Throughout the Civil War, general orders were sometimes necessary to effect changes in or make clarifications to policies, procedures, discipline, or to address a variety of other concerns. On September 28, 1863, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton issued such a directive, one which symbolized one way the war had changed since its commencement.
General Orders No. 323.
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Washington, September 28, 1863.
In section 10, act of March 3, 1863, it is enacted "That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, authorized to cause to be enlisted for each cook (two allowed by section 9) two undercooks of African descent, who shall receive for their full compensation $10 per month and one ration per day; $3 of said monthly pay may be in clothing."
For a regular company, the two undercooks will be enlisted; for a volunteer company, they will be mustered into service, as in the cases of other soldiers. In each case a remark will be made on their enlistment papers showing that they are undercooks of African descent.
Their names will be borne on the company muster-rolls at the foot of the list of privates. They will be paid, and their accounts will be kept, like other enlisted men. They will also be discharged in the same manner as other soldiers.
By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.[1]
This order allowed male African Americans to serve in the same units as whites and receive the same treatment as soldiers, not as servants. Its insistence on mentioning their heritage in the paperwork and their pay being less than that of white soldiers reinforces the fact that race was still an issue, but allowing these men to serve in the same units as whites and treating them as soldiers was a small step towards more opportunities for men like them, an idea that had been completely unfathomable to most civil and military leaders two years previously.
One man who took advantage of this opportunity was Cornelius Green Cannon.[2]
Cornelius had been born on February 3, 1846, in Franklin County, Missouri to parents Cornelius and Martha.[3]
On June 1, 1863, he joined company F of the 23rd Missouri Infantry, in Rolla, Missouri. He joined for a three-year term as an under cook, as General Order No. 323 allowed.
The army was naturally curious about his physical condition. The examiner who looked over him found that he had been sick with a fever six years previously, but at present had no disease. He had never had an injury on his head, or any sprain, fractures, or dislocation. He also had avoided the piles (a.k.a. hemorrhoids) and did not have trouble urinating. He was not in “the habit of drinking.”
He had, however, been vaccinated from smallpox and did have a large scar on his left thigh above the knee, the result of a burn.
The inspecting surgeon declared: “This man (a Negro) was examined in accordance with the General Regulations of Army and is free from all bodily defect which would in any way disqualify him from performing the duties of a company cook.”
At this time, the 17-year-old Cornelius (who was listed as 18 on his paperwork), stood 5 feet 8 inches tall, and his eyes, hair, and complexion were all described as “black.” His occupation was that of a farmer.
Once Cornelius joined it, the 23rd Missouri saw action in military assignments such as the Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea in 1864, and it was present when General Joe Johnston surrendered his Confederate army in North Carolina in April of 1865. These men later marched in the Grand Review of the Union Armies before moving back to Louisville, where the regiment mustered out of service on July 18.
By 1898, he was a Methodist preacher in Lexington, Kentucky, living with his wife Katie, whom he had married in 1888.
1900 found him still working as a preacher, now in Jessamine County, Kentucky, but that year’s census shows he had been married for just one year and did not list the name of his bride.
He continued to roam, arriving in Campbell County by 1903, when a minor family incident took place in Newport.
A local boy stole $5 from a Newport bakery and gave $1.50 of it to Cornelius’ son James and another youngster. The 14-year-old James and his companion received thirty-day jail sentences for possessing that stolen money.[4]
This incident was especially embarrassing for a preacher’s family, as the Kentucky Post of October 16 reported. It informed readers that Cornelius had “chastised his son, Jesse Cannon, 14, in the Newport Jail after securing his release Thursday,” and that he “returned the money his boy had received and then lashed him with a rawhide until he promised never to commit such an offense again.”[5]
Sadly, Jesse died in April of the next year, just six months after this incident.
At this point, the frustration often present in genealogical research enters this story.
One page of the 1910 census, listing him as Reverend Cornelius Cannon, shows that he was working as a minister at a Methodist Church in Campbell County, though a local genealogy website reports he worked at the Corinthian Baptist Church. It is unlikely, but not inconceivable, that he worked at both houses of worship. He lived with Katherine and their daughter Mary on Fourth Street in Newport.[6]
For some reason, however, he appears a second time on that census, this one reporting him living in Falmouth in Pendleton County and working as a minister. The odds of there being two African American ministers with an unusual name like Cornelius Cannon living in neighboring counties in that one year are low, so it is probable that he worked in both places trying to do every job he could to support his small family. Perhaps this was his version of “riding the circuit,” to reach different congregations, with him having two dependable places he could stay.
This record is barely legible but appears to spell his first name as “Carneluousy.” It also shows him as having been married for twenty-one years but did not include his wife’s name. He was reported as 64 years old with Missouri as his birthplace and minister for his occupation, each of which are correct.
The first 1910 record, showing him in Newport was taken a week before the Falmouth census and shows him married to Katherine for twenty years, but incorrectly lists him as only 49 years old and born in Illinois.
Why such basic information about him is so clearly wrong is unclear, but perhaps he was in Falmouth when the census taker visited Newport and whoever provided his information – possibly his teenage daughter – gave wrong information. It is also conceivable that the enumerator, not the same as in Falmouth, somehow made these errors.
On February 19, 1916, Cornelius entered the Dayton, Ohio branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. He was now measured at 5 feet 6 inches tall, and had a black complexion, dark eyes, and black hair. He could read and write, and, as his past work had shown, held Protestant religious views.
This record shows him as a cook, which he had been in the war, so he apparently took on that chore in the home. At 70 years old, his body was starting to give him trouble, as he was suffering from heart disease, defective vision, chronic rheumatism, and a frequent micturition (urination.)
It shows his pension had been $17 per month, but increased to $23 on January 2, 1916, $30 on January 2, 1921, and finally to $40.
The home’s record also shows Katherine living at 129 West 2nd Street in Newport.
Despite the usual rules of that era's society, it was not unusual for men like Cornelius to be in the soldiers home. This facility freely admitted African Americans and even “established a policy of racial equality,” but such idealism did not survive the onset of Jim Crow. “In the decades following the Civil War the level of equality became less and less,” but even when these men did enjoy the same benefits as their white colleagues, “they were segregated within the facility and slept in separate barracks and ate at different tables.”[7]
In 1920, he again appeared on two census entries. One correctly reports him in the Dayton Soldier’s home, with his occupation listed as “company commander.”
The other record lists him still in Newport, with his wife and daughter, but describes his occupation as an overseer at the soldier’s home. These two records show that the census taker knew he was at the facility in Dayton but that it was likely to be a temporary stay, with Cornelius expecting to return to Newport.
Cornelius did soon make that return. He left the home by his own request on February 2, 1926, and was back with his family, living at 129 Second Street in Newport by 1930.
In 1938, Cornelius, whom the Kentucky Post specified was a “negro Civil War veteran” rode in a car during a local Memorial Day Parade, giving his service its well-deserved recognition.[8]
As the 1940s started, the family remained in the same home. Cornelius owned the dwelling but had not worked in 1939. This latest census reported that the highest level of education he had completed was third grade, not surprising given the era in which he was born. He may have been fortunate to get even that.
Two years later, in 1942, locals gathered at St. Paul’s A.M.E. Church in Newport to celebrate Cornelius’ service, acknowledging that he was “believed to be the oldest known survivor of the Civil War.” The ceremony featured speakers and local fraternal groups.[9]
A city directory for the same year listed him as a carpenter. Was the 96-year-old really working or was that a former occupation? Perhaps it was simply an error by the book publisher.
He again joined in the Memorial Day parades in 1942 and 1943, with one story referring to him and his fellow Civil War veterans by noting that only “one member of a group that has marched in many Memorial Day parades of years gone by will be in Newport’s line of march Saturday.” Eight decades after the war, its survivors were quickly going extinct.[10]
Another account concerning the 1942 parade declared him to be “the last Civil War veteran in Campbell County" as the local press did not shy away from acknowledging his service and long life.[11]
Heart disease took Cornelius’ life on November 5, 1944, in Newport. He had lived to the ripe old age of 98, and was laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery. He had led a long life through a remarkable century of change, from the age of slavery all the way to the brink of nuclear war.
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4Kentucky Post, October 11, 1903
5Kentucky Post, October 16, 1903
6https://www.usgenwebsites.org/KYCampbell/aacorneliuscannon.htm, Accessed January 28, 2026
7://www.nps.gov/articles/history-of-disabled-volunteer-soldiers.htm, Accessed January 28, 2026
8Kentucky Post, May 18, 1938
11Kentucky Post, May 21, 1942
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