[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 105 (Wednesday, June 16, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  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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