Aristides was the tenth of a reported thirteen children born to Jesse and Hannah (Tallman) Scott. All children were born in New York, but most moved to Iowa with their parents in the early 1850s. Staying behind was John D. Scott who fought with the 121st New York infantry during the Civil War while four of his brothers - Allen, Aristides, Cornelius and Demosthenes - served in Company H of Iowa’s 21st regiment of volunteer infantry. All five of the brothers survived the war with John joining the family in Delaware County after his discharge.

      Aristides was born on October 21, 1843, and was an eighteen-year-old farmer when he was enrolled at Earlville on July 26, 1862, by Manchester’s Joseph M. Watson who would soon be commissioned as Captain of the company. Aristides’ Descriptive Book said he was 5' 11½” tall (almost three inches taller than average) with dark hair, a dark complexion and grey eyes. At Dubuque’s Camp Franklin, the company was mustered into service on August 23rd with 93 men and, when all ten companies were of sufficient strength, the regiment was mustered in on September 9th with a total of 985 men.

      After brief and largely ineffective training, they marched south through town on September 16th and, at the foot of Jones Street, boarded the overly crowded four-year-old sidewheel steamer Henry Clay and two barges tied alongside and started downstream. They spent their first night on Rock Island, before resuming their trip, encountering low water at Montrose, debarking, traveling by train to Keokuk, boarding the Hawkeye State and continuing to St. Louis where they arrived on September 20th. From there they went by rail to Rolla where they camped southeast of town for a month. Company muster rolls were taken bimonthly and Aristides was marked present on October 31st at Salem, December 31st at Houston and February 28th at Iron Mountain. From there they walked to the old French town of St. Genevieve where they camped on a ridge overlooking the Mississippi River.

      Early efforts to capture the city of Vicksburg had failed but now, at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, General Grant was organizing a large three-corps army for another effort. Aristides was present when those able for duty were transported from St. Genevieve downstream to “the Bend” and assigned to a corps led by General John McClernand, a prewar Democratic member of Congress from Illinois. Staying on the west side of the river, the army moved south - along dirt roads, across bayous, through swamps and past numerous plantations - until reaching Disharoon’s plantation. From there they crossed to the east bank at Bruinsburg. The first regiment to cross was directed to high ground above the landing so they could sound an alarm if the enemy approached. The second regiment, the 21st Iowa Infantry, then took the lead as the point regiment for the entire army as men, artillery, wagons, horses and mules moved slowly inland. About midnight, near the Abram Shaifer house, they were fired upon. After a brief exchange of gunfire, both sides rested but the next day, May 1, 1863, Aristides participated with his regiment in the Battle of Port Gibson. On the 16th, they were present but held in reserve during the Battle of Champion’s Hill but on the 17th they and the 23rd Iowa led a successful assault on Confederates entrenched along the Big Black River. The 23rd’s Colonel Kinsman was killed while the Colonel of the 21st, McGregor banker Sam Merrill, was severely wounded. From there the regiment proceeded to Vicksburg where men participated in an unsuccessful assault on May 22nd. The ensuing siege ended with General Pemberton’s surrender of the city on July 4, 1863. Aristides had been present and participated in all assaults and battles of the campaign during which the regiment had thirty-one killed in action, another thirty-four who would die from their wounds and many more who suffered non-fatal wounds. On July 23rd, Aristides was granted a 30-day furlough.

      After returning to the regiment, he was present on August 31st at Carrollton and on October 31st at Bayou Vermilion, both in Louisiana. From there they traveled westward across the Gulf of Mexico and went ashore on San Jose Island. For the next six months they served at Indianola, on Matagorda Island, and at other nearby sites along the Texas coast. They returned to Louisiana in June, 1864, and on September 10, 1864, on board the St. Patrick, they started up the White River of Arkansas where they spent more than a month at St. Charles and Aristides was treated in the regimental hospital for diarrhoea, an illness that killed at least sixty-five of his comrades. From St. Charles, they moved to Memphis where Aristides received further treatment for diarrhoea and one of his comrades, Merritt Smith, died from the same illness. In the spring of 1865, Aristidies was present with the regiment during its final campaign, a successful campaign to capture the city of Mobile, Alabama. On July 15, 1865, they were mustered out at Baton Rouge and, the next day, started north on board the Lady Gay. At Clinton on the 24th, they were discharged from the military and received their final pay.

      On December 12, 1867, at Earlville, Aristides and Mary Rogers were married by Justice of the Peace Sanborn. Aristides and Mary reportedly had six children: Austin, Franklin, Sherman, Clarence, Harry and, on July 6, 1884, Edith.

      Many veterans applied for government pensions not long after they were discharged but had to prove they were, at least partially, disabled from performing manual labor due to a service-related disability. While Aristides had received medical treatment during the war, he had maintained his health better than most and it was not until the law changed and veterans could seek pensions based on health issues that no longer had to be related to their military service that he applied. In 1891 he submitted a Declaration for Invalid Pension and indicated his ability to do manual labor was impaired by an injury to his back, hip and left foot. He explained that, the previous fall, “he was driving a span of mules and they became unmanageable and turned around and threw him out of the wagon and the wagon box fell on him.” Witnesses submitted affidavits saying “at times he gets around with great difficulty with cane or crutches” and his ailments, including rheumatism, were not caused by “vicious habits.” The War Department verified his military service and a board of pension surgeons confirmed his health problems, but it was not until 1894 that he was approved for a monthly pension of $6.00 payable quarterly through the Des Moines Agency.

      On May 11, 1896, Aristides signed an application seeking an increase in his pension and, in addition to other ailments, said he was “suffering from a cancer on neck and is wholly unable to perform any manual labor.” Three months later, on August 6, 1896, fifty-two-year-old Aristides died from his cancer. On the 8th he was buried in Fairview Cemetery, Earlville, and on the 13th Mary applied for a widow’s pension and for a minor’s pension for Edith, their only child still under sixteen years of age.

      Edith was twelve and three of the other children were “feeble-minded.” Fifty-one-year-old Mary was “an invalid and unable to get up from her chair without assistance.” Allen had moved to Kansas and Demosthenes to Ohio, but Aristides’ other brothers, John and Cornelius, were still living in the area and Cornelius said his sister-in-law was now “largely dependent on relatives for her maintenance.” She owned “four or five cows” together with forty acres in Oneida Township and an adjacent forty in Bremen Township, but only half was cultivated, the balance being “brush land and wild land a part of it being slough land.” Her twenty-six-year-old son, Franklin, was managing the property for what was now a family of six, but in 1897 the land produced only about 800 bushels of corn and 400 of oats together with two tons of hay with a total value estimated at $200. While the land was assessed at $846 (one-third of its value), it was encumbered by an $800 mortgage payable with 7% interest. On September 13, 1898, the government issued a certificate entitling Mary to an $8.00 monthly pension with an additional $2.00 for Edith. Mary died the next day.

      Harry was no longer a minor, but on September 24th, the District Court appointed John Cruise, Jr., as guardian for both Edith and Harry. A pension was granted for Edith, but would end on her sixteenth birthday. No further record has been found for Edith or any of her five siblings.