A. Williams

Federal (USV)

Brigadier General

Alpheus Starkey Williams

(1810 - 1878)

Home State: Michigan

Education: Yale, Class of 1831

Command Billet: Commanding Division

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 1st Division, 12th Corps

see his Battle Report

Before Antietam

Before the war he was a lawyer, probate judge, newspaper owner, Detroit postmaster, president of the state military board, a militia officer, and had active service in the Mexican War (1846-48). In 1860 he was a wealthy 48 year old living in Detroit, MI.

In May 1861 he was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers and commanded the 1st Division/5th Corps in the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign, and commanded the 1st Division/2nd Corps at Cedar Mountain, VA in August 1862.

On the Campaign

He commanded the First Division of the Twelfth Army Corps at South Mountain on 14 September 1862 and assumed command of the Corps at Antietam on 17 September after Major General Mansfield was mortally wounded.

The rest of the War

He led the 1st Division/12th Corps at Chancellorsville, VA, in May 1863, commanded the 12th Corps at Gettsyburg, PA in July, and commanded the 1st Division/12th Corps again at Chickamauga, GA in September 1862. He commanded the 1st Division/20th Corps in the Atlanta campaign, on the March to the Sea, and on the Carolinas campaign to 1865.

After the War

He was US minister to the Republic of Salvador and was elected to Congress in 1874 and 1876 - dying in office, in Washington, in 1878.

References & notes

His service and bio basics from Warner.1 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Jane Hereford Larned (1818-1848) in January 1839 and they had 5 children to 1848. He married again, Martha Ann Conant (1825-1903) in September 1873.