FREEMAN HAWKINS BOWRON – 11th CAVALRYEVADED CAPTURE IN THE 11th CAVALRY - When Freeman Hawkins Bowron enlisted in the 11th Cavalry in Champlain, he was recorded as Bouron. On various other records he was listed as Truman H. Borrow and Brown. He was a farmer, the son of Joseph Bowron and Jane Ford. In the early 1800s, his grandparents came to Champlain from Yorkshire, England, to farm.On March 5, 1862, he enlisted as a private, by the end of March, he was appointed corporal, and by the beginning of June he was a sergeant in Captain Thomas Gamble’s Company H. The company was made up of men from Watertown, Brooklyn, and New York City as well as Champlain.Starting in June 1862, the 11th Cavalry, also known as Scott’s 900, had 21 engagements in Virginia and Maryland along the Potomac west of Washington – the area known as Mosby’s Confederacy. During that time, they had 44 casualties – 38 were men who were captured by the enemy.In 1863, the worst of their 18 engagements was at Fairfax Court House – 4 deaths resulted from the battle, 14 were wounded and 55 were captured. They patrolled and reconnoitered until mid-December and had 15 more captured at Bolivar Heights above Harper’s Ferry and another 14 men captured on the Potomac at Edward’s Ferry. MD.In 1864, while with the Department of the Gulf, between April and December, they engaged the enemy 38 times in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. At Doyle’s Plantation on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi, they had 92 men captured.On January 5, 1865, Freeman was commissioned 2nd lieutenant when Lieutenant Dederich Von Miltzein was transferred to another company. The regiment was transferred to the Department of the Tennessee in February 1865 and fought in Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. Freeman was mustered out on March 4th. The 11th Cavalry had five more battles after that. Freeman missed their last, and deadliest, battle near Collierville, TN, on April 18th, where they had 9 men killed or mortally wounded, 24 men wounded and 9 captured.After the war, Freeman moved to Illinois and married Clara Earle in 1870. The couple farmed and his brother, Sirus, worked with them. Freeman died in 1910 and was buried in Spring Lake Cemetery in Aurora, where several of his immediate relatives are buried. Clara joined him there in 1923.Freeman’s parents and grandparents are among the 13 Bowrons buried in Champlain’s Glenwood Cemetery.The 11th Cavalry’s history with many pictures is online in Google Books - The Story of a Cavalry Regiment: "Scott's 900".
