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Ezra Martin Tebbets.
Private 5th Iowa Cavalry, September, 1861; re-enlisted, January, 1864; first Lieutenant and A. I. G. (U. S. Vols.) July, 1864; died in prison at Millen, Ga., October 30, 1864, of privation and exhaustion.Ezra Martin Tebbets was born at Lynn, Massachusetts, January 8, 1838, the son of Ezra Ricker Tebbets and Catharine Amory (Hood) Tebbets. He was the eldest of seven sons, and his mother was left a widow soon after he entered college. He was a member of the public schools of Lynn, in their successive grades, and was often pronounced by his teachers ‘a model scholar’; one of them declaring that while under his instruction he never once committed a fault or omitted a duty. His disposition was calm, grave, and retiring, with an even temper, faultless morals, and an ardent love of study. In school and college he was faithful far beyond the average of his associates; but to the honors resulting from his fidelity he was rather indifferent. He graduated at Harvard College, in the Class of 1859, among the first scholars in his Class, in mathematics ranking first. He afterwards went through the course of Engineering at the Lawrence Scientific School, and then engaged in the practice of his profession as civil engineer in Iowa. But the Rebellion which put the nation in jeopardy allowed him no rest in his quiet pursuits. With his brother he enlisted as a private in a corps designed to become a part of Fremont's guard, and which, after several changes, was designated as Company E of the Fifth Iowa Cavalry. He was employed in the dangerous service of guarding Tennessee against the guerillas and marauders then infesting that Border State. In this capacity he was a daily witness of the truth of his own delineation of the horrors of civil war, in a college theme:—
War, even where the opposing parties are of different nations, has evils enough,—the widows and desolate orphans, burning villages,
