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Military Biography ~ |
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Dubuque county Civil War Soldiers
of the
Twenty-first Regiment Iowa Volunteer
Infantry
Historical information, notes &
comments, in some cases correcting the record
Soldier biographies written by
Carl Ingwalson
Carl will do look-ups in his extensive
records of the 21st Iowa and he is always willing to share what he
has. |
| WILLIAM W.
LYONS |
William
W. Lyons was born in Morgan County, Ohio, southeast of Columbus,
on December 27, 1832. From there he moved to Iowa where he married
Jennette J. Beedy, daughter of Julius C. Beedy, a Hardin merchant
and postmaster, and his wife, Susan M. (Debar) Beedy. On May 18,
1859, Jennette gave birth to their first child, a daughter named
Hattie. In August of that year the Clayton County Journal told
readers “there never will be a better time than the present, for
investment in Iowa lands,” but two months later abolitionist John
Brown raided Harper’s Ferry and tensions began to escalate rapidly
between North and South.
On April 12, 1861, Confederate
guns fired on Fort Sumter. A year later, with the war in its
second year and Hattie three years old, William was enrolled at
Hardin on August 13, 1862, as a 2d Sergeant in what would be
Company B of Iowa’s 21st Infantry. At Camp Franklin in Dubuque,
the regiment was mustered into service on September 9th. A week
later, on a rainy Tuesday, they marched through town and, from the
levee at the foot of Jones Street, boarded the sidewheel steamer
Henry Clay and two barges tied alongside and started south.
The regiment’s early service was in Missouri. After spending
one night at Benton Barracks in St. Louis, they traveled by rail
to Rolla where they camped outside of town for a month. They then
moved south to Salem and, from there, to Houston followed by
Hartville and back to Houston. On January 27, 1863, they started
another march, this one fifty miles to West Plains near the
Arkansas border. After a brief stay, they left on February 8th and
walked to the northeast through Ironton to Iron Mountain where
they camped near an iron mine a quarter mile from town. While
there, on March 1st, William was promoted to 1st Sergeant to take
the place of Barney Phelps who had been promoted to 2d Lieutenant.
Two days later Jennette gave birth to their second child, a boy
named Leroy.
On March 19th, Mason Bettys of Grand Meadow
Township died at Ste. Genevieve from the debilitating effects of
chronic diarrhoea and, the same day, William Lyons started north
on a furlough to see Jennette, Hattie and his new son. Two days
later, Jim Bethard, also a resident of the township, wrote to his
wife, Caroline (“Cal”), that “you will probably see Mr Lyons our
orderly sergeant who went home with the dead body of Mason Bettice
[Bettys] before this letter reaches you he promised me that he
would go over and make you a visit.”
William’s furlough
was brief and, on April 14th, Myron Knight noted in his diary that
“three of our furloughed men came back W. W. Lyons D. Maxson and
John Carpenter.” The regiment was then under the command of
General John McClernand in an army led by Ulysses S. Grant intent
on capturing Vicksburg. William was present on April 30th when
they crossed the Mississippi River from Disharoon’s plantation on
the west bank to the Bruinsburg landing in Mississippi. On May 1,
1863, the regiment participated in the one-day Battle of Port
Gibson, on May 16th they were present but held in reserve during
the Battle of Champion’s Hill, and on May 17th, with the 23d Iowa,
they led an assault on entrenched Confederates at the Big Black
River. William was wounded in the left hand during the assault and
that evening Dr. Orr amputated one of his fingers. On June 10th,
William was promoted to 1st Lieutenant of Company B.
In the
interim, Cornelius Dunlap, Lieutenant Colonel and second in
command of the regiment, had been killed during an assault at
Vicksburg on May 22d. Promotion of the officer next in line would
normally have come quickly but, for reasons he chose not to put in
writing, Colonel Merrill, then in McGregor recuperating from
serious wounds he received while leading the assault at the Big
Black, delayed making his recommendations. Eventually, on July
17th, after inquiry by Governor Kirkwood, he wrote a cover letter
admitting, but not wanting to explain in writing, his hesitancy.
He then wrote separately to say, “I have the honor to recommend
the promotion of Maj S. G. Van Anda to the office of Lt Col 21st
Regiment and Capt Wm D. Crooke of Co. B for Maj of said Regiment.
I certify on my honor that Capt W. D. Crooke above recommended
does not use intoxicating liquor to such an extent as to interfere
with the discharge of his duties as an officer or as to set a bad
example to those under his command.”
The promotions were
made and the commissions issued, but that left a vacancy at the
company level. William was in line for the position but, again, a
usually prompt promotion came slowly. On August 15th, after a two
day trip from Vicksburg on board the Baltic, the regiment went
into camp at Carrollton, Louisiana. Still there on the 26th,
William was ordered to report to Division headquarters where he
was detailed for detached service as an officer with a Pioneer
Corps. Pioneers were soldiers, and sometimes civilians, who
cleared roads, erected bridges, built breastworks, dug trenches
and constructed other structures. For the next several months he
served in that capacity in southwestern Louisiana and on the Gulf
coast of Texas until, “at his own request and by reason of his
promotion to be Captain of co. B,” he was relieved on January 17,
1864, and ordered back to his regiment. “I think Lyons will make a
good captain,” said Jim Bethard. “[H]e was verry well liked as
orderly and lieutenant by the majority of the company his worst
enemy is from his own town and I think his enmity originated
mainly from jealousy.”
Three months later and still in
Texas, it was ordered on April 18th that William again be
“detailed for duty in the Pioneer Corps of this Division and will
report at once and take Command of the Corps.” In June the
regiment, and William who was still with the Pioneer Corps,
returned to Louisiana where, on August 8th at Morganza, he resumed
command of Company B.
On September 17, 1864, Jennette Lyons
died. She was buried in Hardin Cemetery, but William’s duties kept
him in the South as the regiment saw service in Arkansas. They
were near the mouth of the White River on November 6th when Jim
Bethard wrote again. William, he said, “is a well meaning man and
wants to please every body but dont know how to do it. there has
been some complaint in the company of his being to fraid of
displeasing some of the higher officers to do his duty to his
men.”
By February, 1865, they were on Dauphin Island at
the entrance to Mobile Bay and about to start a march along the
east side of the bay to Mobile, when Jim, his brother-in-law,
Captain Lyons “and some of the hardin boys” packed a box of
clothing for shipment to Jim’s father-in-law, Joel Rice, for
delivery to Jennette’s father, Julius Beedy, “who will call for
it.” If not picked up soon, Captain Lyons “would be obliged if you
would open and air it.” The upcoming march was going to be
difficult and the Brigadier General commanding the 1st Brigade
advised the Assistant Adjutant General of the U. S. forces, that
William Lyons was “the most suitable man in my Brigade to command
the Pioneer Corps of the Division.” General Veach ordered that
William “immediately take command” and organize a company of
pioneers - including three Sergeants, three Corporals and thirty
Privates, all to be selected by William.
The march was
difficult said Strawberry Point’s William Grannis - "through
swamps much of the way and that the men were detailed to make
corduroy causeways, that the swamps were of such a nature that
horses and mules could not be used so that the men had to cut and
drag in place the timbers for causeways, that heavy rains fell,
especially on the night of the 20th of March that the work was
arduous and hard on the men; work all day in the mud and wet and
then lie down at night in their wet clothes." Lyons’ pioneers
labored hard as roads floated away, teams and wagons floundered,
and animals were half buried but, on April 12th, the regiment
walked into the city of Mobile, a city that had been quickly
abandoned by the enemy.
Mobile was their last campaign. On
July 15, 1865, the regiment was mustered out of service at Baton
Rouge and, on July 24th, they were discharged from the military at
Clinton. Two years later, on September 5, 1867, William married
Atlantic Hatfield in Montezuma. They had at least three children -
William E. Lyons on August 21, 1870, Charles A. Lyons on March 5,
1876, and Samuel M. Lyons on January 7, 1877.
In 1879 they
were living in Glenville, Nebraska, when William applied for an
invalid pension based on the loss of his finger. A pension of
$4.00 was approved and, on July 30, 1890, he applied again. By now
he was fifty-seven years old and said he was suffering from a bad
back and hip and other ailments. During the fall of 1893, he said,
“I was working on a hay loader and was trying to keep the hay out
from the drive pinion and chain which caught the middle fingers of
my right hand and mashed them up to the second joint.” A witness
recalled that he had been standing on the back end of the hay rack
“when Mr William W. Lyons walking along the side was trying to
adjust the drive chain. I seen the chain catch his Right Hand and
drawing his fingers in the sprocket wheel under the chain.”
William died on July 25, 1906, and was buried in Adams
County’s Parkview Cemetery. Abbie continued to live in Hastings
for several years, applied for a widow’s pension, and eventually
moved to Edison, Nebraska. She died on May 9, 1923, and was buried
with William in Parkview Cemetery. |
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Dubuque
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