John Clifford Cobb was born around 1837 in Westbrook, Maine, to Jonathan and Mary Cobb. He married Hannah M. Hawkes on September 5, 1859, and they had at least eight children: Albert, born around 1862; Frederick, born around 1864; Frank, born around 1866; Mary, born around 1869; Alice, born around 1870; Grace, born around 1873; Helen, born around 1877; and John, born around 1879. He worked as a lawyer in South Thomaston, Maine.

 

In 1861, he served as a 1^st lieutenant in the 4^th Maine Infantry. That December, he became a 1^st lieutenant in Company D of the 15^th Maine Infantry. In August 1863, he was promoted to colonel of the 2^nd Corps de Afrique Engineers, which later became the 96^th USCT Infantry. Years later, he recalled that “neither officers nor men were ever known to fail in their duty to themselves, to their regiment, or to their country. They stood by their colors upon every battlefield and in every engagement, without a break in their ranks. I believe this to have been true of the colored troops generally, upon every battlefield from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. No braver or better soldiers ever wore the uniform of the United States Army or in fact of any other army.”  He resigned in the summer of 1865.

 

He settled in Windham, Maine, after the war, and he resumed his work as a lawyer. By 1870, he owned $4,000 of real estate and $6,350 of personal property. He moved to Portland, Maine, in the 1870s. He applied for a federal pension in 1890 and eventually received one. He died of apoplexy in Portland on April 2, 1910.

 

Image: John C. Cobb (Maine State Archives)

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