Confederate Soldier in Hudson City Cemetery

Recently a reader, who was exploring the more remote parts of the Hudson City Cemetery, sent me these pictures.

I am familiar, as most of us are, with the section of the cemetery set aside for those who fought in the Civil War--those who fought for the Union and are buried in the plot dedicated to the Grand Army of the Republic. I was surprised that a Confederate soldier was buried in the Hudson City Cemetery, so I set out to learn about Robert T. Taylor. What little I was able to discover about him is pretty intriguing. 

Robert T. Taylor, who has no apparent connection to Robert Taylor the tanner, whose house stands at the head of Tanners Lane, was born in Virginia. His tombstone indicates he fought with Company D of the 17th Virginia Infantry, which was organized at Manassas Junction, Virginia, in June 1861. Men of this unit were recruited from the city of Alexandria and the counties of Arlington (then called Alexandria County), Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, and Warren--the part of Virginia closest to Washington, D.C.

Information from the Virginia Regimental Histories Series indicates that Taylor, whose occupation is given as "farmer," enlisted on April 25, 1861, at the Fairfax Court House. He was 21 at the time, and his rank at enlistment was Private. A history of the 17th Virginia Infantry indicates that in 1865, the final year of the Civil War, much of the regiment was captured on April 6 at the Battle of Sayler's Creek and on April 9 at Appomattox Court House the regiment surrendered two officers and forty-six enlisted men. Taylor might have been one of men captured at Sayler's Creek or one of the forty-six surrendered at Appomattox. 

How Robert T. Taylor found his way to Hudson is not known, but in 1870, five years after the war ended, he appears in the census as living in Hudson and in the Hudson city directory. His occupation is given in both places as "laborer." The directory gives his address as "Public Sq n N Seventh"; the census indicates that he has a wife named Hannah (whose name appears elsewhere as Anna) and a two-year-old daughter named Lulu. We learn from the 1880 census that Anna (or Hannah) was the daughter of William Holsapple, who was a physician. In 1880, Robert and Anna, whose occupations were recorded in the census as "laborer" and "housekeeper" respectively, were living with Holsapple in his home somewhere on North Sixth Street. The 1878 Hudson city directory indicates that William Holsapple lived at 22 North Sixth Street. That address would have been somewhere near the southeast corner of Sixth and Columbia streets. The actual corner was occupied by this house, the home of Elihu and Eliza Gifford, oriented toward Columbia Street, then known as Gifford Place. 

There are a few curious discoveries made about Robert T. Taylor. In November 1871, his father-in-law filed a claim with the U.S. Southern Claims Commission (SCC). The SCC was was created by an Act of Congress in March 1871 to consider claims by Southern Unionist citizens seeking compensation for supplies that had been confiscated or furnished to the Union Army during the Civil War. Part of the process of reviewing the claim was certifying the claimant's loyalty to the Union. It is not known exactly what Holsapple sought compensation for, but his signed and notarized oath of loyalty can be found at ancestry.com.    

In the oath, Holsapple states "that he did not voluntarily serve in the Confederate army or navy, either as an officer, soldier, or sailor, or in any other capacity, at any time during the late rebellion; that he never voluntarily furnished any stores, supplies, or other material aid to said Confederate army or navy, or to the Confederate government, or to any officer, department, or adherent of the same, in support thereof; and that he never voluntarily accepted or exercised the functions of any office whatever under, or yielded voluntary support to, the said Confederate government." Interestingly, one of the witnesses to Holsapple's oath, the last named on the document, was his son-in-law, Robert T. Taylor, who did indeed voluntarily serve in the Confederate army. The fact that Holsapple filed a claim with the SCC suggests that during the Civil War he lived in the South as well, which may explain how Robert T. Taylor met his daughter. But why they all came to Hudson remains a mystery.

Here's another interesting tidbit about Robert T. Taylor's life. On April 30, 1875, the Hudson Evening Register reported his resignation as "scavenger of the Third and Fourth Wards." In the 19th century, a scavenger was a person employed to clean the streets, and apparently Taylor was employed by the City of Hudson in that capacity.

Robert T. Taylor died on January 9, 1892. He was probably just 51 years old when he died. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Hudson City Cemetery, but in October 1929, Guy H. Taylor, who I believe was Robert T.'s nephew, applied to the War Department for a headstone, and the request was granted.

Guy H. Taylor was born in Virginia in 1875, the son of Charles and Eglantine Taylor. By November 1901, when he married Edith Bachman of Hudson, Guy Taylor had moved to Hudson. In 1929, when he applied for a headstone for his uncle's grave, he and Edith were living at 501 Warren Street, in the building that had been the Central House Hotel but was converted into flats in 1918.

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