Edward W. W. Brothers was born around 1833 in Mahoning County, Ohio, to George and Margaret Brothers. He grew up and attended school in Boardman, Ohio, and by 1850, he was working as a laborer. The family moved to Union, Indiana, in the 1850s, and Brothers may have accompanied them.

 

He enlisted in the Union army on November 29, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company C of the 47^th Indiana Infantry later that day. The regiment took part in the Vicksburg campaign. Brothers denounced Confederates as “outrageous trators [sic],” and he prayed in February 1862 that Union forces would “whip the southern army…so that the stars and stripes may wave over the entire united states where it has waved so triumphantly for so many years.” He mustered out on December 12, 1864.

 

Brothers returned to Indiana after leaving the army, and he married Anna Brown on January 1, 1869. They had at least three children: George, born around 1870; Emma, born around 1875; and Louisa, born around 1883. They moved to Fall River, Kansas, in the early 1870s, and Brothers worked as a farmer there. By 1875, he owned $400 of real estate and $300 of personal property. He attended a local reunion in October 1887. He applied for a federal pension in August 1889, and he secured one two years later at a rate of $8 per month. He died of “consumption” in Climax, Kansas, on May 18, 1892.

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