William Decatur Mangham

In 1860 he was a 20 year old farmer on his parent's place near Zebulon in Pike County, GA. He enlisted as 3rd Corporal of Company A, 13th Georgia Infantry on 8 July 1861 at Griffin, GA along with his brother Charles Absalom Mangham (1839-1906), who was appointed 2nd Corporal.

He was wounded by a gunshot through his left arm near the shoulder in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862, his arm broken.

He was in a hospital in Winchester, VA by 2 October and in a hospital in Richmond, Va by 13 October 1862. By April 1863, disabled by his Sharpsburg wound, he was on detached service in Macon, GA, assigned to collect stragglers. On 18 April 1864 he was elected 2nd Lieutenant of Captain William H. Hartnett's Company (G), First Regiment, Georgia Reserves; they were assigned as guards at the prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, GA. He applied for a transfer to that Company on 22 October 1864 and was officially discharged from the 13th Infantry on 17 January 1865, by then commanding officer of Company G, First Reserves.

By 1870 he was a farmer in Pike County, GA living near his father and brother Jackson. He died young, at age 34, cause not known.

His service from Henderson1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. He's also seen as William D. Magnum. Winchester hospital details in a letter from Winchester of 2 October published in the Augusta Weekly Constitutionalist of 22 October 1862; thanks to Laura Elliott. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860 and 1870. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a photograph published in Rachel McDaniel's Pike County (2011), contributed by Rosalee Mangham King.

He married Martha Jane Hagans (1844-1926) in February 1868 and they had 4 children; their youngest, son James William Mangham (1874-1929), was born about a month after his father's death.

According to descendant Colonel Dana M. Mangham, author of "Oh, For a Touch of the Vanished Hand" Discovering a Southern Family and the Civil War (2000) [via WorldCat], there were at least 37 Manghams in Confederate uniform. Colonel Mangham says brother Charles was also wounded at Sharpsburg, but that's not mentioned in his CSRs or in a casualty list in the Savannah Republican of 4 October 1862.

03/02/1840; Pike County, GA

11/01/1874; Spalding County, GA; burial in Mangham Family Cemetery, Lifsey, GA