Cornelius "Con" C. Cassidy: Phoenix Club of Nashville Ballist

In the summer of 1868, the Phoenix and Nashville Base Ball Clubs vied for supremacy of Davidson County. The Nashville Club was the defending county champions having soundly defeated the Phoenix 53-29 in the deciding match of the 1867 series. Naturally, these two rivals, the best clubs in the county, challenged one another to a best of three series for the 1868 championship that was played over the course of five weeks. Custom of the time dictated that for a championship each club would play on their own home grounds for the first two matches with the third, if necessary, to be played at a neutral site. Moreover, each match was to be scheduled approximately two weeks apart from one another. The first two matches in the 1868 series were split, with the Phoenix taking the first 42-32 and the Nashville Club roaring back in the second match for a 63-43 victory. The third match was played on neutral ground in Edgefield. This time the Phoenix claimed the title of Davidson County besting their rival 38-33. Despite the Phoenix having won the championship, both clubs would seek a state championship series against the defending state title holders, the Knoxville Holston Base Ball Club.

 

The Phoenix were first to issue their challenge; however, the Holstons were not an active club at the time. They had disbanded following their 1867 state championship over the Mountain City Club of Chattanooga with the members devoting their time to their individual business interests. A local Knoxville editor, essentially a Holston booster given the amount of coverage he gave the Holstons in his paper in 1867, began running a host of articles in an attempt to entice the Holstons to come out of retirement. It must have worked because by the late summer of 1868, the Holstons were practicing on a weekly basis and soon returned to the garden in a series of matches with juvenile clubs to shake off the rust. By the time the Holstons were ready to defend their state title, they accepted the challenge from the Nashville Club instead of the Phoenix. The current Davidson County champs must have been incensed by the Holston Club's decision to play the Nashville Club because the Phoenix immediately sent word via the press that they were ready to play their Nashville rivals to confirm that they were indeed the state's superior club after the Holstons received a thumping from Nashville 34-10 in the first match of the 1868 state championship. Whether the Phoenix Club ever got satisfaction by playing the Nashville Club after the latter wrestled the state title from the Holstons in the third and final match is unknown. Though no matches have been found between the two Nashville rival clubs following the 1868 state championship series, the sources indicate that the Phoenix continued to meet semi-monthly in their room at Police Headquarters throughout the summer and into the fall. It was at Police Headquarters, where Cornelius ("Con" as he was known) C. Cassidy worked as a member of the Metropolitan Police Force, that the Phoenix ballists awarded their teammate a fine prize belt valued at twenty-five dollars for having tallied the most runs for the 1868 season.

 

Nashville Republican Banner, August 6, 1868

Although I have spent most of my time researching "base ball" in East Tennessee and have compiled a number of names along with biographies for ballists with both the Knoxville Holstons and Knoxville Knoxvilles, a scarcity of box scores for matches played in and around Nashville in 1867 and 1868 have made it difficult to identify specific ballists who played for the Phoenix. Besides the club's secretary, H.F. Roll, who announced club meetings in the press and issued challenges to various clubs, the only Phoenix ballist I have been able to identify at this point in time is Con Cassidy thanks to a brief mention in the newspaper of the belt being awarded to him. I am sure further research by either myself or another will yield more results; however, armed with the name of Con Cassidy linked to the Phoenix Base Ball Club as reported in the Nashville Republican Banner, I was able to commence a quick survey of my two favorite databases--Ancestry and Newspapers.com--to produce a brief biographical sketch of this Phoenix ballist.

 

Census records reveal that Cornelius Cassidy was born in 1841 in Allegany County, New York, located in a southern tier of the western portion of the state. He was born to Daniel and Catherine Cassidy, who, like hundreds of thousands of Irish, emigrated to the United States in the 1830s and especially the 1840s in the wake of the potato famine. The Cassidys arrived in Allegany County prior to the potato blight and, after a few years, moved northward and settled in the town of Mount Morris in Livingston, New York. There Daniel and Catherine remained for the rest of their lives, raising, depending on the source, somewhere between seven and twelve children. Neither Daniel nor Catherine could read or write; however, Daniel was able to carve out a decent living on a modest salary as a laborer to purchase some land on which he built his home and was able to send each of his children to school.

 

As Cornelius came of age, he began working for Reuben Porter Wisner, a local attorney and capitalist who became the president of a railroad that brought prosperity to the western regions of New York. Wisner played an instrumental role in further developing what was the village of Rochester into a significant city that became home to prominent abolitionist and women's rights reformers such as Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. When the American Civil War broke out, Wisner became colonel of the 58th NY while Cornelius would later enlist in late August 1862 as a private in Company F of the 136th NY Infantry Regiment. 

Col. Reuben Porter Wisner

Con Cassidy and the men of the 136th NY received their baptism by fire at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. The regiment was lucky, losing only a few men in what was a Confederate victory. It would be the only significant loss (battle/campaign) for the 136th NY during the American Civil War. That said, the 136th would not be so lucky in their next engagement, nearly two months later at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. They fought valiantly in the first two days of the battle, holding back advancing Rebel lines to maintain the high ground; however, that defense came at a huge cost--109 men killed, wounded, and/or missing. Following Union victory at Gettysburg, the 136th NY was dispatched to the Western Theater and Chattanooga, Tennessee where they fought at Missionary Ridge. They then followed General William T. Sherman and his Union army's advance to Atlanta, fighting a series of battles at Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, Cassville, Dallas, and Kennesaw Mountain before beginning the siege of Atlanta. Next came the "March to the Sea" as Union armies cut a one hundred mile swath through Georgia before taking Savannah in December 1864. Sherman's massive army, the 136th NY included, then turned northward, trekking through the Carolinas before meeting General Joseph E. Johnston and his Rebel army at Bennett Place in North Carolina. There, in late April 1865, Johnston agreed to Sherman's terms of surrender.

Cornelius C. Cassidy, 136th NY Infantry Rgt. Co. F

Cassidy quickly rose up the ranks to Sgt. Major before being promoted to First Lieutenant at the close of the war. By all accounts, Con Cassidy served with great distinction and avoided any serious illness or wounds during his thirty-four months in the service of his country. Once Johnston had surrendered to Sherman, Cassidy and the men of the 136th NY marched to Washington, D.C. where they participated in the second day of the Grand Review of the Union Army. Two weeks later, Cassidy and the 136th NY were officially mustered out of service on June 13, 1865. Cassidy returned home to his family and worked in Mount Morris for a brief stint before leaving for the South. Whether he left on his own accord or followed other former Union soldiers who were welcomed in Southern cities such as Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville in Tennessee after the war is unknown, but he soon appeared in Nashville in 1866 working as a clerk. Within a short span of time Cassidy joined Nashville's Metropolitan Police Force and was quickly regarded as one of the city's finest policeman. Cassidy appeared in several articles in which he might have gained both a positive and negative reputation for his participation in the arrests of high-profile criminals as well as some violent encounters. It was not uncommon for Cassidy to drag someone in who had been on the losing end of a fist fight. For example, one individual's face, in the words of the editor of the Republican Banner, "looked like a badly lithographed copy of the battle-field of Chicamauga [sic], torn up by impossible and erratic cannon balls." Cassidy's luck in surviving the horrors of war on the battlefield appears to have carried over into his work as an officer on the beat. On one occasion, a drunkard named John White called Officer Cassidy over towards him. As Cassidy neared, White raised up his right arm to reveal a Derringer pistol in his hand. White fired, but the ball narrowly missed Cassidy who quickly apprehended the drunk man. Interestingly, Cassidy refused to prosecute White and let him go.

 

Cassidy was also known to engage in horse racing. He had a horse named "Waybill" that he entered in "trotting races" for prizes as high as $75 (about $1450.00 in today's money). Cassidy appears to have served on the police force for about two years before taking a position as a bookkeeper for a local firm. For reasons unknown, Cassidy abruptly left Nashville in either late 1869 or early 1870 and returned home to Mount Morris, New York. It can be assumed that the cause of his departure was a sudden illness because sources indicate that Con Cassidy passed away at the age of twenty-nine on May 14, 1870 as a result of consumption, a common term in the 19th century for wasting away of the body, particularly from pulmonary tuberculosis (note: find-a-grave incorrectly lists Cassidy as having died in 1871. It is difficult to see from the blurry photograph posted on that site, but it is possible that the headstone incorrectly states 1871).

 

Cornelius C. Cassidy's Grave, Old Cemetery, Mount Morris, NY

Both of Con Cassidy's parents outlived him, Daniel passing away also of consumption on December 18, 1893 and his mother, Catherine, living to the age of eighty before passing on November 5, 1902.

 

Perhaps more research into Nashville's newspapers will reveal additional Phoenix ballists. I have managed to compile a list of ballists along with some biographical information for those who played on the 1868 Nashville Base Ball Club and will possibly write on a few of them in the coming days or weeks. But for now, my agent informs me that I need to get that article on the origins of base ball in Knoxville completed!