William H. Kesler was a resident of Champaign, Illinois, when the war began.1 Kesler enlisted in late fall 1861 in the 3rd Missouri Cavalry, a unit raised by Col. John M. Glover at Palmyra, Missouri. He joined Company D, which was composed of equal numbers of Missouri and Illinois men and captained by John H. Reed of Champaign.2 The 3rd Missouri Cavalry was mustered in at Palmyra, where it was headquartered until spring 1862. Kesler and his unit first saw action in December 1861 against Col. Joseph Porter’s rebel forces at Halltown and Mount Zion Church in northern Missouri.

On January 13, 1862, Kesler wrote his sister, Rose Ann Kesler, from camp in Palmyra. He described the Battle of Mount Zion Church in Boone County, Missouri, stating two companies of 450 men fought in a subsequent battle at Sturgeon, Missouri.3 Wounded and dead from both sides were left on the battlefield when the Confederates retreated. From March 1862 through August 1863, the 3rd Missouri Cavalry was assigned to the headquarters at Rolla and Pilot Knob, Missouri, and was part of the Army of Southeast Missouri.

The 3rd Missouri Cavalry fought Gen. John S. Marmaduke’s raiding Confederate cavalrymen at Hartville and Bloomfield, Missouri, in January 1863, and was in the Union squadron which raided Batesville, Arkansas, later that month. Kesler described the Battle of Hartville, and noted the number of casualties and prisoners captured during the battle. Kesler was so proud of the Battle that he told his sister, “our orderly Sargent is a going to write a peace to the Champaign paper and if you get a hold of one send me one of them.”4

As part of a Union cavalry brigade, the 3rd Missouri Cavalry marched into Arkansas in August 1863, and was part of the force which captured the state capital at Little Rock on September 10.5 The unit was the assigned to the Army of Arkansas in 1864. Kesler and the Missouri cavalrymen participated in Gen. Frederick Steele’s ill fated Camden Expedition, after which they returned to Little Rock.

In April 1865, Kesler wrote to his sister about a supper with the Independent Order of Good Templars, a temperance organization with 60,000 members in 1865 who worked to elect honest men to government positions. Kesler also wrote of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination,

The joy of the troops here was turned in to sorrow on receiving the news of the assassination of the President. I felt that day a though I could shoot any body that was a rebel…the soldiers of the North will avenge his death with a thousand lives.
William H. Kesler letter to Sister – Apr. 20, 1865

Kesler spent most of the remainder of the war in the vicinity of Little Rock, where the regiment mustered out in June 1865. After the war, William Kesler returned to Illinois he married Sarah Francis Peters on June 13, 1867 in Champaign Co., Illinois. The couple had eight children. After his marriage to Fannie in 1867, Kesler worked as a farmer and carpenter. While working as a carpenter, he contracted cancer of the under lip and jaw. Kesler applied for and received an invalid pension in 1890. He died on October 24, 1890 and is buried in Champaign, Illinois.

The William H. Kesler papers consist of twenty seven letters, the majority of which were written to his sister Rose Ann Kesler, during his service from January 1862 to June 1865.

Contributed by the State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center – Rolla

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1. 1860 United States Federal Census; Census Place: Township 19 N Range 8 E, Champaign, Illinois; Roll: M653_160; Page: 373; Image: 374; Family History Library Film: 803160.
2. Information Sheet, Kesler-Lytle families, papers, 1861 1869. William H. Kesler Letters, 1862-1865, R448, The State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center – Rolla.
3. William H. Kesler Letter to Rose Ann Kesler. Jan. 1, 1862.William H. Kesler Letters, 1862-1865, R448, The SState Historical Society of Missouri Research Center – Rolla.
4. William H. Kesler Letter to Rose Ann Kesler. Jan. 18, 1863.William H. Kesler Letters, 1862-1865, R448, State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center – Rolla.
5. Information Sheet, Kesler-Lytle families, papers, 1861 1869.William H. Kesler Letters, 1862-1865, R448, The State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center – Rolla.