Charles Urquhart Williams (c. 1875)
15 January 2024
Charles Urquhart Williams was a staff officer to Brigadier General David R Jones at Sharpsburg in 1862 and after Jones’ death in January 1863 was with Brigadier General Montgomery D Corse. He was captured near Petersburg in mid-1864 and was a prisoner to the end of the war.
He was afterward a prominent lawyer in Richmond, VA, where this photograph was probably taken, possibly on the occasion of his service in the Virginia Legislature (1875-77). Thanks to g-g-g-grandson Jerrold Johnson for sending me this copy.
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March 17th, 2024 at 6:06 pm
My 2nd gr grandfather, William Kilburn Yates, died ten days after the Antietam battle, ie 27 Sept. 1862. I did not find him in the pdf where I hoped I might see his name . He was in Co. B of the 5th NH Infantry Regiment. I cannot find informatin on that man. The goverment has assigned him a middle intitial of ‘R’ and screwed him all up. I’ve written to NARA; History Hub; and a few other places. Nothing yet. Any thoughts on how I could get some action? Thank you.
March 18th, 2024 at 11:18 am
Hi Merrylyn,
Your ancestor does appear on both my overall Dead List (https://behind.aotw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/dead_v13_name.pdf) and also the list of those mortally wounded at Antietam on 9/17 who died later (https://behind.aotw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AotW_Antietam_MWIA_v3_name.pdf) – if one of those those are what you meant by PDF.
My full page for him is here: https://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=12668
As to correcting errors in the historical records or fixing his middle initial on his grave marker, I’d say that’s a lost cause.
From an era of hand-written records, sometimes phonetic spellings, illiterate soldiers, and so forth, the records are just full of errors. We later researchers have to be really creative sometimes to figure them out :)