Cornelius was the ninth of a reported thirteen children born to Jesse and Hannah (Tallman) Scott. All children were born in New York, but most moved to Iowa with their parents in the early 1850s. Staying behind was John D. Scott who fought with the 121st New York infantry during the Civil War while four of his brothers - Allen, Aristides, Cornelius and Demosthenes - served in Company H of Iowa’s 21st regiment of volunteer infantry. All five of the brothers survived the war with John joining the family in Delaware County after his discharge.

      Cornelius, “Corneal” to his family, was born on April 24, 1840, and was working on the family farm in 1861 when Confederate guns fired on Fort Sumter. By the next summer, thousands of men had been killed and on July 9, 1862, Iowa’s Governor, Sam Kirkwood, received a telegram asking him to raise five regiments as part of the President’s call for 300,000 “three-year men.” At Manchester, on July 21st, twenty-three-year-old Allen and twenty-two-year-old Cornelius enlisted. Eighteen-year-old Aristides joined them on the 26th, but Demosthenes was still too young and it was not until 1864, lying about his age, that he enlisted as a new recruit at age fifteen. 

      Cornelius was described as being 6' tall with black eyes, dark hair and a dark complexion. On August 13th the men were ordered into quarters at Dubuque’s Camp Franklin and on the 23d the company was mustered into service. On September 9th, ten companies were mustered in as a regiment. 

      On a rainy September 16th they marched through town while friends, relatives and local residents watched. From the levee at the foot of Jones Street, they boarded the sidewheel steamer Henry Clay (described in the press as a “miserable cramped up old tub”) and two barges lashed alongside and started south. They spent one night on Rock Island before resuming their trip, transferring downstream to the Hawkeye State and continuing to St. Louis where they spent the night of the 20th at Benton Barracks before taking cars of the Southwest Branch of the Pacific Railroad to its western terminus at Rolla. Company muster rolls were taken every two months and Cornelius was marked “present” on October 31st at Salem, December 31st at Houston and February 28th at Iron Mountain. On March 11th, they reached Ste. Genevieve They were then transported down-river to Milliken’s Bend where General Grant was organizing a large army with three corps led by Generals Sherman, MacPherson and McClernand. His goal was Vicksburg, the key to opening the Mississippi River.

      Staying on the west side of the river, the army moved slowly south. The original intent was to cross to the east bank at Grand Gulf but, when that proved to be too heavily defended, they walked farther south, crossed to Bruinsburg on April 30, 1863, and started inland with the 21st Infantry as the point regiment for the entire army. Cornelius was present and participated with his regiment in the May 1st Battle of Port Gibson. Other regiments were then rotated to the front and, on May 12th, engaged the enemy in a battle at Raymond before continuing towards Jackson. The 21st Iowa was still about six miles from Jackson on May 14th, when, said Cornelius, “being barefooted his shoes having given out and unable to procure others, the road being slippery wet and muddy he slipped and in gathering to catch himself injured the heel bone of the right foot.” Others recalled that it was raining heavily and John Dubois said he “was ordered by the commanding officer” to put Cornelius in an ambulance. His captain, James Noble, said it was “a forced march in a hard rain in a clay soil and was very slippery.” Cornelius was treated by regimental surgeon Hiram Hunt, was unable to walk for several days and, said Noble, “was troubled more or less with said injury during the ballance of his enlistment.”

      While Cornelius continued with the regiment, he used to, said Albert Mabb, “keep a large cloth around said ankle and heel. That after the injury the said soldier used mostly to do the cooking for the Company for a long time for the reason that he could not walk.” Cornelius remained on duty throughout the siege of Vicksburg, the regiment’s subsequent service in southwest Louisiana, and its more than six months along the Gulf coast of Texas. From there they returned to New Orleans and Cornelius was “present” on the bimonthly rolls taken at Terrebonne Station and Morganza in Louisiana, on the White River of Arkansas and, on December 31, 1864, at Memphis. From there they left on their final campaign of the war and Cornelius was with the regiment when it was transported to Dauphin Island at the entrance to Mobile Bay, during its campaign to capture the city of Mobile and during subsequent service on the Red River of Arkansas. On July 15, 1865, they were mustered out at Baton Rouge and the next day started north. They received their final discharge at Clinton, Iowa, on July 24th and were free to resume their civilian lives.

      In 1866 Cornelius’ sister, Margaret, married Charles Utley, a farmer in Milo Township. In 1867, Aristides was a farmer in Oneida Township when he married Mary Rogers. In 1868 it was Cornelius’ turn and, on December 30th, at the Manchester home of his former captain, James Noble, he married Camilla Harrington. Cornelius and Camilla had four children - Emry in 1869, Bernice in 1875, Floy in 1878 and Ruby in 1886.

      Unable to resume his farming career, Cornelius worked as a carpenter, sometimes with his brother John, sometimes with Elon Skinner and other times with a neighbor, D. J. Johnson who said the heel injury Cornelius sustained fourteen years earlier “would inflame almost monthly and break and discharge corruption.” As a result, Cornelius “would very often be compeled to quit his work on account of said injury for days and weeks at a time.” Elon Skinner “resided within a few rods” of Cornelius for many years and recalled that Cornelius “could not ware a boot but had to ware a piece of a shoe then it would swell up an pain him and swell up to the knee.”

      In 1877, Cornelius applied for a government pension. The law required at least ninety days’ service, an honorable discharge and a service-related disability that, in whole or part, disabled the veteran from performing manual labor. Dr. Hunt said the regiment’s medical records had been lost and he could no longer recall Cornelius’ case, but former comrades James Noble, John Dubois, George Shultz and Albert Mabb submitted supportive affidavits as did neighbors who knew Cornelius before and after the war. On March 2, 1881, a certificate was issued entitling Cornelius to a monthly pension of $6.00. In 1888, a board of pension surgeons reported that the heel “is a discharging sinus with discolored surrounding surface” and the pension was increased to $10.00. As the years passed, the heel became gradually worse until, on August 7, 1895, it was amputated by Dr. C. C. Bradley “at a point eleven inches below the inner condyle of the femur.” He said the amputation was necessary “on account of extension of necrosis of the os calcis at least half of the bone being involved with profuse suppuration at times.” In essence, the cells in one of the foot bones were gradually dying. Cornelius was fitted with a prosthesis, but it was uncomfortable, creaked when he walked and was often painful.

      With Manchester attorney R. M. Marvin representing him, Cornelius applied for an increase in his pension. Twice Marvin argued legal issues with the Pension Office and twice he prevailed as Cornelius’ pension was increased to $30.00 and then $40.00. Cornelius built a cookhouse outside behind their house and later added plumbing inside the house while commenting, “I don’t know what this world is coming to, cooking outside and shitting inside.” In 1918 Cornelius and Camilla celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at their home in Manchester and three years later, he applied for another increase. He had previously signed numerous applications and affidavits, but this time his signature was “by mark.” He was eighty-one years old, required the “regular personal aid and attendance of another person” and was “confined to his bed most of the time.” His vision was failing and he could no longer “go across his lawn without assistance.” On November 24, 1922, Cornelius died. He was buried in the city’s Oakland Cemetery and Camilla, who had watched and heard her husband suffer during their entire marriage, immediately burned all of his Civil War papers. Camilla applied for and received a widow’s pension of $30.00 monthly, an amount she was receiving when she died on March 7, 1927. She is buried next to Cornelius.

      While most of the above was documented in Cornelius’ military and pension records and the diaries and letters of his comrades, some of the family anecdotes were supplied by his great-grandson, Des Moines attorney Drew Tillotson who spent many years researching the Scott brothers and documenting their lives. Drew died in 2017 and is buried in Resthaven Cemetery, West Des Moines.