George Washington Williams
George Washington Williams was born in Missouri about 1826. He married a woman from Illinois, and their children were born there: Amanda Ruth in 1864, Noah Dean in July 1867 in Clay County, and the twins Philander and Leander in 1870. In 1870 the family was at Clay City, in Clay County, Illinois.
He went to war late. On 7 March 1865, at Olney in Richland County, Illinois, he enlisted in the Union army for one year. The descriptive roll made that day gives him as a farmer, 39 years old and born in Missouri, five feet ten inches tall, with dark hair, blue eyes and a dark complexion. His residence was written as Monee. He was mustered in the same day by Captain Scott and assigned as a private to Company H of the 98th Illinois Infantry.
The 98th had been raised at Centralia in 1862, and Company H's men came from Clay City, Olney, Noble, Mount Erie and Franconia, the farm towns around his own. By 1865 it was a veteran regiment of mounted infantry. It had carried Spencer repeating rifles since 1863 and fought at Hoover's Gap and Chickamauga. In the spring of 1865 it rode with General Wilson's cavalry through Alabama, helped storm Selma on 2 April, and ended the war as provost guard at Macon, Georgia. The records do not say whether a recruit of March 1865 caught up with it in the field.
In June 1865 the regiment gathered at Edgefield, across the river from Nashville, and its three-year men were mustered out on 27 June and sent home. The recruits of 1863 to 1865 still owed time. A special order of 28 June marched them to Franklin, Tennessee, and folded them into the 61st Illinois Infantry. George became a private in Company H of the 61st. He was mustered out with that regiment at Nashville on 8 September 1865, and the men were paid off and discharged at Camp Butler, near Springfield, on 27 September.
Within fifteen years George had taken the children to Kansas. In 1880 he was 53, living in Stohrville Township, Harper County, on the southern edge of the state, with Amanda, Noah and the two younger boys. No wife was in the household.
In 1895 he was admitted to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers at Leavenworth, Kansas, aged 67 and born in Missouri. The national homes took in Union veterans who were old, sick or without means. He died in Leavenworth County on 2 March 1908, aged 81. He is buried in the Leavenworth National Cemetery, Section 24, row 4, site 6. His white government headstone, with the shield of a Union soldier, reads G. W. WILLIAMS, CO. H, 98 ILL. INF.
His daughter Amanda, Mrs. Larkin, died in 1894. His son Noah settled in western Oklahoma and died in 1947.
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Cite: Heirology, "George Washington Williams (1826-1908)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/george-washington-williams-1826-1908-e66d98.