[1] On 30 July 1958, Bearss married author and teacher Margie Riddle of Mississippi (born 1925 or 1926), and the two had three children: Sara in 1960, Edwin Jr. in 1962, and Mary in 1965.

[4] Bearss was accepted to St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin in 1937, and graduated from Hardin High School in 1941.

He prepared historical studies for the Interior Department agency and founded the Mississippi Civil War Roundtable.

For the NPS, he found the Civil War-era cannon Widow Blakely (also Whistling Dick) which had been used in the Vicksburg campaign,[1] as well as the wreck of USS Cairo.

[11] The Company of Military Historians made Bearss a fellow of that group in 1964, and he received the Nevins-Freeman Award in 1980 for his work on American Civil War (ACW) history.

"[12] On 23 April 2015, US Representative Gerry Connolly from Virginia introduced bill H.R.2059 to award Bearss the Congressional Gold Medal "in recognition of his contributions to preservation of American Civil War history and continued efforts to bring our nation's history alive for new generations through his interpretive storytelling.