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E.E. Bryant
(1835 - 1903)
Home State: Wisconsin
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 3rd Wisconsin Infantry
Before Antietam
Raised in New Hampshire and Vermont, he moved to Wisconsin in 1857, studied law and was admitted to the bar at Janesville, then moved to Monroe, where he also ran the Monroe Sentinel. He enlisted in Company C, 3rd Wisconsin Infantry on 17 June 1861, and was appointed Sergeant. He was promoted to Sergeant Major of the Regiment on 30 June 1861. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, Company A on 16 August 1861 and First Lieutenant on 11 November 1861. He was then Adjutant of the Regiment, to date from 3 October 1861.
On the Campaign
He was Regimental Adjutant on the Maryland Campaign.
The rest of the War
About 23 September 1862 he joined Colonel Ruger's staff as he assumed Brigade command, Bryant then acting Assistant Adjutant General of the Brigade. He was on recruiting duty at Madison in December 1863 with Colonel Hawley. He resigned his commission on 21 June 1864 (the end of his original term of service) and accepted appointment as an Enrollment Commissioner. He was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the 50th Wisconsin Infantry to date from 21 February 1865, and resigned one year later.
After the War
He returned to Monroe and his law practice. He also ran the Monroe Democrat. In 1868 he moved his practice to Madison and was also appointed Adjutant General of the State. He served in the Wisconsin State Assembly (1878) and was assistant Attorney General 1885-89 in the Post Office Department in Washington, DC. He returned to Madison and was then Dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School until his death. As well as many legal works, he wrote the History of the Third Regiment of Wisconsin Veteran Volunteer Infantry 1861-1865 (1891). He died on a train on the way home from a trip to Woods Hole, MA (for a meeting of the American Fisheries Society) and a visit to his 'ancestral home' in Vermont.
References & notes
Birth
01/10/1835; Milton, VT
Death
08/11/1903; near Toronto, CANADA; burial in Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, WI
1 Bryant, Edwin Eustace, History of the Third Regiment of Wisconsin Veteran Volunteer Infantry 1861-1865, Madison: Arthur H Clark Co. for the Veteran Association of the Regiment, 1891, pp. 136, 401, 404, 413 [AotW citation 15190]
2 State of Wisconsin, Adjutant General's Office, and Chandler P. Chapman, Adj. Gen., Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865, 2 volumes, Madison: Democrat Printing Co., State Printers, 1886, Vol. 1, pp. 386-87 [AotW citation 15191]