Edward Gilbert was born in December 1831, either in Bohemia or Hamburg, Germany. He immigrated to the United States around 1845 and settled in Brooklyn, New York, where he lived with his brother John. They worked as clerks there in the early 1850s, and Gilbert was naturalized in New York on December 7, 1852. He married Sarah Berry around 1857, and they had at least two children: Emily, born around 1857; and Charles, born around 1859. The family settled in Rockford, Illinois. By 1860, he was working as a bookseller, and he owned $2,000 of personal property.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 5, 1862, and mustered in as a private in Company D of the 74th Illinois Infantry. In November 1862, he secured a position as a clerk in the Provost Marshal General’s Office, and he spent much of the remainder of the war in Nashville, Tennessee. He voted for President Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1864. He mustered out on May 12, 1865. By 1870, the family was living in Indianapolis, Indiana. Gilbert was working as an insurance agent, and he owned $8,000 of real estate and $2,500 of personal property. He died there around 1910.