Enlisted from West Brookfield, Massachusetts, where he had been working as a shoemaker, on 29 July 1861 at 29 years of age; mustered in on 23 August 1861, Company C, 21st Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment as a Sergeant; wounded during the siege of Petersburg on 23 July 1864 (severe wound in left leg, amputated); died due to wound complications on 27 July 1864.

"Case 208. — Sergeant Edwin T. Brown, Co. C, 21st Massachusetts, aged about 30 years, was wounded in front of Petersburg, on July 23, 1864, by a ragged fragment of a mortar bomb, which struck the left thigh over the trochanter major and comminuted the upper extremity of the femur. The wounded man was immediately conveyed to the hospital of the 1st division of the Ninth Corps. Surgeon Whitman V. White, 57th Massachusetts, and Surgeon James Oliver, 21st Massachusetts, saw the patient a short time after his admission to the hospital. He was a strong, healthy man, five feet ten inches in height, weighing about one hundred and sixty pounds, with a constitution of iron, and was in perfect health when injured. The soft parts about the seat of injury were lacerated and torn, and the upper extremity of the femur, to an extent of five inches, was crushed to fragments. No important arteries or nerves were wounded. Excision of the fractured bone was decided upon. On the afternoon of the day on which the injury was received chloroform was administered, and Dr. White made a longitudinal incision and removed the shattered fragments. The ligamentum teres was divided and the head of the bone turned out. The broken extremity of the shaft of the femur was evened off with a chain saw. The patient reacted promptly from the shock of the operation. The limb was placed in proper position, and stimulants were freely used. Dr. Oliver states that he saw the man several times on the following day, who was in excellent spirits, and talked and laughed, and did not complain of any pain. On the 20th his appetite failed and he began to sink. He died July 27, 1864." -- The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. Part III, Volume II. (3rd Surgical volume) by U. S. Army Surgeon General's Office, 1883.