UNTOLD STORIES: Edward Day Cohota

Edward Day Cohota

"In 1845, Sargent S. Day, captain of the square-rigged merchant ship Cohota, left Shanghai, China, bound for Massachusetts. Two days from port, he discovered two little half-starved Chinese boys on board. The older boy died, but Day "adopted" the younger boy and named him Edward Day Cohota. Edward sailed the world with Captain and Mrs. Day until the captain retired to Gloucester, Mass. in 1857. He attended school and the other Day children treated him as a brother.
With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Cohota joined the 23rd Massachusetts Infantry. He fought in the Battle of Drury's Bluff near Richmond, Va., on May 16, 1864, and at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Va., June 3, 1864. He stayed with the Army of the Potomac through the end of the war. After the war, Cohota rejoined the Army and was stationed at Fort Randall, Dakota Territory. He married and had six children. He served in the Army for 30 years. He believed that his military service qualified him for U.S. citizenship. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion act, a legal measure enacted to cease the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States. Because Cohota hadn't submitted his second set of naturalization papers prior to the passing of this Act, he ultimately was unable to gain American citizenship. Cohota died at the Battle Mountain Sanitarium for Veterans in Hot Springs, S.D., in 1935."---US ARMY