William Fendley Dement

In 1860 he was a wealthy 34 year old planter with 49 slaves (and a share in 4 more) in Charles County, MD. He was commissioned a First Lieutenant of Artillery by Virginia Governor Letcher on 13 July 1861 in Richmond, VA and was assigned as First Lieutenant of the First Maryland Battery on its organization there. He was promoted to Captain to date from 9 (or 19) July 1862 when original Captain R. Andrews Snowden was promoted to Major and given battalion command.

Two or three of his guns were in action from a position on lower Loudoun Heights during the attack on Harpers Ferry on 15 September 1862, with the remaining gun(s) firing from School House Ridge. He took his battery to Sharpsburg on the afternoon of 17 September, but arrived late in the day and was not engaged there.

By 22 September 1862 he was absent from his command, sick, at Charles Town, VA and he tendered his resignation on 5 December 1862, but it was either rejected or withdrawn, and he continued in service with his battery to the end of the war. His original Captain, by then Lieutenant Colonel Snowden recommended him for promotion to Major and Battalion command in February 1864, but he was not advanced. He was admonished by his superiors in November and December 1864 for the condition of his battery horses and equipment, but argued that was due to the pace of active operations and insufficient supply. He was surrendered and paroled with his battery at Appomattox Court House, VA on 9 April 1865.

By 1870 and to at least 1880 he was a farmer at Duffield in Charles County, MD. By 1895 and to at least 1905 he was a Storekeeper for the US Internal Revenue Service in Baltimore, MD.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860-1880, and the Official Register of the United States (1895, 1905). His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, from a photograph of unknown provenance contributed by Barbara Winston Spears in 2018. Thanks to John Dunham for the nudge to look further into Captain Dement.

He married Mary Teresa Symphronia Green (1834-1925) and they had 6 daughters and a son between 1855 and 1874.

03/08/1826; Prince George's County, MD

06/07/1907; Pomfret, MD; burial in Saint Joseph's Cemetery, Pomfret, MD