06/01/2026
Happy birthday to Edward Lyon Buchwalter, who was born in Hallsville, Ross County, on June 1, 1841. He was a Civil War soldier and government official for the Freedman's Bureau, which assisted the formerly enslaved people of the South after the Civil War ended.
He was the son of Levi Buchwalter and Margaret Lyon Buchwalter. He attended public school in Hallsville and went on to Ohio University in Athens.
When the Civil War broke out, he left college early and voluntarily enlisted into Union Army, Co. A, 114th Ohio Infantry as a sergeant. Under Union Major General William T. Sherman he took part in the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou. He helped build the canal to isolate Vicksburg and participated in its siege.
On July 25, 1863, he was commissioned as 1st Lieutenant of Co. H., 53rd U.S. Colored Infantry. He was promoted to Captain on June 22, 1864. In March of1866, Buchwalter mustered out and became head of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands of eight eastern counties in Mississippi.
After the army, he returned to farming on the family lands in Hallsville. In 1872, he and his wife moved to Springfield. There he became became president of the Superior Drill Company and Citizen's National Bank.
Capt. Edward Lyon Buchwalter died in 1933 and is buried in Springfield's Ferncliff Cemetery & Arboretum.
