Kingsley Martin was born around 1839 in Massachusetts to Benjamin and Sarah Martin. His father was a farmer who owned $2,900 of real estate in 1850. Martin grew up and attended school in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, before beginning work as a mariner. He enlisted in the Union army on June 15, 1861, and mustered in as a private in Company C of the 7^th Massachusetts Infantry. The regiment took part in the Battle of Seven Pines, the Seven Days Battles, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the Battle of Chancellorsville.

 

He quickly grew disillusioned with the Union war effort. In August 1861, he confessed that he “wish[ed] I had not enlisted,” and he mocked the “glorious cause of liberty and n***r Freedom.” In November 1861, he added that he had “as ugly a temper towards the Southerners as ever but my love and respect for the federal government is fast decaying.” Nonetheless, he still hoped to “save our glorious republic from a surrender which would make her name a monument of stinking infamy forever.” He deserted from his regiment on June 29, 1863.

 

Martin moved to Indiana after leaving the army, and he married Lana Shafer on September 13, 1868. They had eight children, including: Mary, born around 1870; Forest, born around 1880; Ernest, born around 1885; and Emmet, born around 1885. They settled in Lancaster, Indiana, around 1869, and Martin worked as a brick mason. By 1870, they owned $1,000 of real estate and $125 of personal property. He may have moved to Grant County, Washington, in the early 1900s, but he returned to Lancaster by 1920. He died there on March 12, 1925, “following a long illness.”

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