Navy records show Capt. Robert Townsend fought in the Civil War and died on an 1866 mission to hunt down an elusive confederate raider in China.
But how the New York-native’s belongings wound up in Colorado Springs remains a bit of a mystery.
When antique dealers Mike and Gretchen Graham arrived at a Broadmoor neighborhood estate sale February 11, they found Townsend’s sea trunk, a naval sword, and his epaulets in their original tin box.
Little did 9-year-old John Borschell know when he and his 20-year-old brother,
Adam, arrived in Philadelphia, Pa., from Germany, that 68 years later the
government he fought for in the Civil War for four years would declare this
loyal U.S. Marine, an enemy alien? How could this possibly happen?
John Borschell was born in Weiterode, Hersfeld-Rotenburn, Hessen, Germany, on July 1, 1842, one of many children of Martin and Veronica Gros Borschell.
The war between the states was more of a skirmish in Colorado Territory.
Historians David and Jeanne Heidler of Colorado Springs, editors of “Encyclopedia of the American Civil War,” say there wasn’t much of a Confederate presence here during the war years.
”Most who came here for mining, when the war broke out, they went home,” David Heidler says. “The ones who remained numbered only in the hundreds, in little clusters or enclaves. They were outlaws, they attacked and robbed stages.”
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