2nd great-granduncle of Dorotha Piechocki

Private       Co. B      52nd Reg't Pennsylvania Vols.

Dates of Service:     12 Sep 1862 - 4 Jun 1863

William A. Bates was born February 23, 1821, the fourth of ten children born to Isaac and Maria Gardiner Bates. Isaac, a veteran of the War of 1812, had received bounty warrant land in Sullivan County, New York, and had settled there as early as 1814, where he farmed and raised a family of 10 children.

By the age of 26, William moved to Providence, Luzerne, Pennsylvania, where he married Hannah Washburn about 1848. The 1850 Federal census shows William, a carpenter, and Hannah living in Providence with their 1-year old daughter Mary Etta and 1-month old daughter Sarah Jane. By 1860, William and Hannah were still in Providence with six more children, all ranging in age from 11 years down to 2. William was still carpentering. His mother Maria had died sometime between 1855 and 1860, and his 78-year old father Isaac was living with the family also.

On September 12, 1862, William enrolled as a Private in Co. B, 52nd Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers and mustered in September 22 at Harrisburg. He was 40 years old, married, and the father of six children. Earlier that spring, as part of the Peninsula Campaign, the 52nd had seen its first serious combat action in the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5. The next major interaction with the enemy by the 52nd Pennsylvania came during the Battle of Seven Pines (also known as the Battle of Fair Oaks) from May 30 to June 1, 1862… In total of the 125 casualties, 26 had been killed in action, or died shortly after being mortally wounded. By the end of August, the 52nd Pennsylvania, in need of replacements, was then ordered south for duty in the Carolinas. 

William and the rest of the recruits having joined them at Yorktown, Virginia, the Pennsylvanians boarded the steamer USS Georgia on December 29, stopping at Fort Monroe to secure a more seaworthy vessel. Boarding the USS Expounder (formerly known as the Daniel Webster), the regiment then departed for the Carolinas on New Year's Eve, and reached Beaufort Harbor, North Carolina on January 2, 1863. Being then attached to the U.S. Army's Department of the South, the 52nd Pennsylvania was next ordered to Port Royal, South Carolina, and sailed for that city on January 29, 1863. Landing at St. Helena Island on February 10, they made camp, and remained there until April 4, when they were ordered to board the bark, Milton, and head south for the Edisto River, but after two collisions with two different vessels and then receiving word that Union troops at Beaufort, South Carolina needed support, they turned around, and arrived there in mid-April. That journey turned out to be part of an unsuccessful Union attack on Charleston. The regiment remained at Beaufort, South Carolina from mid-April to July 5.

However the Muster Rolls for the 52nd Regiment show that William was discharged on a Surgeon's Certificate of Disability June 4, 1863 at Beaufort. No further record can be found regarding the details of his disability.

1875 found William in Independence, Montgomery, Kansas, working as a carpenter, with Hannah and their five youngest children. They moved on briefly to Twin Groves, Jasper, Missouri, by 1880, leaving their daughter Lucy in Kansas with her new husband, and returned to Independence before July 1887 when Hannah died there. She was buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Independence.  

William did not apply for a pension until November, 1886, only a few months before his wife's death. The Independence newspaper reported in 1890 the original pension grant to William, among other Kansan veterans. In 1905, William was living with his youngest child Dwight Clinton Bates and his family in Independence, Montgomery, Kansas. He was 83 years old.

Sometime toward the end of his life, William sat for a portrait with five of his children, all of whom lived in Kansas and Missouri. The photograph has been shared on Ancestry and findagrave.

113 years later, on June 27, 2019, this Civil War monument was installed by G.A.R. #8 and W.R.C. #37 "In Memory of Our Comrades 1861 - 1865" at Oak Grove Cemetery, Hillsdale, Michigan.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES: Ancestry dot com; wikipedia; nps.gov; fold3; findagrave

GRAVESITE:  Oak Grove Cemetery, Hillsdale, Hillsdale, Michigan

Written by Gerald and Dorotha Piechocki, April 2020