| L.T. Guerin | 5th Battalion Ohio Voluntary Cavalry |
| by Chris Brown |
Lovett Taft Guerin is not a man that is well known to the world today. He left very little evidence of his existence other than census information taken during his life. We know he was born in February 1845 to Dr. Zophar Guerin and Caroline Guerin. Lovett was married in 1871, and his wife, whose name is not documented in genealogy trees or census information, died nine years later in 1880. His father, Zophar Guerin, was very well known throughout central Ohio, though. He worked at the law office of Harvey Andrews in Westerville, Ohio. He was also elected into the Kansas State Senate in 1872, and moved back to Columbus in 1875 to continue practicing medicine. Lovett enrolled to Otterbein prior to his joining the war, but all that is known about him is that he was a student. There are no records of him doing anything in particular on campus or what he was majoring in at the time. He enlisted as a private in the army as a Private on August 24, 1863 at the age of 18 and then enlisted in Company D, 5th Cavalry Regiment Ohio on September 2, 1863. He was mustered out after the Battalions six months of planned service on February 15, 1864 in Cincinnati, OH. After being mustered out of the army with his battalion, he finished school and worked as a medical doctor in Franklin County, presumably under his father. Guerin’s family status could have more than likely gotten him out of the war based on the Conscription Act of 1863’s policy that you could have gotten out of service with a 300$ donation.1 This leads us to believe that he did this out of patriotism for the Union that was once whole, and now is broken. His father, being a previous Senator, more than likely could have gotten him out of the war regardless of whether money was paid. Whatever the case, Guerin joined of his own free will, which says a lot about his character. He died on June 3, 1913 and is currently buried in the Silent Home Cemetery in Franklin County.2
[1] Michael Fellman, Leslie J. Gordon, and Daniel E. Sutherland, This Terrible War. Pearson Education, 2008, 248.
[2] Anonymous Re: Dr. Zophar F. Guerin, b. New Jersey d. Ohio NEED HELP!!!!!http://genforum.genealogy.com/guerin/messages/605.html (accessed November 11, 2008).