Letters Attempting to Clear the Record of a Dishonorably Discharged Civil War Veteran

Butte, Montana, 1922. Approximately 113 pieces: fifty-one letters to Thomas Williams; thirteen to various politicians, mainly members of Congress; and twenty to Williams' advocates, mostly from Congresspeople; fifteen miscellaneous items, including Grand Army of the Republic materials and Williams' citizenship document; and fourteen empty envelopes. Materials date from between 1911 and 1922. Near fine with normal wear.. Thomas W. Williams (1845-1931) was born outside of Swansea, Wales, and died in a Soldier's Home in Los Angeles, California. According to his obituary, he came to the United States in about 1857 as a very young boy, briefly left to learn blacksmithing in Toronto, Canada, and then returned stateside. He enlisted with the Union army at the outbreak of the Civil War, shortly before he turned 16, and served in the 1st Missouri Cavalry of Volunteers, Company C. After the war, he was a resident of Butte, Montana, to or from which many of these letters are written.

Offered here is a large lot of materials relating to Williams' efforts, late in life, to secure a veteran's pension for his service - or at least to have his 1864 dishonorable discharge expunged from his record. Williams enlists a number of people to help him with this task, including fellow 1st Cavalry veteran Abraham Brokaw, several local attorneys, and the mayor of Butte. Their letters on Williams' behalf are mainly addressed to congressmen, mostly from Montana, whose replies start out with polite deferrals-they would of course love to do anything in their power to help, but these matters are difficult and now is simply not the right time-but devolve into accusations and firm denials.

According to Williams, he had served with Company C until his honorable discharge in May of 1864, at which point he immediately reenlisted. He received a thirty-day furlough on reenlistment, and decided to visit his uncle in Hamilton, Ontario, as he had no other family on the continent. On attempting to return to his post:

"As I was not of age my uncle held me and prevented me from returning to my command. I tried to get away so as to get back, ran away twice, but was recaptured twice, my uncle having a letter from my mother instructing him to hold me as I would only be 19 on Sept 15, 1864. I was branded as a deserter when I applied for a copy of my discharge." (December 11, 1919)

His record prior to this, he claims, had been stellar, as he lays out in an eleven-page notarized statement as part of his appeal (May 3, 1922). He describes being sent, as a member of General Frémont's bodyguard, into the First Battle of Springfield:

"we were sent to lexington to drive Price and the Rebels out of Mo. we camp about 20 miles [away] in a viliage before we reached Springfield and General Freemont called the Body guard out at 2 oclock in the morning for volenteers we came out [...] we did not know where we were [going...] after we had gone a few miles we had a fight with the Rebels pickets and whiped and drove them away and we went two or three miles towards Springfield [...] we made the charge and drove the rebels out there were 2200 of them. we laid out in the [prairies] all night without Hat Coat or Blanket to keep us warm and Held our Horses by the Bridel all night".

The men "formed a camp near Springfield and you can see cut in a large rock the name of Camp Bliss which I cut and the dait of the year." When Frémont was ordered back to Washington, he ordered a dispatch sent from Springfield to Sedalia, which Williams carried

"132 miles from 8 oclock in the morning on our same Horses. and only one drink of water for our selves + our Horses from the time we left camp that night untill 11 oclock when we arrived in Seidailia we then returned to Springfield with General Hunters comand escorted General fremont to Rolla".

The men go on "to Levenworth Kansas and the Bushwackers fought us all the way". They winter in Leavenworth and are then sent to "Independence Mo to drive Quantrell and his gang out of North Mo" - that is, William Quantrill and his Raiders, an infamous pro-Confederate guerilla group. Williams writes:

"We left the Sargent of Co E. in Kansas City to get our mail and a citizen and his son was with him Quantrell gang captured them and striped the both and placed them in a fence corner and killed them Both and placed fence rail over them and Burned them up and left the Boy see them do this he came to our Captain Miles Kehoe who sent us out in squads on all the roads and we captured 9 of the Rebles Captain line them up and told the Boy to pick out the man that killed his father [...] they coart Marcheled him and Hanged him the next morning at 8 oclock Capt Kehoe let the others go and told them if they were caught in any thing But a fair fight he would Hang [them] too".

Quantrill's men heed Keogh's warning, and go much easier on six of the company's men who are captured while searching for more feed for the horses:

"Quantrals gang caugh[t] them after disarming took them to a farm house gave them supper and sent some of his men around and collected all the young ladies they could get and an old Mo fidler they danced all night and then Quantral gave them Brekfast and sent them to there camps this was the last trouble we had with him and his gang".

At this point, Williams does admit to running into some trouble himself: another soldier "started to curse queen Victoria and I hit him [...] my Welch Blood could not stand to hear him". Williams asks the soldier what he "would do to a man if he dam[n]ed presedent Lincoln", and the soldier

"went and swore I dam[n]ed the president and I was Coart Marceled and sent to Alton then a Military Prison and at the Cort Marshal they did not alow me to say one word to protect myself when I arrived at Alton I explained the whole afair to the officer who had charge of this prison he advised me to write to president Lincoln".

Williams is shortly released from prison and sent back to his post at Little Rock; in later tellings of the story by Williams' advocates, including in a resolution of the Grand Army of the Republic, Lincoln personally ordered Williams released. Willliams' company fights in the Battle of Prairie D'Ane and then camps with "a comand of Jenensons coulered troops"-probably Colonel Charles Jennison-who were "attac[k]ed by the rebles" and "shot at them and then went at them with Bainets and drove them for miles it was a Sight to see the dead rebles how they were Killed". Shortly before his initial discharge, Williams' company goes on to Camden, where:

"some of our troops were on picket and those not on guard were asleep around a fire and the rebles made a charge and shot the Boys around the fire after that the Boys took logs and put Hats and overcoats on the logs and the Rebles tryed the same game But was caught in a trap".

Finally, Williams is discharged, reenlists and is furloughed, and heads to Canada, where his troubles begin.

He first appeals to fellow 1st Missourian Abraham Brokaw, since Brokaw could act as a witness to his claims. In their correspondence, Brokaw sometimes recalls interesting anecdotes from the war, including the "dirty irishman thief, and libertine" Kelley, "who the boys you will call to mind was going to hang at Little Rock for steeling our postals" (April 18, 1912) and a "band of gurillas from Ark. that had captured and was holding the little town" of Ozark, Missouri, who "had got word of our coming and left for parts unknown a few hours before our coming" (January 26, 1915).

The letters to Williams and his advocates are frustrating - what he's told is inconsistent and he makes little progress. First, he has to get confirmation of his first honorable discharge, which he seems to receive around September of 1916. Then he applies for a pension; however, the office of the Bureau of Pensions writes to him the following year that his pension "claim was rejected November 13, 1916, on the ground that you were never honorably discharged from the only contract of service you entered into during the Civil War" (August 31, 1917). A month later, the Missouri Adjutant General writes a certificate of his service which "clears your record both here and in Washington", and congratulates him "on receiving at last your just due as a Veteran so richly merited" (September 20, 1917). By the end of the year, though, he is still trying to clear the desertion charge, and has now resorted to trying to pass a bill in congress to do so. Montana Senator Thomas Walsh writes that "I have tried very hard to secure a favorable report [...] but have been unable to induce the Military Committee to take action thereon" (December 11, 1917).

The congressmen to whom he appeals-including Senators Walsh, Tom Stout, and Henry Myers, and Representatives Frank W Mondell, Carl W Riddick, and Henry Z Osborne-are less than helpful. They often claim that there is insufficient time remaining in the current congressional session, remind him that such bills are difficult to pass even in favorable circumstances, and ask him to furnish them with the same information he has already provided. After years of this, Senator Myers suddenly tells Charles Juttner, one of Williams' advocates, a very different story about Williams' service:

"The report of the War Department shows that in March, 1863, Mr. Williams was tried by court-martial on a long list of serious charges and that he was found guilty on all of them; that he was sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for the duration of the war or, at least, until his term of enlistment should expire and that other penalties were assessed against him, one of which was that at the expiration of his term of imprisonment he should be dishonorably discharged from the Army. It appears, however, that, after having been imprisoned nearly a year, the remainder of his sentence was remitted and that he was allowed to rejoin his company and that he did rejoin it in February, 1864. The records of the War Department, however, show that July 4, 1864, at St. Louis, while on furlough, Mr. Williams deserted and never rejoined the army." (July 18, 1921)

A letter from the War Department Adjutant General adds the details that he "was found guilty [...] of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline, and of disobedience to orders", and that his sentence had included "a ball and chain weighing twelve pounds attached to his leg" and the forfeiture of all present and future pay and allowances (January 16, 1922).

It is difficult to say which account is true. Myers, however, had given some telling further reason that Williams' bill might have been rejected:

"There is an intense prejudice in Congress against such bills. [...] The senators and representatives seem to think that such a bill is merely a prelude to an application for a pension and the expenses of the government are now so enormous and the expenses of providing for the veterans of the World War are so great [...] that there seems to be a general disposition in Congress not to increase the Civil War pension list any more by a single dollar."

Overall, a record of one veteran's experience dealing with the federal government. Of interest to scholars of the American Civil War and postbellum civilian life, both for its firsthand accounts of engagements in the trans-Mississippi theater and for the look it offers at the treatment of veterans. (Inventory #: List2602)