The Butler, Pa. Post Office, located at 345 South Main Street in Butler, was renamed this week in honor of local Civil War veteran Andrew Gomer Williams. Butler historian Bill May spoke at the renaming ceremony and these excerpts from his biographical portrait explain why President Biden bestowed this honor on Williams:
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 andalso 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 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. 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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