Tribute to a Lost Soldier

Minter was not from Missouri, but he joined the 18th Regiment, Missouri Infantry from his nearby home in Illinois. At that time in his life, he was living in Quincy.

Minter was born in 1827 in Monroe, Virginia (now West Virginia). His family and early life are a mystery, but he later listed his vocation as river boat captain, a profession that must have taken him to Louisville by the mid-1850s. At that time, he met and married Louisville widow Louisa McDonald Hardy. Louisa was more than 20 years older than Minter. She had numerous older sons and one young daughter, Charlotte. The Mississippi River must have called William and his new family to the river town of Quincy, Illinois. By 1860, he was working there as a bookkeeper. 

When the Civil War broke out, Minter and several associates joined the Illinois 10th Infantry, Co. E. on April 21, 1861. His papers listed him as 6 ft tall, with light hair and blue eyes. He was a leader and was promoted to 2nd Lt. on his 9th day of service. One of his comrades was John Tillson, Jr., son-in-law of John Wood, Quincy’s founder who just happened to be the Governor of Illinois in 1860-61. The company was stationed near Cairo, Illinois, until the 10th disbanded in July 1861. He lived a civilian life for nine months, but waiting no longer, he used his connections to Tillson and Wood to muster into the Missouri 18th Infantry on March 10, 1862, as an officer. Weeks after rejoining the Union Army, he found himself at Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee, site of the famous 1862 Battle of Shiloh. Led by fellow Quincy resident, General Benjamin Prentiss, Minter’s troops were the first to be attacked by the Confederates in what was called The Hornets’ Nest. The Union suffered major losses, Prentiss surrendered, and many, including Minter, were taken prisoner. In June they were released in a prisoner swap. They regrouped and rejoined the 18th. Minter had been elevated to Captain, then Major and on Aug. 15, 1864, to Lt. Colonel. He was known to be a stringent commander who was tough on rules and training. He would demote those who broke rules but also promoted those that he believed had earned the honor. 

In 1864, he participated in the Battle of Atlanta. On June 16, 1864, near Kennesaw, he was wounded when a bullet grazed his skull two inches above his right eye leaving a bad puncture wound and a small fracture. He refused to be sent home. When Atlanta fell, his group marched 364 rebel troops to a camp near Jonesboro, anticipating a prisoner swap. Minter commanded “Truce Camp” at East Point, Georgia, from November 15 to December 21, 1864. Lt. Col. Minter and the 18th joined in Sherman’s March to the Sea. Sherman took Savannah but did not destroy it as he said it was just too beautiful. He offered it to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift. On Christmas Day, 1864, Lt. Col. Minter met up with his old friend Tillson and dined in Savannah on roast turkey and eggnog. Minter wrote a colorful letter back to Quincy on that day to a friend “Mattie” in which he described the March and last efforts and retreat of the Johnny Rebs. The original letter is housed at the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. Still suffering from a head injury, he resigned on April 3, 1865. 

Back in Quincy, with his wife Louisa and stepdaughter “Lottie,” he worked with his friend Brig. General Tillson as a manager of the U.S. Revenue Office at 619 Maine Street. In 1875, Louisa died and is buried at Woodland Cemetery in Quincy. In 1874, Minter applied for and received a disability pension for his war service and injury. In 1876, at the age of 50, he married his stepdaughter, Lottie, who was 33. He continued to work in Quincy for five more years.

At some point in the mid-1880s, Lt. Col. Minter and his wife Lottie moved to DeLand, Volusia County, Florida. How they were lured to DeLand is not known. They lived a comfortable life in the days of DeLand’s burgeoning growth. Minter purchased a few acres where he cultivated orange trees. As a decorated Union officer, William Minter would have been respected. His wife was involved in the good works of the community with other prominent women of DeLand.

Unfortunately, his old head wound continued to give him great pain. There was little treatment available, especially in a remote Florida town. In July of 1888, Lieutenant Colonel William H. Minter took his service pistol and shot himself in the head, dying immediately. He was 61.

The old soldier, who travelled from Virginia, to Louisville, to Quincy, enlisted and was sent to Shiloh and imprisoned in Mississippi. He survived Sherman’s March to the Sea, and finally retired in DeLand, Florida. He was laid to rest on top of a hill at the newly established Oakdale Cemetery there. His obituary in the Quincy Herald stated that Col. Minter was well and favorably known in Quincy where he had lived for thirty years. The article stated that he was a skilled and intelligent gentleman who commanded universal respect from all who knew him. Lottie Minter lived for another twenty-nine years. She died on December 3, 1917, and is buried next to William in an unmarked grave. Ironically, he rests next to a Confederate soldier’s grave. The two opposing flags fly just feet from each other on every Memorial Day and Veterans Day.  

Sources

Adams County Illinois. City Directory, 1871-71, 1873-74.

Anders, Leslie, The Eighteenth Missouri, Bobbs- Merrill Co.: Indianapolis, 1968.

Cemetery Census, “Oakdale Cemetery,” DeLand, Florida.

“Death Certificate.” Bureau of Vital Statistics, State Board of Health of Florida, 1917.

“The Death of Colonel William H. Minter.” The Quincy Daily Herald, August 4, 1888, 4.

Kentucky Marriage Records. 

“Property Records.” County of Volusia, Florida, 1888.

Reyburn, Phil. “Quincy Soldier Wrote of Sherman’s March.” Quincy Herald Whig, December 28, 2014.

U. S. Census Bureau. Kentucky, 1850.

U. S. Census Bureau. Illinois, 1860, 1870, 1880.