Clarence Tripp Gardner was born on October 24, 1844, in present-day East Providence, Rhode Island, to Johnson Gardner and Phebe Lawton. His father was a physician who owned $7,000 of real estate and $800 of personal property by 1860. The family moved to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, around 1853, and he attended school there. He enrolled at Brown University in 1860, but he left school in 1861 to enlist in the Union army.

 

He mustered into the 1^st Rhode Island Infantry in the spring of 1861. The regiment took part in the First Battle of Bull Run, and it mustered out in August 1861. He rejoined the Union army soon afterward, and he mustered in as a sergeant in Battery H of the 3^rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery on October 5. The battery took part in the siege of Charleston and the assault on Fort Wagner. He was promoted to 2^nd lieutenant on July 8, 1862, and to 1^st lieutenant on January 21, 1863. He resigned on October 24, 1863.

 

He married Mary F. Hawkins on May 12, 1863, and their son Clarence was born around 1865. After leaving the army, he enrolled at Harvard University. In the fall of 1864, he became an acting assistant surgeon, and army officials assigned him to the Army of the Potomac. He participated in the siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox campaign, and he mustered out on May 4, 1865.

 

He re-enrolled at Harvard in the fall of 1865, and he earned his medical degree the following year. By 1870, he was working as a physician and surgeon in Providence, Rhode Island, and he owned $500 of personal property. He was a member of the Providence Medical Association and the Rhode Island State Medical Society, and a local writer declared him a “leading spirit” in both organizations. He applied for a passport in 1896, and the record described him as 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with gray hair and blue eyes. He died in present-day Little Compton, Rhode Island, on May 23, 1907, “after an illness of several months.”

 

Image: Clarence T. Gardner (Representative Men and Old Families of Rhode Island)

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