Covington and Tillett History & Their Intersection in North Carolina

Henry Covington almost surely participated in the Battle of New Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815, which repelled the British invaders once and for all. Natalie & I visited the Chalmette battlefield in 1999, out of general interest; and later Lisle and Ione sent me Robert Remini's book published that same year about the historical events involved. The book is The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory.

I've found general information on line about the Tennessee Militia units which served at the Battle, under General Jackson. The typewritten book Covington Cousins (1956) asserts that Henry died at Camp Henderson, five miles above New Orleans. It just occurred to me that, in 1815, "above New Orleans" meant upriver from the City; so that helps slightly to identify where the military encampment was. Online information about Camp Henderson is scarce to non-existent. Wasn't the location marked? When the soldiers died of infectious disease (there were very few battlefield casualties), where were they buried?

There is a woman in Tenn. who has been researching the Covingtons, and either she or I will probably order the National Archives file that has Winney Covington's war widow pension application in it. Maybe that would have the details of his service; it would be very gratifying, if so.

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About 50 & 70 years, respectively, after our branch of the Covington family left Richmond County, North Carolina, for upper middle Tennessee, the Tillett family lived in Richmond County. I found the listing on line for the graves of Poppa Henry's grandmother and his Aunt Laura, who are buried there in the county seat town of Rockingham...Richmond County is east of Charlotte, bordering South Carolina...The Tillett book doesn't really say what Elizabeth J. Wyche Tillett died of in 1862 during the Civil War; she was in her forties. But about 20 years later her daughter Laura taught in a private academy in Rockingham for 2 or 3 years --- upstairs in the Covington store building, reportedly. She was in her thirties and engaged to be married, but tragically, she died of roseola in 1881...At least her father was able to take the train down to be with her. There's a letter written by Rev. John Tillett at the time to his eldest son James that says at the end something like, "Gus is here but he leaves tomorrow for Arkansas."

We know that Henry Augustus "Gus" Tillett had recently graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and would meet his bride in Arkansas & move to Abilene, Texas. (The book states that he didn't see his father again until nine years later when Rev. Tillett was dying, in Charlotte.)

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Someday I might join or at least write to the National Society, Daughters of the War of 1812, because I want to know how we can find out where Henry Covington is buried. They have a program for decorating the graves of the soldiers.