Elias G. Downs enlisted in Co. E, 4th Battalion Arkansas Infantry, at El Paso, Arkansas, on March 1, 1862. He was admitted to a hospital at Memphis, Tennessee, on April 29, 1862, due to an unspecified illness. According to the battalion's records, Private Downs never returned to duty, and was finally dropped from the battalion rolls on April 30, 1863, status unknown.

There is a record of his interment in Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, Tennessee, on May 17, 1862, so he evidently died in hospital a day or two previous.

His hospitalization and death occurred at a time when a measles epidemic was raging through the ranks of Arkansas regiments in Tennessee and Mississippi, so it's possible he died of measles. Other possible causes of death would be the two other major killers of Confederate troops -- "camp fever" (typhoid) or chronic dysentery -- both of which were often attributed to contaminated drinking water.