William Walter Sillers

A lawyer and planter from Sampson County, North Carolina, he was commissioned 1st Lieutenant of Company A, 30th Regiment in September 1861, and elected Major in the reorganization of May 1862. He was wounded in the arm in action on 1 July 1862 at Malvern Hill on the Virginia Peninsula. He was treated at General Hospital #24 in Richmond and returned to the Regiment prior to the Maryland Campaign.

He assumed command of the Regiment in the Sunken Road at Sharpsburg about 11:30am, when Colonel Francis Marion Parker left the field seriously wounded.

He again assumed command of the Regiment from Colonel Parker when that officer was wounded in action at Gettysburg in July 1863. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 3 September 1863, but was mortally wounded, shot through the lungs in action near Kelly's Ford, VA on 7 November 1863 while in command of the regiment.

Service information from Moore's Roster1, who lists him as William W. Sellers. Details also from Helen P. Trimpi's Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men who Fought for the South (2010). His gravesite is on Findagrave.

A collection of his wartime letters are in the Stillers-Holmes Family Correspondence at the University of Notre Dame [transcribed online], the source of some of the details above.

04/10/1838; Clinton, NC

11/09/1863; Gordonsville, VA; burial in Springvale Cemetery, Clinton, NC