Whitman W. Bosworth was born around 1839 in Connecticut to Stillman and Nancy Bosworth. His father was a farmer who owned $800 of personal property by 1860. His mother died on June 1, 1843. By 1855, the family was living in Dudley, Massachusetts. Five years later, they were living in Webster, Massachusetts, and his father was helping operate a “pauper farm” with at least seven residents.
Bosworth enlisted in the Union army on April 20, 1861, and he mustered in as a corporal in Company I of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry. Confederate forces captured him in the Battle of Ball’s Bluff on October 21, 1861. He spent the next several months imprisoned in Richmond, Virginia. He was exchanged in the spring of 1862, and he rejoined his regiment on March 22, 1862. He was admitted to a general hospital on July 24, 1862, and he remained there until at least March 1863. He was apparently readmitted on June 19, 1863, and he remained there until March 1864. He mustered out on August 6, 1864.
Bosworth returned to Webster after the war, and he married Charlotte Howland there on January 9, 1867. Their son Olin was born around 1869. They lived in Webster, and Bosworth worked as a house painter. By 1870, he owned $180 of personal property. His wife died of “consumption” on December 30, 1871. He married a woman named Jane around 1878, and they lived in Woodstock, Connecticut. By 1900, he was working as a farmer. Jane died in the early 1900s, and by 1910, he was living with Emery Keith in Woodstock. He died in Connecticut in 1912.