Allen E. C. Hawkins was born around 1834 in Illinois. By 1860, he was living in Cass County, Iowa, and working as a farmer. He owned $1,566 of real estate and $370 of personal property. He enlisted in the Union army on July 23, 1862, and mustered in as a private in Company I of the 23rd Iowa Infantry on August 28, 1862. The army assigned the regiment to Louisiana and Mississippi, and it took part in the Vicksburg Campaign in 1863. Hawkins mustered out in Harrisburg, Texas, on July 26, 1865. He returned to Cass County, Iowa. He moved to Kansas sometime in the 1880s. He died in Topeka, Kansas, on April 21, 1909, from “a complication of diseases.”