Lowell (Charles Russell Jr.) is born in Boston.

The son of Rev. Charles and Anna Cabot (Jackson) Lowell, Charles Russell Lowell Jr. grows up on Winter Place, graduates from Boston Latin School, and Harvard College, and goes to work in the iron mining industry. After witnessing the hostile reaction to the arrival of Massachusetts troops in Baltimore in 1861,* he enlists in the Union Army, serves initially as a captain the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, then as an aide to Gen. George McClellan, and finally as commander of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry. He marries Effie Shaw in 1863, then returns to duty, seeing action in a number of campaigns before he is killed in battle on October 19, 1864.* His uncle, James Russell Lowell, later writes of him, “[he] has long been the pride of the family . . . by far, the best we have.”