William Thomas Hartness

A farmer in York County, he enlisted as Private, Company C, 17th South Carolina Infantry on 28 April 1862 at age 18. He was slightly wounded at Second Manassas in August 1862.

He was wounded in action at Boonsboro (Turner's Gap) on South Mountain, MD on 14 September 1862.

He returned to duty and was promoted to Sergeant by January 1863. He was wounded in the left hand at Fort Stedman near Petersburg, VA on 25 March 1865.

He returned to farming in York County. In October 1927, at age 83, he was returning home from the post office when he was hit by a Southern Railway passenger train and killed.

Thanks to Barry Truluck for details above from his research in the US Census (1850-1920), South Carolina birth and death records, his Compiled Service Records (via Fold3), and the Roll 1 for Company C, which has his wound at Sharpsburg. Death details from a piece in the Greenwood, SC Index-Journal of 12 October 1927. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Susan Lucas (1839-1910) in 1866 and they had six children.

An article by Mildred Louise Pettus (1926-) about Hartness titled There was No Surrender for this Civil War Soldier was published in the The Charlotte Observer on 25 April 2004. It's also among the author's papers at Winthrop University [finding aid].

02/28/1844; York County, SC

10/12/1927; Sharon, SC; burial in Sharon Associate Reformed Presbyterian Churchyard, Sharon, SC