Howard T. Cunningham

Howard T. Cunningham, a native of Rockville, Indiana, was born in April, 1842. He married in February, 1865, in Knoxville, Iowa to Sarah Boydston.  She was a native of Mount Morris, Greene County, Pennsylvania where she was born in October, 1844. Howard T. Cunningham came to Marion County, Iowa about 1854 and engaged in the hardware business but was also much interested in stock-raising and was the first breeder of Poland China hogs in this county. He later dealt in fast horses. On the 1st of July, 1862, he enlisted at Corinth, Mississippi, in the Fifteenth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, as fife major, under the command of Colonel H. W. Reid. He was given his honorable discharge on the 17th of December, 1864, at Kings Bridge, Georgia, and returned to Knoxville, where he resided for many years, passing away in October, 1904. In his family were three children: J. D.; Mary, the wife of G. W. Baxter, of Denver; and Louise, who married P. H. Donnelly, also of Denver.

SOURCE:  William A. Young, History Of Marion County, Iowa, And Its People, Volume 2, p. 15-6, abstracted from the biographical sketch of J. D. Cunningham.

Tilghman H. Cunningham

Tilghman H. Cunningham, of Company K, was First Fife Major. And he was a good one. The boys called him the "boss whistler," and he was. He could rattle the music out with more noise and less effort than any Fifer in the Brigade, and he knew his business and did it. He was mustered out on December 17, 1864.

Although not in the ranks with a musket, he was faithful in his duties and thoroughly subordinate to those above him, and the writer of this has no hesitation in saying that he was the very man for the place.

SOURCE: William W. Belknap, History of the Fifteenth Regiment Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry, p. 48