Samuel C. Taylor

Samuel C. Taylor was born in 1836 in Burton, Geauga County, Ohio.

Samuel left Ohio and settled in western Michigan sometime before the war broke out.

He stood 6’1” with blue eyes, brown hair and a light complexion and was a 25-year-old farmer probably living in Allendale, Ottawa County when he enlisted in Company I on May 13, 1861, probably with his younger brother David. He was possibly related to Chauncey, James, John A., John M., and/or Martin, all of whom would enlist in Company I. (Company I was made up largely of men from Ottawa County, particularly from the eastern side of the County.)

Samuel was absent sick in the hospital from August of 1862 through July of 1863. In fact William Cobb of Company I wrote from Camp Curtin, Virginia, on April 21, 1863, that “Sam Taylor is here in the hospital.” Samuel eventually recovered and was present for duty when he reenlisted on December 24, 1863, at Brandy Station, Virginia, crediting Hamburg, Livingston County. He was presumably absent on veteran’s furlough, possibly in Michigan, during January of 1864, and probably returned to the Regiment on or about the first of February.

Samuel may have been wounded in the abdomen in early May, either at the Wilderness or at Spotsylvania, was subsequently reported absent sick and was still absent sick when he was transferred as a Corporal to Company I, Fifth Michigan infantry upon consolidation of the Third and Fifth Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864. Samuel remained absent wounded through October of 1864, and was mustered out on July 5, 1865, at Jeffersonville, Indiana.

After the war Samuel returned to Michigan.

He was married to Michigan native Sophronia C. (b. 1846) and they had at least four children: Minnie (b. 1868), Jayson (b. 1872), Adelbert R. (b. 1875) and Samuel A. (b. 1878).

By 1870 Samuel was working as a farm laborer and living with his wife and daughter in Ovid, Clinton County; next door lived his younger brother David and his family. Samuel was living in Ovid in 1880, and in Shepherdsville, Clinton County in 1883 (Dennis Birmingham, formerly of Company F lived near by) when he was drawing $8.00 for injury to the abdomen (pension no. 88,152). He was still living in Clinton County in 1887 and 1890 and in Ovid in 1894.

Samuel is reportedly buried in either South Ovid cemetery or in Blood cemetery in Clinton County.