Joseph B. Cahoon - update 7/16/2017

Joseph B. Cahoon was born August 29, 1841 in Gifford, Maine, or possibly in Gifford, Belknap County, New Hampshire, and was probably the son of John Cahoon (1792-1850) and Maine native Beulah Potter (1806-1874).

Sometime between 1845 and 1850 the family left New England and moved to Michigan. By 1850 the family (listed as “Calhoun”) had settled in Danby, Ionia County, where Joseph’s older brother George was listed as the head of the household. That same year Joseph was reported as attending school with his siblings and living with his mother and brother George in Danby. By 1860 George (now married to Michigan native Adaline) was living in Lowell, Kent County.

Joseph stood 5’10” with blue eyes, sandy hair and a light complexion, and was a 20-year-old farmer possibly living in Lowell when he enlisted at the age of 20 in Company D on May 13, 1861. (Company D was composed in large part of men who came from eastern Kent County, western Ionia County and Eaton County.) His older brother George apparently served in Company B, 1st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics, and in 1864 his younger brother Charles joined in the 1st Michigan Light Artillery.

George Miller of Company A, and who was from Bowne, Kent County, wrote home in late November of 1861 that Cahoon had “applied for a discharge on account of disability of some sort. I don’t know what, he couldn’t stand it to march, [and] his papers are being made out.” In fact, Joseph was discharged for an inguinal hernia which he had suffered “previous to enlistment,” on December 2, 1861 at Fort Lyon, Virginia, and left for Michigan the next day. On December 4, Miller informed his parents, “I sent a book to you by Joseph Cahoon. He left home here for home yesterday, [and] he must be nearly there [Kent County] now.”

Joseph did indeed return to western Michigan, and by 1863 was reported to be living in Lowell when he registered for the draft in the summer of 1863 but apparently working as a sawyer in Muskegon County. It does not appear that Joseph reentered the service. There is no further record. In fact, it appears that Joseph was a civilian working as a teamster, probably for the army when he died in Memphis, Tennessee and was buried in Memphis National Cemetery: section A, grave 26.

Joseph’s older brother George was still living in Lowell in 1870; also living in Lowell was his mother Beulah, who had apparently remarried to a Mr. Haight, but who was living with her son Charles F. (probably for Ferdinand) Cahoon. George was still living in Lowell in 1880 and was probably living in Missouri in 1890 when he applied for and received a pension for his service in the Michigan Engineers and Mechanics.

John G. Byrns

John G. Byrns was born 1843 in Canada, the son of David (b. 1801) and Charlotte (b. 1817).

Both of his parents were Canadian natives and were probably married in Canada sometime before 1841. The family lived in Canada for some years before immigrating to the United States, eventually settling in Michigan sometime between 1853 and 1857. By 1860 John was probably attending school with his siblings and living with his family in Grand Rapids’ Third Ward, Kent County, where his father worked as a shoemaker and shoe dealer.

John was 18 years old and probably still living in Kent County when he enlisted with his parents’ consent in Company A on May 13, 1861. Although he was reported to have deserted sometime around June 1, 1862 at Washington, DC, he was also reported on furlough in July of 1862, and in fact, he had returned home to Grand Rapids where he married Mary Smith on June 28, 1862.

The remaining details of Byrns’ service remain unclear. Colonel Stephen Champlin, who was commanding the Third Regiment in the summer of 1862, was himself home in Michigan on furlough after being wounded at Fair Oaks, Virginia, on May 31, 1862, and notified Michigan Adjutant General John Robertson in Detroit that “A young man named Byrnes . . . is showing a certificate recommending him to a commission with my name attached.” He informed the Adjutant General that “If he should show such to Gov. [Austin] Blair [of Michigan], please assure the gov. that the same is a forgery.”

Sergeant Charles Wright of Company A, discussed Byrns’ character at some length in a letter he wrote home in early 1863.

I have heard [Wright wrote home on February 23] of the arrest and confinement of one John Byrns in your city [Grand Rapids]. He was formerly of my company and after the battle of Fair Oaks (in which he was not a participant) he deserted and has never been heard from until now. He always was set down by the boys as a coward and we all know he is a thief. The day before the battle of Fair Oaks he was detailed to go to the rear and across the Chickahominy and guard our knapsacks which had been previously sent back in anticipation of a battle. He robbed some of the knapsacks of clothing and found other articles which were afterwards found with him. So he pretended to be wounded after the battle, and got passage to Washington. There he waited upon Cap. Geo. Judd, and in a few days forged a furlough and deserted. Now if it is so they have got him locked up in jail at Grand Rapids, I hope he may be sent here to be punished; such a mean . . . coward deserves punishment at the hands of his own officers and men. I know all the boys would like to see his head shaved and the letter D branded upon him, for even that would a light punishment, for such a coward as he.

There is, however, no public record of Byrns’s trial or confinement in Grand Rapids, nor is there any further record of his military service or postwar life, and no pension seems to be available.

There was one John Byrns, a resident of Chicago, who enlisted as a Sergeant on July 25, 1862 in Company A, Seventy-second Illinois infantry, and subsequently deserted on December 31, 1862. He was at one point reduced to the ranks as a Private. There was also a“John Byrns”, who enlisted as a Private on March 26, 1863, in Unassigned, Twelfth Pennsylvania cavalry. Again, there is no further record.

In any case, there are no further details on his family nor do we know of what became of his wife Mary.

Thomas Byers

Thomas Byers, also known as “Boyers”, was born August 25, 1830, in Tyrone, Ireland.

Thomas left Ireland and immigrated first to Canada. He subsequently moved from Waterdown, Ontario, Canada with the family of James Rice and settled in Croton, Newaygo County, Michigan. By 1860 he had “settled on swamp land” in Leonard, Mecosta County. He claimed many years after the war that he had been orphaned as a very young child and raised by an older sister.

Thomas stood 5’0” tall with gray eyes, dark hair and a dark complexion and was unable to read or write (at least in 1860) and was 31 years old and living in Newaygo County when he enlisted in Company H on April 27, g1861. (Company H, formerly the “Muskegon Rangers”, was made up largely of men from the vicinity of Muskegon and Newaygo counties.) Although he “was too short,” wrote the Muskegon Chronicle many years later, “for the required height, [he] was determined to enlist and go with the rest of the boys [from Croton]. He stood on tiptoe inside of his boots [and] they finally accepted him.”

Nor apparently did Thomas lack spirit. At the thirty-second annual reunion of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association in 1903, it was reported that during the war “Tommy was the midget of the Regiment. He is five feet tall and weighs 70 pounds. In spite of this handicap at the battle of Fair Oaks he captured a rebel 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. Tommy marched him into camp and presented him with his compliments to the commanding officer.”

This story was apparently well-known throughout the Regiment. Wallace Dickinson, a member of Company K, wrote that during the battle at Fair Oaks, Virginia, on May 31, 1862, “Tommy Byers,” whom Dickinson described as “a witty Irishman” noticed “a large secesher trying to secret himself in the brush. Tommy went up to him and informed him that his assistance was needed to carry off a wounded captain. He good naturedly complied, and took the captain on his back and carried him to the rear.”

Thomas was absent sick suffering from inflammation of the eyes and treated on board a hospital steamer near Harrison’s Landing in mid-August of 1862. He was subsequently admitted to the army hospital in York, Pennsylvania and returned to duty on September 2. He was again absent sick from April of 1863 through July, and was treated at the regimental hospital around May 1, sent on to the Convalescent Camp, near Alexandria, Virginia, where he remained until he was returned to duty in mid-November. Soon after he returned to the regiment, however, he suffered from a bout of intermittent fever in late November and was sent to the Third Brigade, hospital, First Division, Third Corps, on or about November 24.

Tommy had returned to duty by the time he reenlisted as a Musician on December 23, 1863, at Brandy Station, Virginia, crediting Muskegon, Muskegon County. He was presumably absent on veteran’s furlough in January of 1864 and probably rejoined the Regiment on or about the first of February. He was transferred to Company A, Fifth Michigan infantry upon consolidation of the Third and Fifth Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864, and on June 22, 1865, was admitted to Jefferson hospital in Jeffersonville, Indiana, suffering from pleurisy. He was mustered out of service on July 5, 1865 at Jeffersonville. The Muskegon Chronicle of March 28, 1912, wrote that there “There was no better soldier than Tommy.”

After the war Thomas returned to western Michigan and was working as a "cooker" for Nelson Higbee, a wealthy lumberman, in Croton, Newaygo County. In 1865 he noted his marital status as ‘single”, listing his nearest relative as a friend by the name of George Baggard.

Thomas was probably living in Mecosta County when he married Phebe or Phoeba Douglas (b. 1854) on December 6, 1870, at Higbee’s farm in Mecosta County. They had at least seven children: William “Willie” (b. 1875), John (b. 1877), Albert (b. 1879), Emma Jane (b. 1882), Bertha May (b. 1886), Etta Matilda (b. 1892) and Helen or Ellen (b. 1894).

By 1880 Tommy was working as a farmer and living with his wife and children in Aetna, Mecosta County and then in Morley, Mecosta County where he probably lived for many years, moving to Howard City, Mecosta County sometime between 1903 and his death in 1912. It is possible that in 1890 Tommy was working as a laborer in Saginaw, Saginaw County and boarding at the Rellis House.

Thomas was a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association, and in 1888 he applied for and received a pension (no. 529964), drawing at the rate of $15.00 per month when he died.
The Muskegon Chronicle of March 28, 1912 wrote that “at one time Dr. Brown of Morley tried to get him an increase of pension, but was rejected. The doctor then took off his attire and sent his photo to Washington. Then he received an increase to $15.00, which was all. He was ill and blind about two years, but the government gave him no more. The writer visited him last January and it seemed a shame for a man who had served his country for four years as faithfully as did Tommy to be allowed but $15.00 a month.”

Thomas died a widower in Howard City on March 28, 1912, and was buried in Morley cemetery alongside his wife, who, it was noted, had "died some years ago.”

Rufus Buxton

Rufus Buxton was born January 20, 1840, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Simeon (1812-1866) and Rhoda Ann (Haskins, 1809-1891).

Simeon was born in Sutton, Massachusetts and he married Boston native Rhoda in 1831, probably in Massachusetts. The family was living in Massachusetts in 1834 and in Chazy Corners, Massachusetts in 1837; by 1840 they were residing in Boston, Massachusetts . They were living in New Bedford, Berkshire County, Massachusetts in 1843 and still in Massachusetts in 1845, but sometime after 1846 they moved westward and may have settled for a short time in Ohio.

In any case, according to one source, Rufus, and presumably his family, probably settled for a time in Ionia County, Michigan. quite probably Odessa where in about 1853 or 1854 he made the acquaintance of King Olmstead. (King and Rufus would enlist together in Company D, Third Michigan during the war.) By 1860 Rufus was living with the George Myers (?) family in Woodland, Barry County; that same year Simeon and his family were living in Odessa, Ionia County, and in fact, Simeon and Rhoda would live in Odessa for the rest of their lives.

Rufus stood 5’5’ with blue eyes, brown hair and a light complexion, and was a 22-year-old farmer probably living in Ionia County when he enlisted along with King Olmstead in Company D on March 5, 1862, at Saranac, Ionia County for 3 years, and was mustered the same day. (Company D was composed in large part of men who came from western Ionia County and Eaton County.) He was sick in the hospital, suffering from measles, scurvy and typhoid fever, probably in Alexandria, Virginia, from July through August, and reported as a deserter on September 21, 1862, at Upton’s Hill, Virginia. He was treated at the general hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia and on the hospital boat at Fort Monroe.

In fact he had been hospitalized at least since July, and sometime in October arrived in New York City aboard the hospital ship Europe along with 250 other sick and wounded soldiers. Rufus was reported sick with chronic diarrhea although his prognosis was good and it was thought he would return to duty. In fact, he was discharged for chronic diarrhea of 3 months’ duration on November 2, 1862, at the Convalescent Camp near Alexandria.

Rufus returned to Ionia after he left the army and married Ohio native Zarah Dolly Probasco (1849-1912), on February 26, 1863, in Muir, Ionia County, and they had at least five children: Guy H. (b. 1864), Frank James (b. 1865) Ben (b. 1867), Glendora (b. 1869 and died as an infant) and Benjamin (b. 1890). Zarah and Rufus were divorced in Watonga, Oklahoma, on June 21, 1906.

In 1865 they were possibly living in Grand Haven, Ottawa County where their son Frank was born. They lived in Ionia County for some years and by 1869 were residing in Odessa. They were still living in Odessa in 1870 next door to his old friend and former Company D comrade, King Olmstead and his wife. Rufus was still living in Ionia County in 1876 and in Odessa in 1878, and in 1880 Rufus and his family were still living in Odessa, still near King’s family.

Around 1880 – although King Olmstead thought it in about 1884 or 1885 -- Rufus moved to Kansas where he reportedly lived until about 1892 when he moved to Oklahoma where they were living in 1906 when they were divorced. Rufus was living in Geary, Blaine County, Oklahoma in 1910, 1912, 1914 and in 1915, although he also spent some time in New Mexico as well during this same period. By 1920 he was living in Watonga, Oklahoma.

Rufus married his second wife, Mary D. Gibson, on February 22, 1912, in Geary, Blaine County, Oklahoma. (Mary was a widower; her husband Adnah Shelley died in 1904.)

He received pension no. 33,664 (?), dated 1863 (?).

Rufus died on June 25, 1925, in Geary, Blaine County, Oklahoma, and was presumably buried there.