Confederate
Brigadier General William Stephen Walker resigned his captain’s commission with
the 1st United States Cavalry May 1st 1861.
William
Stephen Walker was born April 13th 1822 in Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania. He was raised by an uncle;
Robert J Walker, in Mississippi and Washington, DC, where that uncle served as
the Secretary of the Treasury for President James K Polk. Walker received his education in private
schools. At the start of the Mexican
American War he was appointed to First Lieutenant, and assigned to the 1st
United States Voltiguers. For his action
at the Battle of Chapultepec, Walker received a brevet to Captain. He was discharge from service following the
end of the war August 31st 1848.
Walker returned to military service March 3rd 1855 becoming a
Captain in the 1st United States Cavalry.
When the
Civil War started, Walker resigned his commission with the United States Army
on May 1st 1861, having received a Captaincy in the Confederate Army
on March 16th 1861. He
started as a mustering officer, but by November 5th 1861 he was
serving as the aide-de-camp to General Robert E Lee, and from December 1861 to
March 1862 as the inspector general for the Department of South Carolina,
Georgia and East Florida. With a
promotion to Colonel he took part in the Battle of Pocotaligo. Walker was promoted to Brigadier General
October 22nd 1862. He was
wounded in the left arm and the bone in his lower right leg was shattered
during the Battle of Ware Bottom Church, a part of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign. He was captured and taken to Fort Monroe
where Union Doctor John J Craven amputated his right foot. He was exchanged October 29th
1864. Walker served out the war at
Weldon, North Carolina. He was paroled
at Greensboro, North Carolina May 1st 1865.
After the
war ended Walker moved to Georgia. He
died June 7th 1899 in Atlanta, Georgia and is buried in the Oakland
Cemetery.
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