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W.S. Stryker
(1838 - 1885)
Home State: New York
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Antietam
After 1853 he was in business in New York City except for a year (1857-58) in McGregor, Iowa. He was a member of the 9th Regiment, NY National Guard in 1859 or 1860 and enlisted with them for Federal service in New York City as they became the 83rd New York Infantry, mustering as First Sergeant of Company D on 27 May 1861. He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant on 1 July 1861, detailed to the Signal Corps in August, and assigned to the staff as Adjutant at the camp of instruction in Georgetown, DC in December 1861. He was sent to the Army of the Potomac in March 1862 and was at Yorktown and Fair Oaks, VA that summer.
On the Campaign
He was among the group of signal officers at the headquarters station at Antietam on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was in action at Fredericksburg, VA in December and at Gettysburg, PA in July 1863. He was appointed Adjutant of the Signal Corps that month and Commissioned First Lieutenant, Signal Corps, US Volunteers on 18 September, to date from 3 March 1863. He was honored by brevet to Captain in December 1864 and was Chief Signal Officer of the Department of the Susquehanna in February 1865. He probably received a second brevet, to Major, date not given, and mustered out on 29 August 1865.
After the War
He returned to New York City and by 1870 and to at least 1880 was a bookkeeper and accountant there. He died in the Bronx in 1885 at age 46, and his city death record noted he was a salesman and
Resident of New York City for 30 years; N.E. cor Boston & Union Avs. near 170th Street
References & notes
His basic service from the Adjutant General,1 Brown,2 source also of his picture, and Heitman.3 His Maryland Campaign service from Major Myer's Report. For reason unknown, both Brown and Myer have him as First Lieutenant, 12th (West) Virginia Volunteers, a unit not organized until 30 August 1862. Personal details from family genealogists, notably William Norman Stryker's The Stryker Family in America (1979, 1987), and the US Census of 1870 and 1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Mary Rodgers du Bois (1833-1921) in May 1859 and they had 5 children.
He can be confused with William Scudder Stryker (1838-1900), post-war Adjutant General of New Jersey.
Birth
12/16/1838; Princeton, NJ
Death
04/17/1885; Morrisania, the Bronx, NY; burial in Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, NJ
1 State of New York, Adjutant-General, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York [year]: Registers of the [units], 43 Volumes, Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1893-1905, For the Year 1901, Ser. No. 30, pg. 718 [AotW citation 28750]
2 Brown, J. Willard, The Signal Corps, U.S.A. in the War of the Rebellion, Boston: U.S. Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896, before pg. 69; pp. 69, 293, 342, 672, 879 [AotW citation 28751]
3 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, pg. 933 [AotW citation 28752]