Charles Lewis Hewitt was born on January 2, 1843, in Connecticut to John and Eliza Hewitt. By the early 1860s, he was working as a carpenter in Winsted, Connecticut.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 27, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company E of the 7th Connecticut Infantry on September 7. The regiment took part in the siege of Charleston and the siege of Petersburg. He mustered out on September 12, 1864.
He returned to Winsted after the war, and he earned a living as a farm laborer. He helped found the local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic. He married a woman named Jennie, and they had at least two children: Elizabeth, born around 1868; and John, born around 1872. His wife probably died in the 1870s, and he married Charlotte Sage on October 29, 1879. They had two children: Frank, born around 1882 and Evelyn, born around 1886. He applied for a federal pension in February 1882 and eventually secured one. By 1917, he was suffering from paralysis, and he was “stone deaf.” He died in Winsted on November 22, 1932.
Image: Charles L. Hewitt (Hartford Courant, 5 November 1922)