Captain William Pursel (1909)

PURSEL

Posted By: Kent Transier
Date: 11/8/2023 at 18:04:35

The Winterset Madisonian
Winterset, Iowa
Thursday, January 21, 1909
Page 1, Column 3

Death of Wm. Pursell

Captain Wm. Pursel died at his home in Minneapolis, Kans., Jan. 17, 1909, being seventy-eight years of age. He was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, and when a young man, came with his parents to Iowa.

The 4th Iowa Cavalry, Company I, of which he was captain was composed of volunteers from this county and a number of from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. This company was mustered into service at Mt. Pleasant, December 5, 1861, and were in sixteen principal engagements in the south, the Siege of Vicksburg being one, lasting from May 18th to July 4th, 1863. They met and endured many hardships and at one time while in the south and while the captain was ill and could barely sit on his horse, and many others were also ill and yet they were on march, having nothing on which to subsist but corn which they procured from fields as they traveled.

Some of the members of this company who still survive are John Anderson, Alexis Lull, Leonard Beall, Andrew M. Hart, Andrew Macumber, Jerry M. Wilson, Andrew Applegate and John Ruby, bugler is supposed to be yet living, in Kansas, the last time he visited Madison County, being very nearly blind.
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Transcriber's note: Of the two versions of his published surname, "Pursel" is on his gravestone.

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