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Federal (USV)

Captain

George W. Cothran

(1834 - 1898)

Home State: New York

Command Billet: Battery Commander

Branch of Service: Artillery

Unit: 1st New York Light Artillery, Battery M

 

see his Battle Report

Before Antietam

In 1860 he was a 26 year old lawyer in Lockport, NY. He enrolled at Lockport on 18 September 1861 and mustered as Captain, Battery M, First New York Light Artillery on 14 October 1861.

To day [4 June 1862], I have received the Presidents order of yesterday in Captain Cothrans case, 'vacating the sentence and returning him to duty as Captain of New York Artillery'. He had been dismissed March 6th by General McClellan's order, in execution of the sentence of a Court Martial.
(from a letter of J.F. Lee, Army Judge Advocate's Office, to the President's Secretary, J. G. Nicolay - online in the Library of Congress collection)

On the Campaign

He commanded the battery in Maryland.

The rest of the War

He resigned on 24 April 1863.

After the War

He practiced law in Buffalo and was elected County Judge in 1877. He practiced in Chicago, IL from 1879 to 1885, then returned to Buffalo.

References & notes

His service from the Adjutant General.1 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, and his obituary in the Buffalo Morning Express of 1 January 1899. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Jenny Mann (1842-1892) and they had a daughter Elsie.

Birth

02/25/1834; Royalton, NY

Death

12/23/1898; Buffalo, NY; burial in Forest Lawn, Buffalo, NY

Notes

1   State of New York, Adjutant-General, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York [year]: Registers of the [units], 43 Volumes, Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1893-1905, For the Year 1896, Vol. 2, pg. 91  [AotW citation 29511]