William Downs

It has arrived! The National Archives file for the Civil War pension application by John Cozart for support of Tillman Andrew’s offspring is here. And additional records for the Civil War veteran William Downs/Downes (both spellings are seen in documents and are used by me) have been obtained from Fold3. Perhaps we can begin to answer the question—Were Tillman and William the same person? [See The Mysterious Tillman.]

Enlistment.

Let’s first look at what we know about William's military stint.

In Holyoke, Massachusetts, on 22 June 1864, at age 21 (born c1843), William Downs, said to be born in Delaware, enlisted in the Union Army for three years. For signing up he received $25 of a $100 enlistment bounty, with $75 to be paid at a later date, plus $13 for one-month’s pay in advance. Bounties were given out to attract recruits by both the Union and the Confederacy. The original enlistment document shows that William Downs, like Tillman, was illiterate.

On 21 June 1865, after exactly one-year’s service as a private in Company A of the 3^rd Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry, William went AWOL in St. Louis, Missouri, while the regiment was enroute from Winchester, Massachusetts, to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where the 3rd Regiment was mustered out 28 Sep 1865. Might he have believed that he had only enlisted for one year?  The Enrollment Act of 3 March 1863 specified a bounty of $300 for 3-year enlistments, but William had been awarded only $100. Then, a month after going AWOL, William was declared a deserter. During the Civil War, desertion was rampant. Out of a little more than 2 million men, the Union Army had over 200,000 deserters, with some estimates going as high as 280,000. Ten percent or more of Union soldiers deserted! But despite the large numbers (or because of them), punishment could be severe with jailtime or even execution. That threat could certainly have caused the missing William to adopt an alias ("Tillman Andrew"?). 

On 5 Jul 1884, the U.S. 48th Congress passed a bill removing the charge of desertion for volunteer soldiers who had served until 1 May 1865 and had served for six months or more prior to that date. William's AWOL and desertion charges were removed and his discharge date was officially made 21 June 1865, the date he went missing.

AWOL, desertion                                             But all was forgiven

Someone decided Lucinda was William’s widow.

    On 25 Oct 1895, Lucinda Andrews, widow of “Wm. W. Downes,” received his arrears of pay to include the discharge date of 21 June 1865. We do not know the date she claimed the money, nor why the record shows her as “Lucinda Andrews,” not “Lucinda Summers” or “Lucinda Cozart.” Perhaps she applied for the settlement when she believed Tillman to be dead, but before she married James Jordan Summers. Death would have been difficult to "prove," explaining a long waiting period.

The payment record states “claim was allowed on satisfactory evidence of claimants heirs wife and soldier’s celibacy.” The phrase “soldier’s celibacy,” seen in a few other Civil War pension records, may mean that that William had no other wives who could be claimants. That there was “satisfactory evidence” that Lucinda was the widow of William W. Downes is startling. She received the back pay a month before 25 Nov 1895, the date that her third husband, John Cozart, applied for support of Tillman’s children. Nearly all the large file obtained from the National Archives concerns Cozart’s claim and documents the extensive investigation to prove that William Downs and Tillman Andrew were the same person, that Tillman was dead, that Tillman was actually Lucinda’s husband, etc. And that investigation was done after someone in Washington had already decided that Lucinda was William’s widow. But records of that inquiry (if there was one) have yet to be found.

The next blog will look at the investigation in support of Cozart’s claim for child support. In the meantime, if any of you would like a free no-strings-attached copy of the National Archive file just click on the link below. You don’t need the Dropbox app. If you get a "Log in or Sign Up" message just ignore it. Press the download button at the top right of the web page. You will then get (another) "Log in or Sign Up" message. Just click "Or continue with dropdown only" at the bottom of that message. You need not log in or sign up. It is not necessary to be a Dropbox user. Leave a comment or send me an email if you have problems.

Pension File Download