A Story of a Search

[samgrant]

I noticed in my GGGF’s (Franklin Dwight Cossitt) testimony to the Southern Claims Commission that he had 2 cousins in the Federal service and 2 in the Confederate service, but I had not explored these leads till recently. You may or not have seen that post, but here it is:

http://civilwartalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24502&page=2 .

Now I have found some cousins.

Assuming that by ‘cousins’ he meant “first-cousins”, I went back through a difficultly structured family genealogical history to figure out who his first-cousins were.

In the process, I also found more distant cousins who may have served in the war.

Well, let’s start with one of the two first cousins I have found.

His name was Henry Clay Cossitt.

I first found information about Henry in a family history titled “The Cossitt Family - A Genealogical History of Rene Cossitt, a Frenchman Who Settled in Granby, Conn.A. D. 1717. And of His Descendants”. This was an 1879 version of that history.

That document became the beginning of my search. In it, it says simply:

“Henry Clay, born Nov. 23, 1843. He was in the Union army, and died from the hardships incident to a soldiers; life in 186-.”

That was all I had to start with.

The next step was to the NPS Soldiers and Sailors website. Entering last and first names, I found 3 Henry Cossitts in the Union army, but two of them were Henry C.s. One in the 6th Iowa Infantry and another in the 11th Illinois Cavalry. The plain ‘Henry’ was in the 1st Alabama Cavalry (USA).

Well then I started Googling “Henry C. Cossitt” - nothing; then “Henry Clay Cossitt” and I got one hit, an odd page titled “Ladies of the Michigan Settlement” which was part of a “Tippah County MSGENWEB” site.

Well that was interesting because Tippah County, Miss. is just across the state border and a bit east of Fayette County, Tenn. Where my GGGF lived at that time. More interesting was that his birthday given on the webpage matched my Henry Clay Cossitt, and there were names of brothers and sisters which also matched.

But the MOST interesting thing on the webpage was a reference to “Henry Clay Cossitt’s Diary”! Holy Smokes!, it even cites page 76 of the diary! There is a name to contact; I‘ll call him LG, and a link with which to email him, which I promptly did. This was several weeks ago, and unfortunately I have had no response from LG. (I also found him again by Googling his email address and finding it on a website about Pittsburg River Boats. (?)) I emailed him again, but still no response yet.

Well, I still didn’t know which regiment Henry was in, so while waiting for LG, I went back to exploring that angle.

This time I tried a Google Book Search for “Henry Clay Cossitt”, and found that there was a later version of my family history, updated in 1925. The new version had an expanded description for Henry:

“Henry Clay Cossitt, son of Louis Capet, was born Nov. 23, 1843. When he was a young man his cousin, F. H. Cossitt, took him to New York. He entered a military School and enlisted in the Union Army, and died in July, 1866. He was taken prisoner in the battle near Pocohontas, Tenn., and carried south and contracted a cold from which he never recovered. He married (fall, 1864) Julia Blalock, daughter of Thomas and Mary Blalock, at Sparta, Ill. She was born in 1846. The hardships of a soldier’s life caused his cold to develop into consumption and he died at the home of his brother, Frederick Grey Cossitt, in Illinois. He had no children.” and “Henry Clay Cossitt enlisted, probably in N. Y. Was taken prisoner by Confederates. Died, 1866, from inhuman treatment.”

Now, that’s more to work with!

There was all that Illinois stuff, so I went to a Illinois database of Civil War soldiers page and searched for “Coss”, it returned a “Cossitt” alright, John Cossitt (?) but a few lines above John Cossitt was a “COSSET, HENRY C. Co. C, 11th IL. Cavalry with a “residence” of “BOLIVER, TN”. Well, it should have said BOLIVAR, TN, which is just north of my GGGF’s and Henry’s homes.

At the page with rosters of the companies of the 11th, I found for Company C,
“COSSET, Henry C Recruit Boliver, Tenn. --- --- ” those blanks were where “date of muster” and “remarks” should have been. “Recruit” what is that? Oh well.

So now it looks like I’ve found his unit. Now what about that Pocohontas battle, well there was a sort of a battle near at Davis’ Bridge, near the Hatchie River and Pocahontas, TN on Sept. 25 in which the 11th Illinois cavalry “met with a severe loss”. So that must be the place! (?)

http://tennessee.civilwarsourcebook.com/collection/1862-09/1862-09-Article-120-Page158.pdf

Now I did some research on the 11th Illinois Cavalry to see just what they did before Henry was taken prisoner.

Well, they were at Shiloh, some companies with Lew Wallace and some in the “Hornet’s Nest” with Benjamin Prentiss. I even got into a correspondence with someone else who’s ancestor was also in Company ‘C’ about which companies were where. We sort of settled on Prentiss.

So that’s a good story, but just doing some more web searching, I fond at ancestry.com an entry for “Henry Cosset” (same misspelling) Residence: “Bolivar, Tennessee“; Enlist Date: “1 Sep 1862”.

Whoops! Couldn’t have been with Company ‘C’ at Shiloh!

So this ‘recruit’ joined the 11th at Bolivar, TN on Sept. 1, 1862?

It just so happens that the 11th IL Cav. Had just arrived at Bolivar, and fought a skirmish there on August 30, 1862.

So Henry must have been recruited there 2 days later.
And only served a few weeks before he was captured on Sept. 25!

There goes my story. So I decided to post it here.
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Well, in the process of entering the above info, I did some last checking of odds and ends.

Just when I thought I had the picture, the picture changed!

Odds: I finally checked for a Cossitt, Cossett, or Cosset in the 6th Iowa Infantry.
Darned if I didn’t find one:
Under “Company F”
“Cossett, Henry C. Age 18. Residence Sallisburg, nativity Tennessee. Enlisted June 14, 1862. Mustered June 14, 1862. Deserted July 6, 1862.”

What’s this? Saulsbury, TN (not Sallisburg) is Henry’s home! Gotta be the same Henry.

It so happens that the 6th Iowa Infantry was tromping around that area. From their service record:

“March to Memphis, Tenn., via La-Grange, Grand Junction and Holly Springs June 2-July 21.”

So it looks like Henry joined the 6th Iowa, in the same manner in which he later joined the 11th IL Cav., he just joined up when they came along.

But “deserted”? 3 weeks after enlisting? At least he lasted 3 and a half weeks with the 11th IL Cav. before being captured. Hmmm, if he was captured. What if he was a SPY!

Naw, he was more likely just an 18 year old knucklehead.

OK, he couldn’t have done much with the 6th Iowa, other than desert. Well, he was so close to home, it would sure be tempting!

Ends: That must be the end of the story, right?

Well, just one more thing to check. The 1st Alabama Cavalry.

At the 1st Alabama Cavalry, USV webpage, there is a Searchable Roster feature.

I clicked on ‘C’ and lo and behold, down the list I found one “Cossett, Henry”. I clicked on that name and here’s what came back:

Henry Cossett
Rank at enlistment: Private
Company Assignment: G
Notes:
Temporarily attached from 11th Illinois Cavalry.

That’s it, no dates, but it seems that the 1st Alabama Cavalry, USV was organized in October, 1862 by a large bunch of Alabama Unionists who didn’t like the way they were being treated after the Confederate Conscription Acts of 1862. They eventually became a part of the Army of the Tennessee under Grenville Dodge.

Interesting regiment, here are 2 links:

http://www.1stalabamacavalryusv.com/
http://www.swannco.net/1st_Ala_Cav/

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The Diary: When I found LG’s email address at that website about River Boats, I also found that he was not just “LG“, but “LG III“, so that narrowed down my LG search. By Googling, I found one LG III in a long list of donors to a college in the Northwest. At that webpage there was an email link to an administrator at that college. I used that to ask about LG. She replied that she would pass along my inquiry to LG. A few days later I received an email from LG!

As LG describes it, it is less a ‘diary’ and more like a schoolboy notebook of friends names, minor incidents, etc. from Henry’s time in NY/NJ. He apparently briefly attended a Rome Academy in Upstate New York, and that the ‘military school’ turned out to be something called Eagleswood Military Academy at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, a short lived school that shut down when the war started.

So the ‘diary’ turned out not to contain any info about the war, but at least I was able to hunt it down and find out about it.

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Well, for me, till I explore the National Archives records, that’s the end of Henry Clay Cossitt’s story.

Don’t know what happened to him between his service with the 1st AL. Cav. and his marriage in the Fall of 1864 or between then and his death in July, 1866.

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But here’s my speculation about what I did find:

This 18 year old returned home, some time in 1861, to Southwest Tennessee (Saulsbury, Hardeman County, TN) after his short stint in the East at Eagleswood military school. Back home, he found his family divided, some staunch Unionists and others who sympathized with the Rebels. His own cousin Charles Edward Cossitt was a captain in the 2nd Infantry of the Confederate Army. Another cousin Franklin Dwight Cossitt was helping Gen. Sherman, repairing railroad trestles, etc. in preparation for Grant’s advance into Mississippi.

It is now 1862, and the Confederate Conscription Act means young men must take sides, or suffer the consequences.

One day in June the 6th Iowa Infantry comes to that area, and Henry makes the decision to join the Union army. So he throws in with these Iowans. After a few weeks of marching around in his own home area, he becomes disillusioned/discouraged (?), and just goes home (deserts) for a time.

Some weeks later he happens, for whatever reason, to be at Bolivar, the County seat of Hardeman County, TN. On August 30 or 31, the 11th Illinois Cavalry enters Bolivar on their fine horses. Henry is intrigued, that beats marching! (“If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry!”) He enlists with the 11th IL on September 1.

For a few weeks the 11th does some routine patrolling, with nothing more than a few minor skirmishes with the enemy.

Then, on September 25, 1862, while on expedition with the 15th Michigan Infantry, encamped for the night near Pocahontas,TN at Davis‘ bridge, across the Hatchie River, they are surprised by a Rebel attack, “inclosed on three sides by the enemy’s infantry and cavalry in overwhelming numbers”. “A hot fire ensued”. “From the confusion arising in the dark” “about 100 escaped” of “200 men of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry and 90 men” of the Michigan unit. Lt. Col. John McDermott reports “I am unable to form an idea of our loss, but it must be large.”
Henry is “taken prisoner at the battle near Pocohontas, Tenn., and carried south” to where, we do not know.

At this point in the war it is presumable that he was paroled, but the family history reports that he fell ill during this time with a ‘cold’ which would later develop into ‘consumption’, so he may have been held for some time.

So we have a missing period here. We can only speculate.

Henry next appears, at an undetermined date, temporarily attached to the 1st Alabama Cavalry, USV, a regiment of Unionist Alabamans who have rebelled against the rebels, and would join Grant’s Army of the Tennessee. They became part of the Third Brigade, XVI Corps.

Now we don’t know just when Henry became “attached” to the 1st AL Cav., was it soon after his capture or later when the 1st AL Cav. was being integrated into the AoT?

The 1st Alabama cavalry was not organized till October 1862. They participated in several actions in west Tennessee and northern Alabama and Mississippi from that time till they went east to join the Atlanta campaign in May 1864. From Atlanta, they went with General Sherman through Georgia, and the Carolinas, played a major part in the battle of Monroe’s Crossroads, and were present at the surrender of Joseph Johnson’s Army of Tennessee.

Now it may be that if Henry was healthy enough to serve with the 1st Alabama after his presumed capture at Davis’ Bridge, that he was not held long and was exchanged. If so, perhaps a subsequent capture and imprisonment ( inhuman treatment“) led to his illness.


In fact, we know nothing about Henry between whenever he joined the 1st AL Cav and his marriage in the Fall of 1864, and then again nothing from that time until his death in July, 1866.


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