The publication is reproduced in full below:
HONORING CAPTAIN ANDREW G. WILLIAMS
______
HON. MIKE KELLY
of pennsylvania
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I would like to include in the Record the following speech that was written by local Butler, Pennsylvania historian and my constituent, Bill May. It was delivered at a headstone dedication ceremony for Civil War veteran Andrew Gomer Williams. Mr. Williams was a longtime resident of Butler where he practiced law. Born in Richmond, Virginia, Williams fought for the Union in the Civil War as a member of the 63rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. He also attended Duff's Business College and was a tradesman, nail-maker, bookkeeper, and notary public. Williams served the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a member of the state House of Representatives and state Senate as well as the Soldiers' Orphans School Commission. After a long life of service to his community and our Nation, Mr. Williams died on April 6, 1923 in Butler and was interred in the North Side Cemetery.
Mr. Williams is an American hero, which is why Chad Slater began placing the ``Grand Army of the Republic'' star and flag at his grave. The Grand Army of the Republic was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the American Civil War. However, since Williams was not identified on his headstone as a veteran, the star and flag were routinely removed. As a result, Mr. Slater, Jason Tindall, and VFW 249 began a quest to install a proper headstone that would appropriately recognize Mr. Williams' service to the people of Butler, Western Pennsylvania, and our country. I thank each of them for working to preserve this vital piece of American history for future generations.
(By Bill May)
``Monuments are as old as our race and all along the history of the dim and dusty age down to the bright and joyous present we have been perpetuating the memory of heroic men''. These eloquent words, so very appropriate this morning, are not mine, but were the actual words of Andrew Gomer Williams whose monument we gather here this morning to dedicate. He delivered them in a speech on September 11, 1889 on the Gettysburg Battlefield during ceremonies dedicating the monument to his regiment, the 63rd PA Volunteers, who fought during the famous battle on July 1 through the 3rd of 1863. Much like they gathered on that field 132 years ago, we gather here today on this field to perpetuate the memory of a heroic man.
Ironically, Williams, who had fought for the Union, was born in Richmond VA, the Capital of the Confederacy on September 8, 1840 to a Welsh immigrant father and an Eastern Maryland mother. His family moved from Richmond to Pittsburgh in 1847 and from Pittsburgh to Etna one year later. The recipient of very little education, Andrew Williams went to work as a nail cutter in the local factory at the young age of 10.
Maybe it was the sense of patriotism that swelled in Andrew Williams heart or maybe it was wanting to escape the dullness of factory work for the great unknown adventure of war, but regardless of the reason, we do know that at age 21 in 1861, Williams was helping to raise three companies of men to become part of the newly created 63rd PA Volunteers and leave the smoky city for the battlefields of his native South. He was elected Captain of Company E, but declined the honor and the rank to initially serve as their 3rd Sargent when their 3 years of service began on September 9 of 1861.
He was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant on the field during the Second Battle of Bull in 1862 and then in the Spring of 1863 he was promoted to the rank of Captain of Company E of the 63rd PA Volunteers. He fought in over a dozen battles and was wounded four times including at the Charles City Crossroads on June 30, 1862 and again at The Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. 1863 would find Williams leading his men at the Battles of Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. During the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5, 1864 Williams was thought to have been mortally wounded after being struck in the left temple by a Confederate minie' ball and left for dead. Miraculously he was found barely alive four days later on the Wilderness Battlefield. He was mustered out with the rest of his regiment on August 6, 1864. Williams would carry the external scars from the near fatal wound for the rest of his life.
After his return home to Etna, he was unable to work for the next 3 years due to his wounds. He entered Duff's Business College in Pittsburgh to become a bookkeeper and also read law at home. In 1868, following his father's death in a boiler explosion at the Fort Pitt Foundry, he was forced to return to cutting nails in the Etna Rolling Mill to help support his family while continuing his law studies at night. Besides his father's tragic death, Williams throughout his life experienced the deaths of 13 members of his family by explosions, railroad accidents, burnings and drowning.
In spite of all the personal and family trauma, Andrew G. Williams marched on and came to Butler in 1875 and upon being admitted to the Butler Bar the following year he immediately formed a partnership with Alexander Mitchell. This partnership would last until Mitchell's death 40 years later. During these four decades together the men claimed to never have had an argument or ever having signed a lease for their office on the Diamond with their word as their bond. The only day in the entire history of their practice they did not open was when both men's Civil War Regiments were holding reunions on the same date in Pittsburgh. The two lawyers closed up shop each afternoon at precisely 4:45 p.m. It was said that people along their walking route home could set their watches by their passing. The house Andrew Williams came home to each night was the home he built in 1887 for his second wife and their 3 sons and 1 daughter and for his 3 children from his deceased first wife.
Williams' military service in the Civil War continued to play an important role in his life with his membership in the local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic or GAR, a Civil War veterans' group and contributing his time to help those survivors scarred by the effects of the war. He helped Civil War soldier spouses such as a Mrs. Kettenburgh of Edgewood whose husband had served with Williams and who came to Butler in 1908 accompanied by her two sisters to apply for a Civil War Widow's Pension. Kettenburgh presented Williams with the photo displayed in front of me taken just a few days before William's near fatal wounding at the Wilderness. He also volunteered serving on the Board of Directors of the Civil War Orphans Home that was located on Butler's Institute Hill from 1867 until moving to Mercer County in 1905.
Outside of his legal practice and his Civil War related activities, Williams served one term in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and four years in the Pennsylvania State Senate. He also served for 20 years as the Choir Director of Butler's First Methodist Church and rose to the rank of Grand Commander Knights of Templar of the State of Pennsylvania in the Masons.
After a full life, devoted to his nation, his church, his community and most importantly his family, Andrew Gomer Williams died in his North McKean Street home on April 6, 1923 from pneumonia at the age of 83 @ 10:40 p.m. Fittingly for a man who had been a soldier in the Civil War, his funeral and burial were held on April 9th the same day only 58 years earlier that Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at a place called Appomattox Courthouse Virginia.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 105
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