Thomas Groves Day

He came to New York State with his father, a cultivator of fruit trees, in about 1844, and they moved to Madison, IN in 1851. Just after his 20th birthday, on 22 August 1861, he enlisted there as a Private in Company E, 3rd Indiana Cavalry.

He was on the Maryland Campaign with his Company and was in action at the Quebec Schoolhouse near Middletown, MD on 13 September 1862. He lost his own carbine in that fight and picked up a Confederate Maynard carbine to replace it. He was briefly captured there and turned the Maynard over to a Confederate, who subsequently left it behind, where it was recovered by a local citizen.

He was captured again on 1 December 1863, place not given, probably by Colonel J.S. Mosby's Raiders, and was a prisoner at Florence, SC and Andersonville, GA. He was mustered out on 21 January 1865.

In 1865 he married and bought a farm at Correct in Ripley County, IN and worked it successfully to at least 1915.

In 1899 he visited Middletown, MD and met a member of the Grove family there who had the Maynard carbine he'd "captured" at Quebec Schoolhouse in September 1862. He returned home with it.

His service from the Adjutant General.1 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1870-1910, and his son's bio sketch in L.A. Harding's History of Decatur County, Indiana (1915). His gravesite is on Findagrave. Thanks to Amy Matzet for the pointer to her great-great-grandfather and the details about his experiences in Maryland in 1862 and again in 1899.

He married the girl-next-door, Rebecca Spenddiff (1841-1909) in February 1865 and they had as many as 11 children. The Spendiffs had been neighbors of the Days in England and New York before joining them in Indiana.

08/03/1841; East Malling, Kent, ENGLAND

11/15/1834; Jefferson County, IN; burial in Cliff Hill Cemetery, Versailles, IN