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(1832 - 1908)
Home State: Mississippi
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
A 30 year old farmer, he mustered as Private, Company F, 16th Mississippi Infantry on 15 March 1862 at Paulding, MS. He was ill with typhoid fever in hospitals in Charlottesville and Lynchburg, VA in May and June 1862, but returned to duty.
On the Campaign
He was severely wounded in the face in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862 and was captured:
[He] laid on the battle field two days and one night before he was picked up. The ball, supposed to be a grape shot, entered the right cheek bone and came out immediately opposite, fracturing said bone, carrying away the upper portion of the muscles of the face on both cheeks, the entire nose, the right eye, and the superciliary ridge, and, also, the entire bony casing of the eye. The upper jaw fell down over the lower jaw and chin, leaving his palate and throat exposed ...
The rest of the War
He was probably treated at a field hospital near Sharpsburg, where he recovered enough to be seen walking in the town of Sharpsburg. He told a reporter
when he left Mississippi he was a fine looking fellow, the pride of his wife, and the admiration of all the belles of the village; but his wife and friends will scarcely believe that the Antietam battle helped his personal appearance much.He was sent to the Camden Street US Army General Hospital in Baltimore then transferred to Fortress Monroe, VA on 5 November 1862 and paroled there. He was admitted to CS General Hospital #7 in Richmond, VA on 9 November and furloughed home on 11 November 1862. He was on the rolls while on furlough and paid through at least December 1863, but was disabled by his wound and never rejoined his Company.
After the War
Sometime before 1880 he moved to Leon County, Texas and was a farmer there.
References & notes
His service from his Compiled Service Records 1 at the US National Archives, online via fold3. A casualty list in the New Orleans Times-Picayune of 29 October 1862 has him killed at Sharpsburg. Further details from articles about him in the Muscatine (IA) Weekly Journal of 21 November 1862 and the Daily Evansville (IN) Journal of 7 November 1862, sources of the quotes above, posted to Civil War Talk by Laura Elliott. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
Thanks to g-g-grandson Marshall Miller for the pointer to William and for a post-war photograph of him with his daughter Adele Jane (Addie Jane, b. 1867), showing the face covering his wife made him to hide the damage from his Sharpsburg wounds.
Family history says William "went to a small creek to wash and shave (reenforcing the center of the Sunken Road) when grapeshot tore into him" taking half of his face.
He married Martha J. Provin/Provins in May 1854 and they had 4 children between 1867 and 1876.
Birth
04/04/1832
Death
11/12/1908; burial in North Creek Cemetery, Nineveh, TX
1 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 29653]
