Cooking was just as necessary.

by Lisa Y. Henderson

A Veteran of the Civil War.

Henry Locus, 70 years of age, a subscriber to the Times, and a worthy colored man living near Bailey, N.C., was in to see us today and knowing that he was the cook with the company of volunteers raised by Captain Jesse Barnes, we had an interesting conversation. The company took with them two cooks, Henry and his brother Nathan. Nathan is dead but Henry is well and hearty and the father of 19 children, the youngest thirty.

To the question, “How many grand children have you?” Henry replied: “Lord, I couldn’t begin to tell. Some of them has as many as nine already and some of my children are way down South and others are somewhere else, and I just can’t keep up with them.”

Henry informed us he staid with the command for two years until “grub” became scarce and hard to get and “I signed by position” and came home to work in the iron mine in the upper edge of this county.

Henry thinks he is entitled to a pension, and when we suggested that he was not a soldier, he replied that cooking was just as necessary as fighting. [Remainder of article missing.]

Wilson Daily Times, 10 April 1911.

In the 1850 census of Nash County, Lucy Locust, 25, and children Nathan, 12, Henry, 8, Goodson, 6, Nelly, 4, and Mary J., 5. 

[Sidenote: A hat tip to J. Robert Boykin III, who transcribed this article for the May 2014 issue of Trees of Wilson, the excellent journal of the Wilson County Genealogical Society. Boykin noted that the “company of volunteers” was known as the Wilson Light Infantry and mustered in as Company F, 4th Regiment, North Carolina State Troops.]