Truesdell, Edwin Earl

Civil War Veteran

Birth: April 13, 1846, Vienna, Trumbull County, Ohio
Death: December 12, 1903, Sandusky, Erie County, Ohio
Burial: Ohio Veterans Home Cemetery, Sandusky, Erie County, Ohio
Find a Grave memorial

Military Service: Trumbull Guards Independent Company, Ohio Infantry

Edwin Earl Truesdell, the youngest of five brothers (James Jonathan, Henry Shannon, John Hilliard, and Seldon Sloen) who served in the Civil War, was a member of the Trumbull Guards. This infantry company protected Ohio’s border with Virginia along the Ohio River. Truesdell enlisted on November 9, 1862, at age 18.

He returned to his parents’ home in Vienna at the War’s end, and was listed as a farm laborer in the 1870 Census. Rather late in life he married Helena Thomas (born November 22, 1866, Ypres, Belgium-died July 3, 1921, Elyria, Ohio), 22 years younger than he, in 1885. They had one child, Fred Adrian Truesdell. Truesdell died at the Old Soldiers and Sailors Home in Sandusky, in 1903, and is buried on the grounds there.

Edwin Earl Truesdell's cousins, brothers Albert and  Allison Dural Truesdell, and James Warren Leet also served in the War.

Other Vienna men who served in the Trumbull Guards were John C. Dray and Horrace E. Hutchins.

Company History, Trumbull Guards

Organized at Gallipolis, Ohio, November 9, 1862, for River Guard. Mustered out July 1, 1865. Lost 6 Enlisted men by disease.