massachusetts and by 1849 had settled in Ohio left Massachusetts and headed west, eventually settling in Michigan. By 1860 Lewis was working as a painter and living with his parents (his father was a wagonmaker with $3,600 in real estate) and two younger siblings in Lansing, Ingham County.
Lewis stood 5’9” with hazel eyes, brown hair and florid complexion and was a 36-year-old mechanic probably living in Lansing, Ingham County when he enlisted as a Drummer in Company G on May 10, 1861. (Company G, formerly the “Williams’ Rifles,” was made up predominantly of men from the Lansing area.) He was probably injured on May 31, 1862, at the battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia. Apparently he injured his back while carrying a wounded man from the battlefield. In any case, he was probably hospitalized from early June until he was discharged on January 26, 1863, at the 3rd Corps hospital at Fort Lyon near Alexandria, Virginia, for “chronic nephritis & irritation of spine caused by a strain while carrying a wounded man at the battle of Fair Oaks” on May 31, 1862.
On February 10, 1863 he was transferred as a Drummer to Company H, 1st Veteran Reserve Corps and discharged from the VRC on March 18, 1863, at Detroit, reportedly at the “expiration of service” (although that would in fact not happen until June 10, 1864.
It is unknown if Lewis returned to Michigan.
He was apparently living in Nebraska in 1884 when he applied for and received a pension (no. 743551). He was working as a traveling doctor when he was admitted as a single man to the National Military Home in Leavenworth, Kansas, on December 23, 1897, discharged on March 10, 1898. He apparently moved to his brother Hiram’s home in Colby, Kansas (he had listed Hiram, or H. H., as his nearest relative upon admission to the NMH). He was readmitted on June 27, 1898.
Lewis was a member of the NMH when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage on July 28, 1909, and was buried in Leavenworth National Cemetery: sec. 25, Leavenworth, Kansas.
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