Sgt William Walker

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Permalink Reply by Kate Steere on September 11, 2009 at 7:29pm

Hi Rhonda-

Here is a website that has a lot of information on the charges and trial:
http://www.awod.com/cwchas/walkertr.html

another site:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature5/online_extra.html

as far as finding relatives of William Walker, it will be difficult as we do not know his birth year, birth place or parents. Do you have any further information regarding his family?

I found this on another site:
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1988/1/1988_1_...

We do not know a great deal about William Walker. For most of his short life he belonged to that large category of people on whom history keeps no records. There are only some military documents—notably a forty-eight-page handwritten transcript of his court-martial. One paper says he was born in Hilton Head; another, in Savannah. One says, “Occupation: Servant.” It adds: “Name of former owner not of record.” From this we can deduce that Walker had been born and reared a slave and that if anyone asked him who his master was, he probably refused to say.

He was five feet seven inches tall, according to these Army documents. Eyes black, hair black, complexion black. He was illiterate—hardly surprising since it was against the law in South Carolina to teach a slave to read, and any black found in possession of a pencil and paper was liable to flogging. He was twenty-three years old when he died.

On Walker’s death certificate his occupation was given not as “servant” but as “pilot.” In his last appeal for mercy, just three weeks before his execution, he said that he had served six months as pilot on an armored gunboat, the USS Montauk. This implies, surely, that he knew the region well; it also implies a certain intelligence, energy, and eagerness to serve the Union cause.

Permalink Reply by Rhonda A Reid on September 11, 2009 at 10:31pm

Hello Kate, thanks for the information

I do not know alot about Sgt William Walker. I do know that he was not from Hilton Head, South Carolina, this is where he enlisted into the USCT. He was married to a woman named Rebecca she was approximately 20 years old when he was executed. I am not sure if they had children. In 1894 she tried to file for his pension and was denied. And he was a pilot before joining the USCT.

I also have a copy of that handwritten transcript of his court martial, but I have not read all of the documents. My interest in Sgt Walker started when I learned that my great great grandfather was one of the men who served under Sgt Walker and was one of the men who stacked his rifle in prostest. My great great grandfather also testified at Sgt Walkers trial in his defense. After reading his story on www.awod.com and reviewing his military file I became curious about his family.

How did you obtain a copy of his death certificate?

Permalink Reply by Kate Steere on September 12, 2009 at 4:39am

Hi Rhonda-

The bit about his death certificate was from the website, I should have put quotes around that part. ;)