William Rufus Shafter (1835 - 1906)

Born 16 Oct 1835 in Galesburg, Kalamazoo County, Michigan

Ancestors

Husband of Harriet Amelia (Grimes) Shafter — married 11 Sep 1862 in Athens, Michigan

Died 12 Nov 1906 at age 71 in Bakersfield, Kern County, California

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William Shafter was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Biography

William Rufus Shafter was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War who received America's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions at the Battle of Fair Oaks. Shafter also played a prominent part as a major general in the Spanish-American War. Fort Shafter, Hawaii, is named for him, as well as the city of Shafter, California and the ghost town of Shafter, Texas. He was nicknamed Pecos Bill.

William R. (Pecos Bill) Shafter, United States Army officer, son of Hugh Morris and Eliza (Sumner) Shafter, was born on October 16, 1835, near Galesburg, Michigan. He had two brothers and one sister. After completing an elementary school education, Shafter worked on his father's farm and taught school at Galesburg, Mendon, and Athens, Michigan. In 1861 he enrolled in Prairie Seminary, but when the Civil War broke out he left school to join a local volunteer regiment. During the war he took part in several campaigns, including the battle of Ball's Bluff and the Peninsular campaign. He was captured at Thompson's Station, Tennessee, in March 1863 and spent several months in a Confederate prison. After his release he was transferred to the regular army and served as an officer in the Seventeenth United States Colored Infantry, a regiment of black troops, in the battle of Nashville in December 1864. Shafter was commissioned a lieutenant colonel after the war and went to Louisiana briefly before a transfer in 1867 took him to Texas. He served as lieutenant colonel of the all-black Twenty-fourth United States Infantry along the Rio Grande until 1868, when he moved to Fort Clark in West Texas. After 1870 Shafter served primarily as a field commander. He executed his assignments with vigor despite his physical bulk, which would have slowed most men. Working under Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, Shafter commanded scouting expeditions and campaigns against hostile Indians. He led several excursions into the Llano Estacado and Big Bend areas, thus proving these regions accessible to the military despite their barrenness. His expeditions also deprived hostile forces of the psychological and military advantage of safe refuge.

Shafter's most renowned feat in West Texas was the Llano Estacado campaign of 1875. Combining two companies of his Twenty-fourth Infantry with parts of the Twenty-fifth United States Infantry and Tenth United States Cavalry and a company of Seminole Indian scouts, Shafter drove his men more than 2,500 miles from June to December. Often exhausted and short of water, the troops made three crossings of the Llano Estacado and swept the plains clear of Indians. Shafter's campaign also proved the plains habitable and paved the way for white settlement of the region. Between 1876 and the end of 1878 Shafter led three separate campaigns into Mexico against Indians. He became colonel of the First Infantry in 1879 and the following year participated in the war against Victorio, the great Apache leader. After leaving Texas, Shafter served in Arizona before a transfer in 1886 took him to California. In 1890–91 he was in South Dakota helping to return Indians to Pine Ridge after the Wounded Knee massacre. He was promoted in 1897 to brigadier general and in 1898 led American troops to Cuba during the Spanish-American War, in which he commanded the largest force of United States troops that had left American soil up to that time. Shafter was a Republican and a Protestant. He married Harriet Grimes in 1862, and they had one child, Mary. In 1895 Shafter received the Medal of Honor for meritorious service in the Civil War. Shortly after his promotion to major general in 1901, he retired to his sixty-acre farm adjoining his daughter's ranch near Bakersfield, California. On November 12, 1906, Shafter, terribly overweight, died at his daughter's home from an intestinal obstruction complicated by pneumonia. He was buried next to his wife at the Presidio in San Francisco, California.

Source: Biography by Paul H. Carlson for the Texas State Historical Association [1]

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Lt. William R. Shafter Citation for Medal of Honor

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, Company I, 7th Michigan Infantry. Place and date: At Fair Oaks, Va., 31 May 1862. Entered service at: Galesburg, Mich. Birth: Kalamazoo, Mich. Date of issue: 12 June 1895. Citation: Lt. Shafter was engaged in bridge construction and not being needed there returned with his men to engage the enemy participating in a charge across an open field that resulted in casualties to 18 of the 22 men. At the close of the battle his horse was shot from under him and he was severely flesh wounded. He remained on the field that day and stayed to fight the next day only by concealing his wounds. In order not to be sent home with the wounded he kept his wounds concealed for another 3 days until other wounded had left the area.

Source: Civil War Medal of Honor Citations [2]

Sources

• Wikipedia Biography [3]

• Wikipedia, The Rough Riders [4]

• Encyclopedia.com Biography [5]

• "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MF8F-17L : 12 April 2016), Wm Shafter in household of Hugh Shafter, Comstock, Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States; citing family 2099, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

• "United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MW67-T5D : 14 December 2017), William Shaftar in entry for Hugh Shaftar, 1860.

• "United States Civil War Soldiers Index, 1861-1865," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F9TK-FJ9 : 4 December 2014), William R. Shafter, First Lieutenant, Company I, 7th Regiment, Michigan Infantry, Union; citing NARA microfilm publication M545 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 37; FHL microfilm 881,950.

• "Michigan Marriages, 1822-1995," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FC2J-4HM : 10 February 2018), William Rufus Shafter and Harriet Amelia Grimes, 11 Sep 1862; citing reference ; FHL microfilm 1,009,295.

• "United States Census, 1870," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MXG9-Y84 : 12 April 2016), William R Shafter, Texas, United States; citing p. 17, family 85, NARA microfilm publication M593 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 553,093.

• "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M31V-VV6 : accessed 2 June 2019), William R Shafter, Fort Mason Battery E 3rd Artillery, San Francisco, California, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 425, sheet 1A, family , NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,240,106.

• Find A Grave Memorial [6]