Family genealogy leads Greensburg man to ancestor's Civil War battle exploits

John Williams wasn’t a particularly tall man, standing at 5 feet, 6 inches, but he made a big impact after joining the Union cavalry at age 18 in September 1862.

Greensburg resident Richard Barnard learned his great-grandfather captured a Confederate major when the two clashed with sabers the following April in Tennessee.

“It was a big thing, capturing a Confederate officer single-handedly,” said Barnard, who has been researching his family roots since retiring as a regional manager with Kodak in 2010. “I was amazed when I got that information.

“He executed what was called a front cut with his sword. He cut him three times on the head and face and knocked him off his horse.”

That encounter in McMinnville, Tenn., was one of the pivotal moments in the life of Williams, who was born in Wales in 1844 and died in Greensburg 79 years later.

‘I kept writing books’

Enlisting in support of the Union cause less than nine years after his immigrant family made their new home in Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County, Williams underwent training in Harrisburg. He then joined the 7th Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry — already in the field in Tennessee, as part of Minty’s Saber Brigade in the Army of the Cumberland — and was promoted to the rank of corporal on March 1, 1863.

“They spent months in Tennessee,” said Barnard, who has hunted official documents to learn about his great-grandfather’s military history. “They were trying to rid the state of Confederate outposts.”

Through more than a decade of genealogical digging, Barnard has learned about more than two dozen relations who completed military service, dating from as early as the Revolutionary War.

Williams is one of six veterans whose exploits he’s written about in his 2019 book “Duty, Honor, Country” — among four volumes of tales from his extended family tree that he’s self-published since 2016.

In addition to distributing the volumes to relatives, Barnard has provided copies to the Greensburg-Hempfield Area Library and the Westmoreland County Historical Society’s Calvin E. Pollins Memorial Library at Historic Hanna’s Town.

”It’s an interesting hobby,” Barnard said of his research. “You never know what you’re going to find. I’ve gone to countless libraries and cemeteries and worked with websites in the UK run by the government.

“I kept finding information; that’s why I kept writing books. Everybody I researched who served in the military had an interesting story” — including Williams.

Courageous action

Williams’ major blow against the enemy gained the attention of Union Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans. He issued a citation, directing that the corporal’s name “be placed upon the Rolls of Honor” while declaring, “Such deeds of gallantry should not pass unnoticed.”

Barnard discovered his forebear’s courageous action on the front lines didn’t end there, but the next major encounter came at a heavy cost.

On Sept. 18, 1863, Williams suffered a serious wound on the first day of the Battle of Chickamauga, in northwest Georgia.

The 7th Cavalry was among opposing units that confronted each other on either side of Pea Vine Creek Bridge.

“An officer ordered my great-grandfather and three other men to charge this bridge and stop the Confederate advance,” said Barnard. “The Confederates were there sitting on the opposite side, and they opened fire.

“They killed the man on my great-grandfather’s right; he fell off his horse and he was dead. They shot my great-grandfather in the right shoulder and knocked him off his horse. They were among the first guys shot in the battle.”

A brigade surgeon field-dressed Williams’ Minie ball wound, and he was sent back to an army hospital in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Ending on Sept. 20, the battle was a tactical victory for Confederate forces. But it was the second bloodiest battle of the war, behind Gettysburg, with the Confederates suffering the most casualties.

According to estimates cited by the American Battlefield Trust, the Union army suffered more than 16,000 causalities, including about 1,600 dead, while the Confederate toll was more than 18,000 casualties, including more than 2,000 dead.

Williams’ recuperation involved two weeks in Chattanooga and a longer stay in a second hospital in Alabama.

“It was about two months more before he got back to his unit, and he had limited use of his right arm after that,” said Barnard.

On another occasion, Williams suffered a back injury when his horse fell on him, though Barnard isn’t sure of the involved circumstance.

Barnard noted it wasn’t always easy for soldiers of his great-grandfather’s stature to mount an Army horse. “They might have to find a fence or get up on a log,” he said.

Tradition of service

Barnard didn’t learn many details of Williams’ post-war life. But, he said, his partial disability kept him from returning to the anthracite coal mines of Schuylkill County, where he’d worked alongside his father, William, from the age of 15.

Williams was mustered out of the army after serving for two years and nearly nine months. He returned to his family’s adopted hometown of Mahanoy City, where he married Mary Powell and raised 11 children with her.

Barnard was able to unearth an 1893 photo of his great-grandfather posing during a reunion there with fellow members of the 7th Cavalry’s Company F.

After fighting for the Union, Williams was engaged in a much longer battle against red tape. Enlisting testimony from the field surgeon who treated him and from fellow soldiers, he filed multiple rounds of paperwork to obtain a meager military pension for his wartime disability.

“It was just an endless thing,” Barnard said. “They’d give it to him for a period of time and then they’d quit and he’d have to go through the whole thing again.”

In his later years, Williams relocated to Westmoreland County, living first with a son in Youngwood. Finally, he moved into the Greensburg home of his daughter and son-in-law — Jennie and Adam Barnard, Richard Barnard’s grandparents.

When he died on April 20, 1923, he was honored by the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic and by the Knights of the Golden Eagle before returning to Mahanoy City for interment.

A powder horn that Williams owned and a portrait taken during his 50th wedding anniversary are among prized family heirlooms that Barnard has inherited.

“About five years ago, I took a three-day trip down to Chickamauga,” Barnard said. “With help of a park ranger on the battlefield, I found the exact spot where my great-grandfather was shot.”

The family’s military tradition has continued with his father, older brother and a son, all named Adam. His father was a World War II Navy veteran, his brother served with the Navy during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis while the youngest of his two sons, an Air Force veteran, completed a tour in Afghanistan.

‘It’s like quicksand’

Barnard also has written about his late cousin and fellow Greensburg resident, Chuck Baker, a World War II veteran who died in 2017.

“He was a bomber captain in the Army Air Force,” Barnard said. “He flew missions over Germany and France.

”He came back one time with over 100 bullet holes in his fuselage. Another time, he had the nose gear shot out of his airplane, and he still landed.”

Through his research, Barnard was able to connect Baker with a fellow bomber crew member he hadn’t heard from in years.

Barnard discovered many unknown relations by building a family tree and having his DNA analyzed through the online ancestry.com platform. That includes eight great uncles and great aunts and their descendants whom he hadn’t realized were his kin through his grandfather, Adam Barnard Jr.

“It allows you to meet people who know things that you don’t that you’ll never find out unless you talk to them,” Richard Barnard said. “That’s the fun part.

“It’s like quicksand. You get so into this stuff, you just keep getting deeper and deeper and one thing leads to another. I need to know more about it.”