[1] Gardner attended local district schools and spent two years as a student in the Genesee and Wyoming Seminary.
In August 1862, during the American Civil War, he enlisted in Company C of the 130th New York Infantry Regiment.
In the fall of 1864, during the Valley campaigns of 1864, he lost his right leg, which was amputated at the Camden Street Hospital in Baltimore.
After returning to Attica, he was appointed a postal clerk on the Erie Railway, a position he held for the next three years.
[1] Gardner was elected Clerk of the Wyoming County Board of Supervisors in 1879 and served in that office for fourteen years.