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(1844 - 1918)
Home State: Georgia
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 13th Georgia Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
In 1860 he was a 15 year old on his parent's farm near Cuthbert in Randolph County, GA. He enlisted as a Private in Company E, 13th Georgia Infantry on 5 August 1861.
On the Campaign
He was wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was on wounded furlough to 27 January 1863. He was wounded again, by a gunshot to his right knee (or piece of shell to his thigh) at Monocacy Junction, MD on 9 July 1864 and captured the next day. He was treated in US Army hospitals in Frederick and Baltimore to 19 August, held at Fort McHenry til 25 October, then sent to Point Lookout, MD. He was transferred to Venus Point, Savannah River, GA for exchange on 15 November 1864. He was listed as absent without leave in Georgia on 28 February 1865, the last record in his military file.
After the War
In 1880 he was a laborer in Terrell County, GA. By 1900 he was a grocer in Montgomery, AL and in 1910 was a night watchman there.
References & notes
His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3, and from Henderson.2 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860 and 1880-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave, as William Sumerford West.
He married Melissa/Missouri Ellen Collins (1845-1917) in October 1865 and they had 3 daughters.
Birth
11/10/1844; Shellman, GA
Death
03/01/1918; Montgomery, AL; burial in Oakwood Cemetery, Montgomery, AL
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 28616]
2 Henderson, Lilian, compiler, Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861-1865, 6 vols., Hapeville (GA): Longino & Porter, 1959-1964 [AotW citation 28617]