Introduction

Biography

Robert was the son of Da­vid Cow­den and Eli­za­beth Kitch Klein­knecht. He mar­ried twice: to Ly­dia Ta­bi­tha Mill­er (Ju­ly 24, 1854, Craw­ford Coun­ty, Ohio), and Jo­an­na Hu­ber, wi­dow of Sam­uel Mc­Gin­nis (No­vem­ber 1891, Wi­chi­ta, Kan­sas).

During the Am­er­ican ci­vil war, he en­list­ed and served in Com­pa­ny B (lat­er Com­pa­ny H), 56th Il­li­nois Vol­un­teer In­fan­try. He lat­er served in Bat­te­ry I, First Il­li­nois Light Ar­til­le­ry.

He ev­en­tu­al­ly rose to the rank of lieu­ten­ant co­lo­nel, and com­mand­ed the 59th U.S. Col­ored In­fan­try Re­gi­ment. He was in­stru­ment­al in es­tab­lish­ing a school for the il­lit­er­ate men of his re­gi­ment. The school taught 250 ex-slaves to read and write.

Cowden was mus­tered out of the ar­my Jan­ua­ry 31, 1866.

After the war, he be­came in­volved in Sun­day School work with the Unit­ed Breth­ren in Christ.

Works

• Our Bi­shops: A Sketch of the Ori­gin and Growth of the Church of the Unit­ed Breth­ren in Christ, with H. A. Thomp­son
• A Brief Sketch of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion and Ser­vic­es of the Fifty-Ninth Re­gi­ment of Unit­ed States Co­lored In­fan­try (Day­ton, Ohio: Unit­ed Breth­ren Pub­lish­ing House, 1883)
• An Il­lus­trat­ed, His­tor­ic­al and Bio­gra­phi­cal Sketch of the Des­cen­dants of Will­iam Cow­den (Day­ton, Ohio: Unit­ed Breth­ren Pub­lish­ing House, 1915)