Joseph B Thomlinson was born in approximately 1830, in Virginia. Joseph B enlisted in the 46
th Regiment Volunteer Infantry on 13 August 1864, at Mount Vernon, Missouri. He mustered in on 25 August, 1864, at Springfield, Missouri. He was appointed fifth sargent. He mustered out on 6 MArch 1865, after 6 months and 23 days service.
By 1870, he was in Granby township, Newton county, Missouri. The 1870 Census lists him as having six children, including James W, and one wife, Mary, age 24. Records on the web show that Mary E Meadow married Joseph B Thomlinson on 4 April 1870, so Mary was almost surely
not the mother of those six children. We don't yet know who the mother was.
Missouri birth records on the web show that Mary Meadows and Joseph B Thomlinson had a female child on 12 April 1884, the ninth child by that mother.
On 4 September 1890, Joseph B applied for a pension for his Civil War service. The pension application tells us that he applied from Missouri, and that he had served in D company.
The 1900 Census shows that his sons Harris M and Jessie R were reporting their mother as having been born in Tennesee. That suggests that we should look there, as well as in Virginia, for Joseph B in earlier years, and for marriages, et cetera.
There are no later records of Joseph B so far. Where was he during the 1880 and 1900 censi? When did he die, and where? Where did his widow and her children go?
