Charles Henry Rose

Charles Henry Rose was born in 1839 in Pennsylvania or Essex County, New Jersey, the son of John W. (b. 1817) and Charity (b. 1819).

New York natives John and Charity settled in Pennsylvania where they were reportedly living in 1839 and in 1845, but by 1859 had settled in Michigan. By 1850 “Henry” was living with his family in Waterloo, Jackson County; by 1860 Charles H. was working as a farm laborer and living with his family in Watertown, Clinton County.

He stood 5’10” with blue eyes, light hair and a light complexion and was 22 years old and living in Watertown, Clinton County when he enlisted in Company G on May 10, 1861. According to Frank Siverd of Company G, in early June Charles was sick with the measles. He was, Siverd was quick to add, “well cared for. [Regimental Surgeon D. W.] Bliss leaves nothing undone that will contribute to the comfort of the sick. To prevent the disease spreading, as soon as the first symptoms appear,” Bliss had Rose, along with several others “removed to the house of a physician, some three miles from camp.” Several days later, shortly before the regiment left Michigan in June of 1861, Siverd wrote that Charles was in the “measles infirmary.”

He apparently recovered sufficiently enough to leave Michigan with the regiment on June 13, 1861, but by the first of August Charles was reported sick in the City Hospital (possibly Alexandria) with a fever, but as of August 7 he was reported to be in the Columbian College hospital in Washington suffering from “general debility,” and the following month he was reportedly convalescing in Annapolis, Maryland.

It is quite possible that Charles remained sick through spring of 1862. Frank Siverd of Company G reported on March 17, 1862, that when the Regiment moved to begin to move out of its winter quarters to begin the spring campaign with the Army of the Potomac, Rose was left behind in the Annapolis general hospital sick with inflammation of the lungs. Rose was discharged for chronic rheumatism on May 28, 1862, at Douglas hospital in Washington, DC, and according to Homer Thayer of Company G, by mid-June had returned to Watertown to recover his health.

Charles was probably living in Watertown when he reentered the service as Sergeant in Company I, Tenth Michigan cavalry on September 7, 1863, for 3 years, crediting Watertown, and was mustered September 18 at Grand Rapids where the regiment was organized between September 18 and November 18, 1863, when it was mustered into service. It left Michigan for Lexington, Kentucky on December 1, 1863, and participated in numerous operations, mostly in Kentucky and Tennessee throughout the winter of 1863-64. Most of its primary area of operations would eventually be in the vicinity of Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.

He was on furlough from November of 1864 through December, at the dismounted camp in Knoxville, Tennessee, from March of 1865 through May, and mustered out on November 11, 1865, at Memphis, Tennessee.

Charles returned to Michigan after the war. He was living in Concord, Jackson County in 1890, and may have been a member of Grand Army of the Republic Pomeroy Post No. 48 in Jackson, Jackson County.

In 1888 he applied for and received a pension (no. 417080).

Charles died on October 23, 1923, in Pulaski, Jackson County and was buried in Maple Grove cemetery in Jackson County.