Greg,

You are correct - that particular file was a War Dept. dumping ground for soldiers that the clerks could not conclusively ID as to which "2nd Cav" they belonged to. There was similar confusion between the various 10th Ky. Cav. and 14th Ky. Cav. regiments - confused soldier files and "dumping grounds" as well. There were several KY CS units that don't appear separately in the CSRs, or in either Sifakis or Crute (Sifakis is better - Crute's book is quite unreliable, when it comes to KY units).

Anyway, after looking at these (and other) records, I'm still a little confused about this soldier. At first I thought there were two records for this soldier - the POW records you found for Sgt. Joshua Brown of Cos. D/E, Woodward's 2nd Ky. Cav., and also a record for a Pvt. J. R. Brown of Co. D, Woodward's 2nd Ky. Cav. To confuse the matter further, there is a pension record for the widow of Joshua Robert Brown of Co. D, Woodward's 2nd Ky. Cav.

But this Joshua Robert Brown in Woodward's 2nd Ky. Cav. (your POW ?) can't be the same as the Pvt. J. R. Brown who has a CSR in Woodward's 2nd Ky. Cav., because J. R. Brown was sent to the hospital in the fall of 1863 and died there in January 1864, and he is buried in the Old City Cemetery in Madison, GA. Joshua Robert Brown (your POW ?) survived the war and lived in Breckinridge Co., KY, and died there in Feb. 1901.

BUT ... This widow's pension record says that Joshua Robert Brown was born in Meade County, KY (where a lot of Woodward's men were from). But it could be that she just didn't know he was from Clarksville. Or, it could be that this isn't your POW Joshua Brown at all (but I found no others in KY CS lists). It does appear that this Joshua Robert Brown in Woodward's 2nd Ky. Cav. is the best match for the man in your POW record.

BTW, the "15th Ky. Cav." was an artificial unit that that clerks in the Ky. Adj. Gen's office invented when they were compiling the Adjutant General's Report, because they thought this would lessen confusion between Duke's 2nd Cav. and Woodward's 2nd Cav. Woodward's unit was never called the 15th during the war.

Steve Lynn may have more insight into this, and I hope he chimes in here.

Geoff