COL. WILLIAM S. PILLSBURY. 381
those bearing the name. Col. Pillsbury evidently has reason to conclude it is a good motto to live by and cling to, and his near relatives, the Hon. Geo. A. Pillsbury, late mayor of Concord, N. H., and now a prominent capitalist of Minnesota, as well as e.\-Gov. John S. Pillsbury, the millionaire flour manu- facturer of Minneapolis, seem to be men after his own heart and fashion, ac- tive, honorable, generous, and winners of the golden opinion of the public as well as of this world's bounties.
Col. Pillsbury's education has l)een gained chiefly through the school of practical life ; it is therefore free from the taint of pedantry. A keen student of the world's affairs and of men, his judgment has become accurate, his tact remarkable, and his knowledge is worth to the world an hundred-fold that of many a patron of our august institutions. He learned the shoemaker's trade when fourteen years of age ; at twenty started a shoe factory at Cilleysville, Andover, N. H., for his brother Stephen, and was superintendent of the ex- tensive concern for a year. To the age of early manhood he gave all his earnings, over a plain living for himself, for the support of his widowed mother and to aid others in need at the time. When twenty-one vears old he did not possess a dollar in money. Soon however he was engaged with a firm of shoe manufacturers just starting business at Derry Depot. About a year later he had the .entire charge of the business there, as agent, and so con- tinued during the existence of the firm. When the firm went out of busi- ness, and after a visit to Kansas, he married as already stated.
LTpon the opening of the war of the rebellion, he enlisted in his country's service, was commissioned ist Lieut. Co. I, 4th N. H. Reg't, and left for the seat of war in September, 1 86 1 . Reaching Annapolis, Md., he encountered a seri- ous and disabling accident, resigned, and returned north. A few months later, his health having improved, and the call for three hundred thousand men being issued, he was appointed recruiting officer for the 9th Regt. N. H. Vols. He was commissioned ist Lieut, of Co. A. His regiment proceeded to Washington ; was in the conflict at South Mountain and the battle of Antietam. As an illustra- tion of Col. Pillsbury's alertness and presence of mind, his friends relate an adroit movement by which he, when in battle, saved a portion of the companies of the N. H. Ninth Regiment at the memorable battle of South Mountain, from almost sure destruction. His company "A" was leading in a charge upon a large number of rebels who were driven through a piece of woods and disappeared, while the union men moved into an open field adjoining. The enemy re-formed under the protection of a battery, and their movement was discovered by Col. Pillsbury, who halted his men and fell back suificiently to hold connection with support, just at the moment when Maj-Cen. Reno rode along the line into the ambush and received a terrible volley from the rebels, screened by the woods, and was instantly killed while on the very ground left a few moments before by the Colonel and others. Later, prostrated by a severe attack of pneumonia, he resigned his commission, but as soon as able to perform a little oversight service in business, he was en- gaged superintending experts in training men manufacturing shoes by New England methods at Wheeling, W. Va. Gradually recovering his health he returned to Londonderry, raised for the town its quota of thirty men under the last great call (1864), ^^^ ^^'^s commissioned ist Lieut. Co. D, Unattached Artillery, Capt. Geo. Colbath of Dover (a cousin of Gen. Wilson), command- ing. The company served in several of the forts in the first and second division of the defences of the (Capital. He commanded for a time the battery "Garryshay" in De Russe's division. Later he was appointed ordnance ofificer of the ist Brigade, Harding's division, and was stationed at P'ort Reno, Md., where he remained until the close of the war. He was mustered out at
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