Heartsill, W. W. (William Williston), 1839-1916

William Williston Heartsill (1839-1916) was born in Louisville, Tennessee. He came to Marshall, Texas, in 1859, and joined the Confederate Army in 1861. he was taken prisoner by Union soldiers at Arkansas Post, January 11, 1863, and was held at Camp Douglas, Illinois, until he was exchanged in May 1863. In the 1870s he published his diary, with photographs, as Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army. In 1881 he was elected alderman and later served as mayor of Marshall. He died in Waco, Texas, July 28, 1916.

From the guide to the William Williston Heartsill Papers, 1863-1865, 1908-1916, 1953, (Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)

William Williston Heartsill was a Confederate soldier in the U.S. Civil War. He was twnety-one years of age at the war's beginning in 1861, and was one the first to enlist, joining what became a very famous unit of the war, W.P. Lane's Texas Rangers. In 1862 his Texas unit moved into Arkansas as a calvary unit, and were soon overwhelmed by a Union force, taken prisoner, and transported to a prisoner of war camp near Springfield, Illinois.

In April, 1863, Lane's Rangers moved to City Point, Virginia, where they were released in exchange for Federal troops captured by the Confederacy. The men joined Gen. Braxton Bragg's army in Tennessee, and fought in the very bloody battle of Chickamauga shortly thereafter. Under Bragg, the Texas men were split amongst various units and dismounted, presenting intolerable conditions for them, and resulting in the men disappearing from their units, and walking from Tennessee back to Texas.

Once reunited there, the unit was placed in charge of a prison for Federal troops, Camp Ford, at Tyler, Texas. In July 1864, the unit joined General E. Kirby Smith in Louisiana and spent the remainder of the war there and in Arkansas. The unit was disbanded on May 20, 1865. Heartsill kept his diary for the full extent of this time period.

After the war, Heartsill entered business selling groceries and saddles in Marshall, Texas, and was active in civic affairs. He began pritning his journal in 1874. He later moved to Waco, where he died in 1916.

Excerpted in part from John H. Jenkins' The Most Remarkable Texas Book : An essay on W.W. Heartsill's Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army, Austin: The Pemberton Press, 1980.

From the guide to the William Williston Heartsill journal MS 035., 1861-1866, (Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX)

William Williston Heartsill (1839-1916) was born in Louisville, Tennessee.

He came to Marshall, Texas, in 1859 and joined the Confederate Army in 1861. He was taken prisoner by Union soldiers at Arkansas Post, January 11, 1863, and was held at Camp Douglas, Illinois, until he was exchanged in May 1863. In the 1870s he published his diary, with photographs, as Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army. In 1881 he was elected alderman and later served as mayor of Marshall. He died in Waco, Texas, July 28, 1916.

From the description of Heartsill, William Williston, papers, 1863-1953. (University of Texas Libraries). WorldCat record id: 39211086