Horace Bell Gardner was born on October 16, 1845, in Salem, Massachusetts, to Simon and Hannah Gardner. His father was a baker who owned $1,000 of real estate by 1850. Gardner grew up and attended school in Salem.

 

He enlisted in the Union army on March 17, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company M of the 1^st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 7 inches tall, with brown hair and blue eyes. On June 18, 1864, during the siege of Petersburg, he received a gunshot wound to the face that reportedly caused “Impaired cerebration.” Union officials initially reported that he had died in battle, and he spent the next few months recovering in the hospital. He mustered out on November 22, 1864.

 

Gardner returned to Salem after the war and resumed his work as a baker. He applied for a federal pension in March 1865 and eventually received one. He remained in his father’s household until at least 1880. By 1900, he was living in his sister Hannah’s household in Salem. On November 25, 1908, he was admitted to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Togus, Maine. He was suffering from mitral valve insufficiency. He was discharged on July 11, 1909, at his own request, and he died of “hemiplegia” and “general debility” in Chelseay, Massachusetts, on July 18, 1909.

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