Edward Anderson Irvin

A 23 year old merchant in Curwensville, he helped raise a Company of troops, enrolled in Clearfield County, and mustered into service as Captain, Company K, 13th Pennsylvania Reserves on 29 May 1861 in Harrisburg. He was captured at Mechanicsville, VA on 26 June 1862 and held at Libby Prison in Richmond, VA. He was exchanged in August and returned to duty.

He was wounded in the head, supposed fatally, in action at near Turner's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862.

He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment to date from 10 September. He recovered at home from his Antietam wound and was back on duty in time to fight again at Fredericksburg, VA on 13 December 1862. He was briefly in command of the regiment there, but was seriously wounded in the arm. Disabled by that wound, he resigned his commission and was discharged on 1 May 1863.

He returned to his lumber and mercantile businesses in Curwensville, and was in lumber and coal exclusively after 1878. He ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate in 1899, and was elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate for one term 1905-06.

His service from Bucktails,1 the Card File,2 and Bates.3 Details from a bio sketch in L.C. Aldrich's History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania (1887). His political career from Virtue, Liberty, Independence [pdf], a booklet online from the Pennsylvania Senate, source also of his picture, from a photograph of him in Captain's uniform. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Emma Augusta Graham (1840-1901) while he was home on furlough in 1862 and they had 4 children; the first two, twins Jane and James, died as infants in December 1863.

01/13/1838; Curwensville, PA

10/13/1908; Curwensville, PA; burial in Oak Hill Cemetery, Curwensville, PA