William Edward Cobb (1843-1888)
My Paternal Great Grandfather, married Celia Martha Spivey
William Edward Cobb, the son of James Lang Cobb and Fannie May Williams, was born on December 20, 1843 in Bertie County, North Carolina. In the 1860 William at the age of sixteen lived at home with his widowed mother and three siblings on a farm. He turned 18 years of age in the year the simmering tensions between the North and South erupted into civil war. He enlisted as a private in the confederate infantry in August of 1861 and discharged a year later with a disability.
The draft set in place by the Confederate Congress initially applied to white men between the ages of 18 and 35 but as war conditions worsened they were expanded to age 17 to 50 and then in desperation age16 to 65. Initially if you owned more than 20 enslaved persons you were exempt, and the wealthy could pay someone to take their place. By 1864 even these loop holes were eliminated.
North Carolina provided 125,000 soldiers to the Confederacy, more than any other Southern state, and their casualties amounted to a staggering 40,000 men. For context, consider that in the 1860 census, the total number of men eligible for the initial draft in North Carolina was about 129,000.
[Photo: Wounded Soldiers in the Civil War]
Conditions for the soldiers fighting the war were horrific. More died from the wounds they suffered then those that died during the battle itself. Inadequately clothed and armed, it was amazing the rebels lasted as long as they did.
Families left at home also suffered great depravations. Houses were stripped of draperies, linens, quilts and even carpets to provide clothing for North Carolina's troops. Church bells were melted down and recast as cannon.
Bacon soared from $.33 to $7.50 per pound, wheat from $3 to $50 a bushel, and coffee sold at $100 per pound. Confronted with scarcities, exorbitant prices, and depreciating currency, families lived life on the edge.
The reconstruction period after the war was also a time of great suffering for the South. Against all odds, William managed to survive both the war and reconstruction period and carve out a nice life for himself and his family.
[Photo: Image of Reconstruction Era in the South]
After the war, William was a correspondent for the Tarboro Southerner newspaper, (one of the oldest daily newspapers in North Carolina, which began publishing in 1826), and then entered the mercantile business. On November 21, 1884, at the age of 41, he married 25 year old Celia Martha Spivey of Woodville, North Carolina. The wedding announcement in the Raleigh Register described him as a “prosperous merchant of Tarboro.” Just over nine months later, Celia gave birth to their son, John Edward (1885); followed by a second son Thomas Spivey in May of 1887. John Edward was my grandfather.
In 1887 William and his family moved to Windsor, North Carolina where he worked in general merchandising and then to Lewiston, North Carolina where he worked with his brother-in-law, James W. Spivey in the same trade. While living in Lewiston, he was also a regular correspondent for a local newspaper.
[Photo: Image of old newspaper printing press]
The family was living the good life, until tragically in January of 1888, William caught pneumonia. In an era prior to the use of antibiotics, treatment options called for misguided efforts to remove “excess fluid from the body”, the use of cathartics to purge the gastrointestinal tract, the use of mercury to induce vomiting, blistering agents applied to the skin on the chest, warm broths, wraps and baths, and opium for pain. Two months after his diagnosis, William succumbed to the disease, leaving his wife Celia with two toddlers to raise alone. His obituary, which was carried by the same publication that William wrote articles for, described him as a “most affable, pleasant kind-hearted gentleman with a kind and jovial smile and word for all. His death will be regretted by both friends and acquaintances of whom he possessed a large number.”
{Photo: William and his wife Celia, buried together at the Grace Episcopal Church in Woodville North Carolina ]
