Ohio supplied almost 320,000 Union soldiers for the Civil War; “11,237 died from wounds…while another 13,354 perished from diseases,” according to Ohio History Central.

The Rev. William Dunlap Mercer, the second son and one of eleven children of David Mercer (1800-1881) and Elizabeth Smith (1803-1881), was born on 26 February 1837 in Morgan County, Ohio. Early in life, he worked as a school teacher as well as a music teacher. W. D. (in some records) Mercer joined Company C of the 122nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, mustering in at Zanesville on 18 August 1862. He was promoted to Sergeant in August 1864, but severely wounded at the Third Battle of Winchester (aka Opequan) in the early hours of 19 September while serving under General Sheridan.
He recuperated from his gunshot wounds (i.e., fractured left arm and right hand) in the Patterson Park General Hospital, Lincoln Ward in Baltimore and then at the Cuyler U.S. Army General Hospital in Germantown, Pennsylvania. When he finally returned home to Morgan County in December 1864, he could no longer farm. He received a pension–certificate number 43,452 based on application number 67,815–and appears in the 1890 Veterans Census for McConnelsville, Morgan County.

Due to the influence of his close friend, the charismatic Methodist “singing” chaplain, C. C. McCabe, Mercer served from 1865 to 1905 as a circuit and supply preacher in the McConnelsville, McConnelsville District of the Pittsburgh Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Having lived in the Mt. Zion neighborhood (Bristol Township), he moved to town (i.e., McConnelsville) where he was an active member of the Phil H. Sheridan Post #328 of the Grand Army of the Republic, serving as chaplain for many years and as Post Commander in 1912. He attended the 122nd OVI Reunion in September 1904 in Zanesville. The Rev. Mercer died 2 February 1918 of bronchial pneumonia and his burial place is in the McConnelsville Cemetery, Morgan County, Ohio (FAG#664886).

To read more about him and his times, consult: Lorle Porter, A People Set Apart: Scotch-Irish in Eastern Ohio (Zanesville, Ohio: New Concord Press, 1998), 443 as well as Robertson, History of Morgan County, 206-209; Larry Stevens, 122nd Ohio Infantry: References for This Unit (online); “Rev. Wm. D. Mercer Died Saturday Eve.,” The Weekly Herald, vol. 69, no. 48 (Thursday, 7 February 1918), p. 1 and “Patriot and a Loyal Soldier of the Cross, Dies After Over Four Score Years of Life. Was Close Friend of Chaplain McCabe,” Morgan County Democrat, vol. 48, no. 31 (Thursday, 7 February 1918), p. 1, col. 4.