Faces of the 12th Virginia Infantry ("Petersburg Regiment"): William Henry Harrison, Captured October 27, 1864

Caption:  William Henry Harrison

Credit:  The Progress-Index (Petersburg, Va.), April 30, 1961

Born in 1831, William Henry Harrison, a married man, enlisted in the 12th Virginia's Company A, the Petersburg City Guard, on March 3, 1862.  He was promoted to corporal November 1, 1863.  At the battle of Burgess Mill southwest of Petersburg on October 27, 1864, Harrison belonged to a contingent of the Petersburg Regiment sent to reinforce the sharpshooters of Weisiger's brigade on the brigade's (and the attacking Confederate force's) extreme left.  The sharpshooters and their reinforcements did not receive word to retreat until long after the rest of the Secessionist force had withdrawn.  As light waned that overcast evening, the group got lost in the woods and captured a few Federal cavalrymen, then a train of Unionist ambulances.  While others plundered the wagons and secured horses, Harrison and a comrade from the 12th's Company I, the Meherrin Grays or "Herrings," started out toward what they thought was the southwest and Dinwiddie Court House.  Instead, they were tramping southeastward.  Around 9 p.m. then fell into the hands of the 7th Wisconsin.  Subsequently exchanged,  Harrison surrendered at Appomattox.