Memory of Civil War veteran to be preserved
Book spurs family, group to memorialize Union soldier who died in Confederate prison
More than a century-and-a-half after William F. Barton died in a Confederate prison, his memory is finally being preserved.
The Gratiot County native served with the 26th Michigan Volunteer Regiment, part of the Union Army, from 1862-1865 during the Civil War.
In 2018, Gail Goodwin Graham, part of the Barton family tree, published a book featuring more than 50 letters Barton had written and sent home to his parents, William T. and Catherine Barton, and other relatives.
Graham, who grew up in Ithaca but graduated from Mt. Pleasant High School, now resides in Arizona.
“This book has been a love journey discovering what happened 158 years ago and how much we have changed as people and a nation,” Graham said. “The book archives the personal letters, grammar and spelling remain as William wrote them. They bring home life struggles from a soldier and his family.”
Barton, who enlisted at the age of 20 in Hamilton Township, fought in a number of Civil War battles before being captured at Deep Bottom on the James River in Virginia, according to Graham.
But after being sent to Andersonville Prison in Georgia little is known. Barton is believed to have died of either disease or starvation in the spring of 1865.
Graham and her husband Gordon have travelled to battlefields throughout the south “in an attempt to learn the truth,” she said.
“We believe he is buried in the National Cemetery in Salisbury, South Carolina where mass graves and sweeping green lawns honor the Civil War dead across the South,” she said.
Currently the only remembrance of Barton is his name engraved on the back of his father’s grave-marker in Gratiot County’s North Star Township Cemetery.
But that is about to change.
Information about the book and Barton’s death was recently made known to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, an organization that helps memorialize those who fought for the North but have no gravesite and have been forgotten.
The group and family members are hosting a service at the North Star Cemetery at 2 p.m. Monday to honor Barton. The public is invited to attend.
According to another relative, Jeff Godley, who grew up in Ithaca, graduated from Central Michigan University in 1978 and lived in Mt.
Pleasant for 35 years before moving to Grand Rapids, Graham’s book was the impetus behind Barton finally being recognized and remembered with his own gravesite.
Graham is the cousin of his mother Beverly. She and her husband Norm Godley lived in Mt. Pleasant for a number of years where they owned Norm’s Flower Petal.
“Most of all the work and credit for this goes to Gail Goodwin Graham,” Godley said.
The letters she transcribed were mostly written to Barton’s mother and father, and several to his sister Cassy, he noted.
“He is sharing his experience on his travels to different towns on the way to the war, and wartime stories about what was happening to him and his friends who he went with,” Godley explained. “He tells of the adjustment to military life and the casualties of war, and the conditions they were living through.”
The 121-page book, titled “Our Soldier William,” which also contains a full family tree starting with Barton’s parents to present day, was published by KENA West Inc. and is available by mail at gkg1025@yahoo.com.