William Hart was a twenty-nine-year-old husband and father of three young children when he joined the army.  He was born in Ohio on July 5, 1833, and married Rozetta Bliss on June 3, 1856 at Patch Grove, Wisconsin. On May 31, 1857, a daughter (Mary Rosetta Hart) was born. On July 25, 1859, another daughter (Estella P. Hart) was born. On April 12, 1861, Confederate artillery fired on Fort Sumter and, on August 4th of that year, a third daughter (Alta L. Hart) was born. These were troublesome times.

      In the fall of 1862 President Lincoln called for 300,000 volunteers to join those already engaged. Iowa’s quota was five regiments and if not raised by August 15th a draft would be instituted. On August 14th, William Hart was enrolled by Manchester merchant Joseph Watson in what would be Company H. The company had been ordered into quarters at Dubuque’s Camp Franklin the previous day and, on August 23d, it was mustered into service. On September 9, 1862, ten companies were mustered in as the state’s twenty-first regiment of volunteer infantry. They left Dubuque on September 16th and, by October, were camped a few miles southwest of Rolla, Missouri.  From there they walked south to Salem, Houston, Hartville and then, after a wagon train was attacked on November 24th, back to Houston. When word was received that a Confederate force was headed for Springfield, a relief force was quickly organized with twenty-five volunteers from each of the companies. William was one of the volunteers from Company H when, with a similar number from an Illinois regiment, they left on January 9th. Two days later they engaged in a day-long battle at Hartville.

      In March, Rozetta gave birth to another daughter (Rozetta C. “Rose” Hart) and, at Iron Mountain, Missouri, on the 1st of that month, William was promoted from Private to 7th Corporal. The regiment reached the Mississippi at St. Genevieve on the 11th and the next month those able for duty were transported downstream to Milliken’s Bend where General Grant was organizing a large army to capture Vicksburg. Assigned to a corps led by John McClernand, they moved slowly south along the west side of the river on often muddy dirt roads, through swamps and across bayous until April 30th when they crossed from Disharoon’s Plantation to the landing known as Bruinsburg. On May 1st William participated with his regiment in the Battle of Port Gibson, on the 16th he was present during the Battle of Champion’s Hill when the regiment was held out of action, and on the 17th he participated in an assault on Confederates entrenched near the railroad bridge across the Big Black River. Casualties included seven of William’s comrades who were killed in action, another eighteen whose wounds would soon prove fatal and at least forty others who were wounded less severely. Horace Duel, 6th Corporal in Company H, died three days after the assault and William was promoted to take his place.

      From the Big Black they moved to Vicksburg where they were assigned to a position opposite the railroad redoubt. On the 22nd, William was wounded during a massive assault, an assault that was unsuccessful and led to a siege that ended on July 4, 1863.  The regiment next participated in a pursuit of Confederate General Joe Johnston to Jackson before returning to Vicksburg and being transported downstream where they camped at Carrollton, a suburb of New Orleans. On October 31st they were stationed at Vermillion Bayou when William was promoted again, this time to 5th Corporal to take the place of Sylvanus Fox who had been promoted to 3rd Corporal. William was promoted to 4th Corporal on March 22, 1864, when they were stationed at Indianola along the Gulf Coast of Texas.

      They ended their Texas service in June with some companies leaving on the Alabama and others on the St. Mary’s and Sophia.  They were united on June 18th in New Orleans where they joined several of their “furloughed boys” returning from the North. During the last year of their service William was present while they served in southwestern Louisiana (Terrebonne Station and Morganza), along the White River of Arkansas and, in the spring of 1865 during a successful campaign to occupy the city of Mobile in Alabama. They were mustered out of service at Baton Rouge on July 15, 1865, boarded the Lady Gay the next morning and headed north. At Cairo, they debarked, boarded cars of the Illinois Central Railroad and continued their journey. On the 24th they were discharged at Clinton, received their final pay and, in small groups, started a return to their families.

      William returned to Delaware County but, in 1870, moved to Webster County. In November 1873 he moved again, this time to Clay County, Iowa.

      Like many who had served in the South, Joseph applied for an invalid pension indicating that, at Vicksburg, he had been “wounded in the right forearm by a minnie bullet the ball lodging between the bones of the arm and cutting off the exterior muscles that move the middle fingers about three inches above the wrists.” As a result, “ever since said injury his arm has been weak that the middle fingers are much weakened and that he is unable to straighten them.” Military records reflected a “slight” wound, but said “there are no records of the within named Regt. on file.” William was examined by a pension surgeon who substantiated the injury and said “the arm is shrunk & weakened as the result.”  A pension of $2.00 monthly, payable quarterly, was granted.

      On December 15, 1880, William’s forty-year-old wife died. Rozetta was buried in Fanny Fern Cemetery in Clay County. On January 1, 1883, William married again, this time to Mary Josephine Flanagan in Spencer, Iowa. On May 1, 1885, a son, William Hart, Jr., was born and not long thereafter the family moved to Sioux Rapids in Buena Vista County.

      From time to time, as veterans grew older and Congress passed increasingly liberal pension laws, pensioners filed new applications. Some were approved; some were not. In 1887, William’s pension was increased to $6.00 and later that year he applied for another increase indicating his pension was “unjustly low and disproportionate to his degree of disability.” A board of pension surgeons felt he was entitled to a 10/18 rating due to the gunshot wound, 4/18 for a hernia and 8/18 for piles, but an increase was denied. In March, 1890, another son (George Edward Hart) was born and, on July 16th, giving his address as Hillsborough, Oregon, William applied again. Indicating he was suffering from a “double hernia” incurred while “engaged in building a house” and “attempting to lift a painter’s ladder against a building when the ladder suddenly became over balance and bended me back with it.” In 1894, at sixty years of age and back in Clay County, he amended his application saying “he is wholly unable to earn a support” by reason of his disabilities. In 1895 he was a resident of Sioux Rapids, but in 1896 he moved to Ruthven and in the fall of 1900 to Fort Dodge. Confined to his bed for several days at a time, he “had to leave the farm being wholly unable to perform manual labor.” In 1904, at seventy years of age, he was living in Mitchell, South Dakota but, by 1907, he had moved again, this time to Hot Springs, South Dakota. In 1915 he was living with his daughter, Rozetta C. (Hart) Maynard at 201 South Lilly Street, Moscow, Idaho. In 1920 they were living at 720 South Washington Street where William, described by his doctor as a “decrepit old man,” was confined to his bed “able to sit up only a few hours each day.”

      William was receiving an age-based pension of $72.00 monthly when he died on January 17, 1921. He was buried in Juliaetta Cemetery, Julietta, Idaho. Rozetta died in 1926 and also was buried in Juliaetta Cemetery.

      William’s two sons by his second marriage (William ”Bill” Hart, Jr. and George Edward Hart), moved to Santa Ana, California, where Bill served as a state Assemblyman, postmaster and co-publisher of the Orange Daily News. He was killed on December 15, 1942, in an airline crash near Fairfield, Utah. On hearing the news, his son, Staff Sergeant William C. Hart, a student in advanced glider training in Lubbock, Texas, and anxious to attend his father’s funeral, was able to secure a ride on a Douglas C-53 transport that was towing a glider as far as Victorville on the 16th. That night the plane and glider crashed and William was killed. On December 21st, the First Presbyterian Church at Orange, California, was filled as friends paid tribute to the son and grandson of a Civil War veteran, a father and son “whose deaths occurred last week in dual air tragedies.” They’re buried in Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana. Hart Park in Orange is named after William “Bill” Hart, Jr.