Miami Union

November 20, 1875 

WILLIAMS, ISAAC WALTER - Isaac Walter Williams, son of Elder Henry and Elizabeth Williams, and brother of Harry and Capt. E. S. Williams, was born in New Carlisle, Clarke county, O., April 28, 1843, and died at his brother's residence in Troy, Nov. 18, 1875, aged 32 years, 6 months, and 13 days.  He professed religion under his father's preaching, in his 17th year and united with the Christian Church, in the fellowship of which he died.  In his 19th year he enlisted in Co. I, 110th O. V. I., and served with true heroism, in the following battles, and until the close of the war: Winchester, Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Monocasy, Fisher's Hill, Newmarket, Cedar Creek, and numerous skirmishes.  Though never wounded, he nevertheless laid the foundation of that fatal disease, consumption, through exposure incident to army life.  At the close of the war he took up his residence in Tennessee, and there, with courage quite equal to that exhibited on the field of battle, he defended, often at the cost of friendship, and sometimes at nearly the cost of life, the equal right of all before the law.  He was in every sense a natural martyr, and had circumstances of either religious or civil character demanded his life, he would not have withheld it at the simple expense of unworthy compromise, from either gallows or take.  He was also an ardent devotee of Temperance, and beautifully exhibited his faith in his practice.  His physicians advised and his friend besought him, to use liquor as an almost sure means of recovery.  His reply was worthy the hero that he was: "If only liquor will save me, I will go down to a consumptive's grave."  In the army he was doubly a soldier, never forgetting his obligations to the Great Captain.  The regimental prayer-meeting found in him a constant worker.  Until death he kept the faith delivered him of his father from his Savior, and died finally in happy possession of its triumphant blessings.

"Nearer, my God, to thee,"

were his last audible words, but an hour or less before death.  He was buried near New Carlisle the day following his death, and was followed to his grave by the Colonel whom he had followed in battle, and by a host of early and constant friends.  In his death Earth has lost a hero and Heaven has gained a saint.                                                                                                         J. P. Watson 

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