Willard Parker Tisdel

He enlisted on 20 April 1861 in the 7th Infantry (3 months), Company D. He reenlisted in the same company, 7th Ohio (3 years) on 19 June 1861 as Corporal. He was promoted Sergeant on 31 October 1861 and returned to the ranks on 31 March 1862.

He was present for action at Antietam.

He was promoted again to Sergeant on 31 October 1862, First Sergeant on 2 May 1863, and Sergeant Major of the Regiment on 31 May 1863. He was wounded in the head in action at Gettysburg, PA in 3 July 1863. He was reduced to the ranks on 1 January 1864. He was discharged at the end of his term of service on 24 April 1864. He then served a year in the Reserve [Hancock's Veteran] Corps, most in service at the War Department, Washington, DC.

Later known as "Colonel", he worked in the Treasury Department (1868-70); was Assistant Marshal at the US Supreme Court (71-72); an agent of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company/Panama Railroad (73-76); the US Mail and Brazil SS Co. (Rio De Janeiro, 77-84); US Commercial agent in the Congo and US Commissioner to the Berlin-Congo Conference (84-85); superintendent of the Pacific Mail SS Co. in Mexico, Central, and South America (85-95); assistant GM of the Guatemala Central Railroad (86-95) and GM from 1896 to 1906. He was also invested in coffee, cocoa, and rubber, and lived in Guatemala City at least to 1906.

Basic information from Wilson1. His death place from an announcement in the Washington Herald (pg. 2) of 22 June 1911. His burial place from his gravesite on Findagrave. He donated some 50 art objects and weapons he collected in the Congo to the Smithsonian Institution in 1885 [catalog items].

07/27/1844; Madison, Lake County, OH

06/21/1911; Washington, DC; burial in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, DC