McCOID, W. B.

MCCOID, HOOD

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 1/24/2007 at 13:47:58

"Fairfield Ledger", January 23, 1868

W. B. McCOID died in the 21st year of his age, at his father’s residence in Batavia. cut off in the bloom of youth, when his prospects were brightest and his soul swelled proudest with high hopes of a life of usefulness. In 1861, though too young, his heart panted for the battle-fields of his country, and this desire of his soul became so irresistible that at the time the 8th Iowa Cavalry was raised, he enlisted in its ranks, as a member of Co. “B.” He served until in action at Campbellsville, Tenn., in September, 1864, when HOOD was advancing on Nashville, he was wounded through the right elbow, shattering the arm and causing its loss by amputation. On his way home at Lewisville, Ky., gangrene having set in in the wounded arm, he was subjected to the cruelty of hospital treatment by being kept several days without any attention because he refused to have his arm re-amputated at the shoulder, in compliance with a determination of some brutal surgeon, who, afraid to go to the front to practice his art, caught his victims there. Her he lingered long on the confines of the grave, subject to the severest torture in the burnings and outings to heal his gangrened wound.

On his return home he received an appointment as chief messenger in the Agricultural Department at Washington. While there the abscess commenced running that continued to drain away his life, till last Sabbath morning he yielded to its power. His is one of the few lives in which, looking back, we discover no cause of human blame. He was gentle, quiet, studious, patient, forgiving, loving and most sensitively honorable. In his excrutiating sufferings he always made his attendants leave him and attend to the slightest wants of others. And, most blessed and sweetest consolation, 'he loved God'. He died in faith and confidence, saying, in his last words, “I’m going to Heaven, I want you all to meet me there.” Then closing his own eyes, and lying his own hands over his breast, as if to fold them, he whispered: “Good-bye”.

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.