William McTyeire Hardwick

A merchant in Cedar Bluff, AL, he enlisted as a Private in Company C, 7th Alabama Infantry on 29 March 1861 for a one year term. He enrolled as First Lieutenant of Company H in the 48th Alabama Infantry on 27 April 1862.

He was wounded and captured in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He signed a parole on 30 September at Sharpsburg, and was briefly in US Army General Hospital #5 in Frederick, MD on 10 and 11 October. He was sent on to Fort McHenry in Baltimore by 13 October, when he was paroled and sent to Fortress Monroe, VA for exchange, and was then in a Richmond, VA hospital, where he was furloughed for 30 days on 31 October. He was promoted to Captain to date from Sharpsburg, then to Major on 2 April 1863 (rank to date from 29 September or 15 October 1862).

He led his regiment and was wounded at Gettysburg, PA in July 1863. By May 1864 he was home at Cedar Bluff, AL on a furlough, due to disability from ophthalmia (eye disease), and he was captured there on 1 June 1864. He was held at Louisville, KY to 14 June, then at the Johnson's Island prison near Sandusky, OH; released after taking an oath of allegiance on 25 July 1865. He was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment on 16 September 1864, while a prisoner, to date from 17 June 1863.

After marrying in 1868 he lived in Henry County and had a general store. By 1880 and to at least 1900 he was a farmer at Hardwick's (later Hardwicksburg) in Henry County, AL and by 1910 he had retired and was living on his son Oscar's farm there.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 via fold3. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census for 1880-1910, and a bio sketch from the Buseys.2 His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He was first cousin to William Watt Hardwick, also in Company H, who was mortally wounded at Sharpsburg.

He married Sonia Jane Richards (1828-1857) in 1852, who died in childbirth. He married her sister, the war widow Lucy Ann Richards Searcy (1845-1913) in 1868 and they had 11 children; the first, a son, they named Robert Lee Hardwick (1869-1937).

Hardwicksburg, Alabama, now a "dead town," was named for him.

02/10/1834; Jasper County, GA

05/16/1919; Henry County, AL; burial in Adoniram Cemetery, Abbeville, AL