Woodman in MO
03-06-2007, 10:02 AM
Wow...the son of an actual Civil War vet...crazy...
Civil War isn't distant for Union soldier's son
By Nicholas J.C. Pistor
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Monday, Mar. 05 2007
The bitter reality of the American Civil War — an event poet Walt Whitman
called "the seething Hell" — lives on in a Granite City retirement community.
George Williams, 95, is the son of a Union soldier from Kentucky who ran away
from home to fight on some of the bloodiest landscapes during the Civil War. He
will be installed tonight as a member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the
Civil War.
The local chapter of the organization serving the St. Louis area, known as U.S.
Grant Camp No. 68, believes Williams is one of the last direct Civil War
veteran descendants in the area.
To many, the Civil War is just a historic event in the distant past. To
Williams, it's an epic struggle washed in blood. His father, Henry, told him
the stories of what it was like to hear the cannons' blast, to see the Southern
hills littered with dead bodies, and to feel the emotion of neighbor fighting
neighbor.
"He believed in the fight," Williams said. "The South almost whipped them."
His father, who was 64 when Williams was born, helped release Union prisoners
at Camp Sumter, a notorious Confederate military prison in Andersonville, Ga.
"He told us how horribly the prisoners of war were treated," Williams said.
"Most of those found alive had bad diseases."
The proud son added: "My dad helped get them released."
Williams said his father also had told stories of Shiloh, a major battle in
Tennessee that left thousands dead.
"They would find dead soldiers there, and almost all of them were shot above
the neck," he said. "A lot of them, right between the eyes."
Williams' father returned to Kentucky on a freight train at the end of the war,
but life there was difficult. The state was filled with Confederate
sympathizers, and they didn't much care for those who had fought for the Union.
"He said he always had a black eye whenever he was in Kentucky after the war,"
Williams said.
The painful division of civil war lasted long after the last shot was fired.
So Henry Williams, a man who passionately believed in the Union cause until his
death, moved to southern Missouri to follow a woman he had previously married
and divorced. He convinced the woman to remarry him. But the marriage soon fell
apart, and they divorced for a second time.
In 1900, Henry Williams married another woman, Melvina Parnell. He was 53, she
was 22. They had three children, one them George Williams, who was born in
1911. The family made its home near Thayer, Mo., a small town on the Arkansas
border, where Williams said his father was awarded 40 acres for his service in
the war.
Williams said his father was a skilled whiskey distiller and often left the
house late at night to help a southern Missouri bootlegger.
During the day, he was a carpenter.
Henry Williams died in 1927; he spent his last years at the State Federal
Soldiers' Home of Missouri in St. James.
George Williams moved to St. Louis in the 1940s, where he eventually began
working for McDonnell Douglas. He and his late wife had seven children.
Today, his five surviving children often crowd his apartment in Granite City,
at times reciting the war stories of their grandfather with the same vivid
details their father uses.
History is important to this family.
npistor@post-dispatch.com | 618-624-2577
Civil War isn't distant for Union soldier's son
By Nicholas J.C. Pistor
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Monday, Mar. 05 2007
The bitter reality of the American Civil War — an event poet Walt Whitman
called "the seething Hell" — lives on in a Granite City retirement community.
George Williams, 95, is the son of a Union soldier from Kentucky who ran away
from home to fight on some of the bloodiest landscapes during the Civil War. He
will be installed tonight as a member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the
Civil War.
The local chapter of the organization serving the St. Louis area, known as U.S.
Grant Camp No. 68, believes Williams is one of the last direct Civil War
veteran descendants in the area.
To many, the Civil War is just a historic event in the distant past. To
Williams, it's an epic struggle washed in blood. His father, Henry, told him
the stories of what it was like to hear the cannons' blast, to see the Southern
hills littered with dead bodies, and to feel the emotion of neighbor fighting
neighbor.
"He believed in the fight," Williams said. "The South almost whipped them."
His father, who was 64 when Williams was born, helped release Union prisoners
at Camp Sumter, a notorious Confederate military prison in Andersonville, Ga.
"He told us how horribly the prisoners of war were treated," Williams said.
"Most of those found alive had bad diseases."
The proud son added: "My dad helped get them released."
Williams said his father also had told stories of Shiloh, a major battle in
Tennessee that left thousands dead.
"They would find dead soldiers there, and almost all of them were shot above
the neck," he said. "A lot of them, right between the eyes."
Williams' father returned to Kentucky on a freight train at the end of the war,
but life there was difficult. The state was filled with Confederate
sympathizers, and they didn't much care for those who had fought for the Union.
"He said he always had a black eye whenever he was in Kentucky after the war,"
Williams said.
The painful division of civil war lasted long after the last shot was fired.
So Henry Williams, a man who passionately believed in the Union cause until his
death, moved to southern Missouri to follow a woman he had previously married
and divorced. He convinced the woman to remarry him. But the marriage soon fell
apart, and they divorced for a second time.
In 1900, Henry Williams married another woman, Melvina Parnell. He was 53, she
was 22. They had three children, one them George Williams, who was born in
1911. The family made its home near Thayer, Mo., a small town on the Arkansas
border, where Williams said his father was awarded 40 acres for his service in
the war.
Williams said his father was a skilled whiskey distiller and often left the
house late at night to help a southern Missouri bootlegger.
During the day, he was a carpenter.
Henry Williams died in 1927; he spent his last years at the State Federal
Soldiers' Home of Missouri in St. James.
George Williams moved to St. Louis in the 1940s, where he eventually began
working for McDonnell Douglas. He and his late wife had seven children.
Today, his five surviving children often crowd his apartment in Granite City,
at times reciting the war stories of their grandfather with the same vivid
details their father uses.
History is important to this family.
npistor@post-dispatch.com | 618-624-2577