Erastus Winters was born on August 8, 1843, in Hamilton County, Ohio, to Amos and Mary Ann Winters. His father was a farmer who owned $30 of personal property by 1860. He grew up in Millcreek, Ohio. As he later recalled, his “boyhood days were spent on the farm,” and his “schooling was rather limited; perhaps five months outside of what my father taught me would cover it all.” Nonetheless, he “loved to read from the time I could put words together.”

 

Growing up, he was very politically aware, and he “read all about the Kansas troubles; the Missouri border ruffians; the Dred Scott Decision; the John Brown raid; his capture and death; [and] the campaign of Abraham Lincoln for President.” Although he was “young and inexperienced,” his “sympathies were all on the side of the Union.”

 

He joined a home guard company and “took an active part in drilling.” He enlisted in the Union army on August 22, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company K of the 50^th Ohio Infantry two days later. He eventually earned a promotion to corporal. The regiment took part in the defenses of Cincinnati, the Battle of Perryville, and the Atlanta campaign. He cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1864. Confederate forces captured him in the Second Battle of Franklin, and he remained imprisoned in Cahaba, Alabama, until April 27, 1865.

 

During his time in prison, he later recalled, “something within me seemed to say: ‘Do not give up; do not despair; bear your burdens bravely; keep in good heart and spirits; you shall yet be welcomed back into the family circle.’” He was freed at the end of the war, and he survived the explosion of the steamer Sultana. He mustered out on May 20, 1865.

 

After the war, Winters lived with his brother Francis in Florence, Kentucky. He married Sarah Cornelia Fox on February 23, 1871, and they had at least three children: Susan, born around 1872; Ivy, born around 1874; and Sylvia, born around 1878. They moved to Delhi, Ohio, in the late 1870s, and he worked in a factory there. His wife died in 1878.