He is the son of Samuel DeGarmo and Elizabeth Grimes Degarmo. He married Mary Polly Pruett. They had 6 children. Prior to entering the Army he was a Farmer.

He served in the Civil War as a Private in the 127th Regiment, Illinois Infantry Volunteers in Company H.

Listed on the unit roster as Err Degamore.
The One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh Infantry was raised under the call of President Lincoln for 500,000 volunteers in the summer of 1862. Company A was recruited in Kendall county; Company B, in and around Chicago; Company C, at Elgin; Company D, in Grundy county; Company E, at St. Charles; Company F, at Plano; Company G, in Chicago; Company H, about Lyons; Company I, at Elgin and Company K, at Aurora and Big Rock. The Regiment was mustered in this service at Camp Douglas, Sep.. 6, 1862. The Regiment performed a considerable amount of guard duty in Camp Douglas, where the Harper's Ferry prisoners were sent in the fall of 1862.

The command drew a full complement of English Enfield rifles in the beginning of November 1862, and on the 9th of that month departed over the Illinois Central railway for Cairo, where it went on board the steamer Emerald, and landed at Memphis, Tenn., on the 13th. Went into camp near the city and was assigned to the First Brigade, Second Division, Fifteenth Army Corps, then a part of the right wing of the Army of the Tennessee.

On the 26th of November, departed on the expedition under General W. T. Sherman, in pursuit of Generals Price and Van Doren. Marched to the neighborhood of Oxford, Miss., where the command was reviewed by General Grant, and returned without encountering the enemy, to Memphis, on the 13th of December.

On the 20th of that month, embarked on the Mississippi River as a part of the expedition under General Sherman destined to operated against Vicksburg. Reached the Yazoo December 25, and was engaged in the operations of the Chickasaw Bayou from December 26 to January 1, during which its losses were one man killed (William Elmy of Company H) and seven wounded. A number of men soon after died of malignant measles.

The Regiment was with the expedition under General McClernand, which captured Arkansas Post, January 11, 1863, and was one of the first to plant its colors on the enemy's works. Its losses in the assault were two killed, twenty wounded and nine missing.

Following this expedition the army encamped at Young's Point, and on the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, where the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh performed picket and fatigue duty, working on the famous "canal" begun by General Butler, and during the next three months having a great amount of sickness in its ranks, and losing a large number of men by disease. At times the Regiment could report scarce a hundred men for duty.

The One Hundred and Twenty-seventh took part in the expedition to Steele's and Black Bayous in March, but, though suffering great hardships, returned without loss.

It was engaged in the movements to Grand Gulf, and in the rear of Vicksburg in May, and, when General Grant's army closed upon the doomed city on the 18th of the month, it formed a part of the line of battle of the Fifteenth Corps, on the right of the army.

It was in the bloody assaults upon the Vicksburg lines, May 19 and 22, on the first day planting its colors on the glacis of the rebel works, and maintaining its position until nightfall, when the troops were withdrawn. The losses of the Regiment in the two engagements were about 15 killed and 60 wounded.

During the siege of Vicksburg the Regiment was on detached duty at the Chickasaw Bayou until within a few days of the surrender, when it returned to the trenches, and was present at the surrender of the rebel stronghold, July 4, 1863.

On the night following the surrender all the men fit for duty, less than 50 in number, under Major Curtiss, marched with General Sherman's command, which drove General Joe Johnston from Jackson a few days later. During these operations the remnant of the Regiment was under the immediate command of Lieutenant Richmond, of Company E.

Following the defeat of Johnston, the Fifteenth Corps went into camp near Black River, about fifteen miles east of Vicksburg, where it remained until ordered, in September, to Chattanooga.

Err was admitted on 17 Aug 1863 to Washington Hospital of Memphis, Tennessee with Chronic Diarrhea, he died there in the Hospital on 29 Aug 1863

***DNA proven from Err and his mother Elizabeth Grimes to LAG
 
 
 

Burial:
Nashville National Cemetery 
Nashville
Davidson County
Tennessee, USA