Jefferson S. Loveridge was born around 1842 in Ohio to Morris Loveridge and Margaret Grubb. His father was a wagon maker. The family moved to Wayne, Indiana, in the late 1840s, and Loveridge attended school there. By the early 1860s, he was living in Lane, Illinois, and working as a farmer. He enlisted in the Union army on September 16, 1861, and mustered in as a private in Battery G of the 2nd Illinois Light Artillery. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 7 inches tall, with black hair and hazel eyes.
The regiment took part in the Battle of Pea Ridge and the siege of Vicksburg, and the men spent the final years of the war stationed around New Orleans, Louisiana. He mustered out in Springfield, Illinois, on August 7, 1865. Loveridge settled in Goshen, Indiana, after the war, and he married Alice Wagoner there on May 27, 1872. They moved to Crystal, Michigan, in the 1870s, and Loveridge died there of “congestion of the brain” on October 1, 1879.