Sedgwick, the son of Stephen Sedgwick and Anna Baldwin, was born March 15, 1815, in Pompey, New York, and attended Pompey Hill Academy and Hamilton College. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1848, and commenced practice in Syracuse, New York.[1]
He engaged for the next two years in codifying naval laws for the United States Department of the Navy at Washington, D.C., and then resumed the practice of law in Syracuse.