THOMAS M. WILCOX -- 91st INFANTRY and 1st U. S. ARTILLERY NEVER SAW ACTION WITH THE 91st - Company C of the 91st Infantry was recruited in Redford and Albany. Thomas M. Wilcox was one of 4 men who enlisted in Redford in September of 1861. Nine of his comrades died of disease or were killed in action and eight were severely wounded. One man died 5 months after he returned home in 1863. The 91st was also known as the Albany Regiment and was organized there in December 1861. They left Albany on January 9, 1862, determined to serve for 3 years. They only stayed in Washington for a short time before they embarked for Fort Pickens, in the western Florida Panhandle just across the bay from Pensacola. From April to September 1862, they were with the Department of the South and then transferred to the Department of the South.Thomas didn't get to Fort Pickens. He was in the hospital in Key West, FL. He caught measles in Albany on the way south and had typhoid at Key West on the regiment's way to Fort Pickens. He recovered and was discharged on December 23, 1862, to be in Battery L of the 1st U. S. Artillery. He was still in service in 1865, according to the Saranac Town Clerk's Record of Men Who Were in the Civil War. He received and Invalid's Pension in 1888, and in 1912 asked to be considered for a $30-pension stating that he was unable to perform manual labor by reason of being affected with rheumatism and nervous and general debility, which were contracted in the service, and which disabilities incapacitate him from performing anything but the very lightest manual labor. Thomas died on June 13, 1919 and his obituary was in the Little Falls Daily - Old Resident Passed Away Thomas M. Wilcox Died At Old Soldier's Home Yesterday Had Lived In County 48 Years - Veteran Of The Civil War Thomas M. Wilcox died yesterday at the Old Soldiers' home at Ft. Snelling where he had lived since last fall. The body was brought to this city today for burial. Mr. Wilcox was a native of Chesterfield, Essex county, NY, and was born on June 7, 1841, to Norman Chancellor Wilcox and Samantha Goff. In 1861, he enlisted in the 91st New York Volunteer Infantry, serving 18 months and re-enlisted in the United States regular artillery and served three years. He then returned to his native state and lived there until he came to Belle Prairie, Morrison County, in 1871. In 1875 Mr. Wilcox visited Texas, resided there for two years and then returned to his farm in this county. Miss Lydia Ann Signor, a sister of Lyman Signor of this city, became his wife on December 31, 1865, in Dannemora, NY. Six children were born to them, of whom four are living, three sons and one daughter. The surviving children are Gurdon of Brainerd, Myrtle of Knife River, Henry, who resides in northern Minnesota, and Mrs. Eugene Cota of Bemidji. The funeral will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. from the Methodist church, with the local G. A. R. in charge. "He was buried in Little Falls on June 15, 1919.
