Lived near Cory Grove, in Elkhart Township, Polk Co., a well-to-do farmer; left an interesting family of children, who have now neither father nor mother. "He was a good man, honest, faithful, and patriotic; fought bravely in the battle of Shiloh; was one of the few of his company to endure the fatigue and exposure of the siege of Corinth to the end of the campaign. Soon after the evacuation of Corinth he was taken sick," reports Captain A. G. Studer. Mathias's age, when he died, was thirty-two; he was a native of Kentucky; private; enlisted Oct. 15,1861; died at Jackson, Tenn., Sept. 3d, 1862, of disease. He told a companion to carry to his children the intelligence that he was fully prepared to die; and to say to them in his name, "Be religious; do right; prepare to meet me in heaven."
SOURCE: Leonard Brown, American Patriotism: Or, Memoirs Of Common Men, p. 222
