1860.
Edward Gardner Abbott.
Captain 2d Mass. Vols. (Infantry), May 24, 1861; Brevet Major, August 9, 1862; killed at Cedar Mountain, Va., August 9, 1862.Edward Gardner Abbott, eldest son of Hon. Josiah Gardner and Caroline (Livermore) Abbott, was born at Lowell, Massachusetts, on the 29th of September, 1840, and was the eighth in descent from George Abbott, who, forced by religious scruples and the troubles of the times, emigrated from Yorkshire, England, in 1643, and settled in Andover, Massachusetts. Edward's mother was the daughter of Edmund St. Loe Livermore, Judge of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Judge Livermore was several times a member of Congress from Massachusetts, and was the son of Hon. Samuel Livermore, King's Attorney in New Hampshire before the Revolution, and afterwards first United States Senator from that State. As a boy Edward was active, sprightly, and high-spirited, of quick intellect, full of playfulness and life, and early manifested a more than usual fondness for all muscular sports and exercises. ‘His activity,’ says one who knew him from infancy to manhood, ‘suggested the idea of perpetual motion, and was the occasion to him of frequent bruises and broken limbs.’ With this exuberant vivacity and this passion for muscular superiority, there was united a great love of reading, especially works of imaginative literature and biography, which was fostered and gratified by the large miscellaneous library of his father. Before he was ten years old he had read through all the novels of Sir Walter Scott, besides the standard juvenile romances. He was fitted for college at the Lowell High School, and the principal, C. C. Chase, Esq., thus writes concerning him:—
