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William Wallace Kimball -- 7th Michigan Infantry

 

William Wallace Kimball enlisted on October 5, 1863 at Leonidas, Michigan, as a Private.  He was 20 years old.  He was mustered into “B” Company, Michigan 7th Infantry.  He was discharged for disability on June 2, 1865 at Washington, D.C.    

~Historical Data Systems, Inc. @ www.civilwardata.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excerpt from e-mail from Vic Jeter

Great-grandson of William Wallace Kimball &
Mary Catherine West Kimball               

     During the Civil War Pvt. William W. Kimball served from 10/5/1863 to 6/2/1865 in Co. B of the 7th Michigan Infantry. He participated in the battles at Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, and Ream's Station, and spent the last few months of the war at Douglas Hospital, Washington, D.C. My uncle, William T. Jeter, remember his grandfather's war experiences: "My first memories of him were times I sat on his lap listening to war stories. I heard some of them several times and with great interest. He tried to assure himself that he had never killed anyone. He admitted he fired shots in the direction of the enemy but he wasn't certain whose bullets were doing the killing. He talked about hardships of soldiers on both sides. He thought the South fought harder and with less and suffered more. He talked about fighting eight days with nothing to eat but "hardtack". Another time he and six others were captured and locked in a nearly full icehouse and apparently forgotten. All escaped cold and hungry when a cannonball knocked a hole in the roof on the third day of their captivity.  

     Uncle Bill continued: "All my folks were Republicans except Grandfather Kimball, a Democrat, who refused to argue politics. Grandma Kimball could not understand why grandpa who had fought so long and hard with General Grant could choose to be a Democrat with all the "rebels" in the community. Grandfather William Wallace Kimball was a yankee born in Michigan August 22, 1843. He died in St. Paul, Arkansas, August 25, 1918. He had a religion of high morality, integrity and adherence to the golden rule. He was a good man and helpful neighbor. In a settlement where most people thought it an essential mark of good citizenship to belong to one or more of the available fraternities he joined nothing. He unpretentiously went his way and had no quarrel with those who differed with him."

      After the war, William W. Kimball farmed, operated a wagon transport system, a stone quarry and livery stables. The cornerstone for the first Wichita bank came from his quarry. He and his family lived in 1870s and 1880s in or near several Kansas communities ---- Valley Center near Wichita, Attica and Sharon in what was then Harper County, Oak City which was about 5 miles from what is now Liberal, and near Coffeyville, just before moving to Arkansas. The family lived briefly in the Oklahoma town of Tyrone near the state line and south of Liberal, KS. In Oak City, he and his wife opened the Occidental Hotel in preparation for the arrival of the Rock Island railroad. The Rock Island went instead to Liberal and the hotel had to be dismantled and moved, by team and wagon, to the new railhead. The move from Kansas to Madison County, Arkansas was motivated by the hardwood logging boom in that area in which WWK thought his mules might bring in more money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Wallace Kimball, son of John F. Kimball & Alice Pischal Kimball Born 1818, died 1884.
Inscription reads:
Wm. W. KIMBALL , CO. B., 7 MICH. INF.

 

Photographs and Family History Courtesy of Vic Jeter, Great-grandson of William Wallace Kimball & Mary Catherine West Kimball


 More information on 7th Michigan Infantry, Co. B can be found at Chris Allen's Web Page:7th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Co. B