Charles E. Hazelhurst was born around 1838 in Oneida County, New York, to James and Eunice Hazelhurst. His father was a farmer who owned $200 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in New Hartford, New York, and the family moved to St. Charles, Illinois, in the 1850s. By 1860, he was working as a farmer.

 

He enlisted in the Union army on August 12, 1861, and he mustered in as a sergeant in Company K of the 36^th Illinois Infantry alongside his brother Frederick on September 23. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. The regiment took part in the Battle of Pea Ridge, the Battle of Perryville, the Battle of Stones River, the Battle of Chickamauga, the Battle of Missionary Ridge, and the Atlanta campaign. He was promoted to 2^nd lieutenant on September 7, 1862, and he resigned on July 7, 1865.

 

Hazelhurst returned to St. Charles after the war, and he moved to Towanda, Kansas, around 1871. He married a woman named Kate sometime before 1880, and she died in the late 1800s. He applied for a federal pension in September 1889 and eventually secured one. By the 1890s, he was living in Augusta, Kansas. In January 1898, he suffered “some kind of an attack in the night,” and residents did “not expect [him] to live.” A week later, however, he had “rallied and is considerably improved.” Then, in May 1898, his farm was “totally destroyed by fire.” He returned to St. Charles, Illinois, in the early 1900s, and he died there on November 27, 1903.

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