Henry M. Carr was born around 1829 in Ohio. By the early 1860s, he was working as a lawyer in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
In April 1861, he received a commission as a captain in Company G of the 11th Indiana Infantry. The regiment spent the next few months in western Virginia, and he mustered out in early August 1861. He served as colonel of the 58th Indiana Infantry from November 1861 until he resigned on June 25, 1862. He later served as a major in the 72nd Indiana Infantry.
He married Emma Birdsong on September 15, 1868, and they had at least three children: Alice, born around 1870; Grace, born around 1872; and George, born around 1876. They lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and Carr worked as a lawyer and “pension claim agent.” By 1870, he owned $5,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property. According to a local writer, in the early 1880s, he was “disbarred from practice for exacting extortionate and illegal fees in a pension case.” His health began deteriorating soon afterward, and he died in Louisville on March 18, 1884.