There was nothing particularly remarkable about Alexander
Cobean, certainly nothing to distinguish him from the thousands
of other men that joined the cause of the Union in the spring of
1861. He was a school teacher from Ohio and at 44 older than
most of the men and boys with whom he served. In Preble County
in the summer of 1848 he had married Susannah Lyons, and nine
years later they had a child together – a daughter they called
Martha Elizabeth. When the war began and the 48th Ohio Volunteer
Infantry went south to destroy the rebellion, Cobean left with
them. Behind him remained a wife and daughter whose future
without their husband and father would be very uncertain. April
6th, 1862 found Pvt. Cobean and the 48th Ohio encamped in the
largely wooded and undulating terrain of southern Tennessee, two
miles from Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River and within
sight of the Shiloh Meeting House. The battle that began that
morning, as Confederates of the Army of Mississippi attacked the
unsuspecting Union s