Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[904] William H. Welch, orderly-sergeant of the Rutledge Mounted Riflemen, Seventh South Carolina cavalry, and now one of the firm of Welch & Eason, Charleston, who was captured in the fight on Darbytown road, October 7, 1864, and confined at Point Lookout until near the close of the war; and Samuel B. Welch, now in business at San Francisco, Cal., who served with the Hampton legion in 1865, at the age of seventeen years.

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William Hawkins Welch

William Hawkins Welch, of Charleston, a veteran of the Seventh cavalry, was born in 1845, at Philadelphia, then the temporary home of his father, Samuel B. Welch, a native of Charleston. Three years later the family returned to Charleston, where he was reared and educated. In January, 1861, he entered the military service of the State as an orderly-sergeant of the Charleston Zouave cadets, and with this command he was privileged to be on duty on Morris island when the Star of the West was fired upon and driven back, and on Sullivan's island when Fort Sumter was bombarded and brought into the possession of the State. Subsequently he was engaged in guarding prisoners from the battlefield of First Manassas at Charleston and at Castle Pinckney, and after the prisoners were removed, assisted in mounting guns at the latter fortress. After the disbandment of the Zouaves early in 1862, he enlisted in the Rutledge Mounted Riflemen, and served with this command on the coast, participating in the battle of Pocotaligo. When his troop was divided into Companies A and G, Seventh South Carolina cavalry, he became second sergeant of Company G, and later acted as orderly-sergeant. He shared the gallant service of his regiment in Virginia at Second Cold Harbor, Bottom Bridge, Riddle's shop, Tilghman's gate, Samaria church, Fussell's mill, Gatewood farm, New Market heights, and much other fighting around Richmond, until on October 7, 1864, he was captured in the fight on Darbytown road. His experience as a prisoner of war was first at Dutch Gap canal under fire for seven days, and then at Point Lookout, where he endured much deprivation. The food was wholly inadequate, the ration for twenty-four hours being a small loaf of bread, one cup of coffee, a scant half pound of salt pork or beef, and a quart of bean or vegetable soup; and being compelled to sleep on the ground