Edward Cutler was seventeen years old when his parents removed to Indiana. He assisted his father in clearing his land until the latter’s death and then he and his brother Thomas continued the improvements begun by their father and they farmed in partnership until Edward’s marriage, and then his brother went into the mercantile Business, while our subject engaged in agriculture and boating on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers,beginning in the latter business in 1842. He would build a flat-boat, load it with farm produce or coal, take it to New Orleans and then sell boat and cargo and return home by steamer. He thus made eighty-four trips to the Crescent City.

The breaking out of the Rebellion found our subject busy in the management of his interests and as soon as he could arrange his affairs he volunteered in help fight his country’s battles, enlisting October 20, 1861, in Company E, Forty-ninth Indiana Infantry. He was mustered in as Captain of his company at Camp Joe Holt November 21, and in the trying years that followed he showed himself in be possessed of good soldierly metal and his military record is one of which he and his may well he proud. He took part in the battle at Cumberland Gap and when he and his brave men started with others in pursuit of Gen. Bragg’s forces their knapsacks were empty as they had run out of provisions, and they had to forage for a living. They used their bayonets to punch hole- in their canteens that they might use them as graters to reduce the dry corn to meal and in various other ways did they show their fertility of resource in any emergency. From Kentucky the Captain accompanied his regiment to West Virginia, where it was stationed three months and then was dispatched on transport down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Memphis. From there the Forty-ninth Indiana was sent to Vicksburg to help carry on the siege of that city and it also took an active part in the battles of Gibson, Thompson’s Hill, Big Black River, Chickasaw Bayou and Arkansas Post.

At Vicksburg our subject led a successful charge on the works on the 22d of May. After that he went to Grand Gulf with his command and did some hard fighting at Thompson’s Hill, which resulted in the enemy being driven back. He next assisted in the reduction of Jackson, Miss., and went from there to Vicksburg, afterward facing the rebels in two hotly contested battles at Edward’s Station and Champion Hill. We next hear of his services at the battle of Big Black River and after the surrender of Vicksburg he accompanied his regiment to New Orleans, going thence to Matagorda Bay, Tex., and returning to New Orleans, he then went on the Red River Expedition and did some hard fighting at Shrevesport.
After that the Captain and his men fought the rebels at Kane Creek, whence they returned to Shrevesport, where they laid a dam to let the gunboats pass the falls. From there Capt. Cutler marched with his command to Morganza Bend and thence to Lexington, Ky. He was appointed to provost duty in that city and was thus engaged until his resignation from the army July 4, 1863.