John Maynard
Crossman b. 1792, in Massachucetts and a veteran of the War of 1812. He was the son of Elijah Crossman b. 1755, Mass. and his second
wife Ruth Thayer. John was the half brother to Abishai Crossman b. 1814 to Elijah and his third wife Elizabeth Hewitt. This Abishai was the grandfather of William Burdette Crossman. John was married to Deborah Bailey and family lived in Crown Point, Essex County except for a
few years they were located in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin.
John and Deborah had nine children,
their youngest child Ransom was born in 1845 when John was 53 and Deborah 45.
Ransom enlisted in the Union Army when
he was just 18, Dec 1863, he was assigned as a private to the Vermont 1st
Cavalry, Co K. This company was then assigned to the Army
of the Potomac. Ransom died a liitle less than two months after he
enlisted, in Lincoln Hospital, Washington D.C. Many
soldiers were taken with horrible illnesses. Dysentery was a major
problem. The records do not say if he
was wounded but that is also possibility.
Ransom's older brother Joseph A. born in 1837 was drafted in July of
1863. He was assigned to the 83rd Regiment Infantry Co. D. His draft records say he had blue eyes
, dark brown hair, a light complexion, and was 5’4” . The record also says he was a farmer. He was killed
in the battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia 11 months after he was drafted. He was unmarried and only 26 years old
when he was killed. The 11 months
he was in service his company was involved in many of the most hard fought
bloody battles of the war. Reading through their records, it was a miracle he survived this long.
The
final battle of the Overland Campaign was the Battle of Cold Harbor. The
Vermont Brigade was one of the units selected to charge Confederate earthworks
on June 1, 1864, the very day Joseph died. Grant's attack failed and he suffered heavy losses. In less
than 10 minutes, hundreds of soldiers from the Vermont Brigade were killed or
wounded. The brigade, in less than one month of fighting, had been reduced from
2,850 men to less than 1,200.
U. S. Grant said of the battle in
his memoirs, "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor
was ever made. ... No advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy
loss we sustained." The armies confronted each other on these lines until
the night of June 12, when Grant again advanced by his left flank, marching to
the James River.
In 1867, three years after losing two of their
sons in the Civil War, both John and Deborah passed away. I don’t know why or how they died. It may have been grief and
heartbreak. The monument below has all four of their names engraved on it, one on each of the four sides.
