Edward Waldo Stacy was born on April 9, 1842, in Harvard, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel and Lucy Stacy. His father was a paper maker who owned $100 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Harvard, and by 1860, he was also working as a paper maker.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 13, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company G of the 36th Massachusetts Infantry on August 27. The following month, he observed that "we have some hard times and some good ones but taking it all together I enjoy it very well and am not sorry I enlisted." The regiment took part in the Battle of Fredericksburg, the siege of Vicksburg, the Knoxville campaign, and the Overland Campaign.
In September 1862, he noted that the "negroes all seem to understand that the war concerns them. Of course there are a good many abolitionists in the regiment and they do not hesitate to talk with them about slavery. The negroes say there has a good many of them run away within a year." He died on May 6, 1864, in the Battle of the Wilderness.