William Strang

William Strang was born on June 10, 1841 in North Castle, New York to parents Henry and Abby Jane Gales Strang.  Prior to enlisting, he was a apprentise shoemaker and single.  He enlisted on September 2, 1861 in Portchester, New York in Company C of the 49th New York Infantry Regiment, for a three-year period.  He enlisted with his brother George, Henry Lovelett and Richard Boice.  He mustered in as a Corporal on September 4, 1861, but was reduced to a Private on April 20, 1862. 

In December 1861, Private Strang and his regiment was in Dranesville in northern Virginia.  On April 5, 1862, they participated in the Peninsula Campaign at Lee's Mills.  In mid-May 1862, they were at the Siege of Yorktown.  

On May 31, 1862, he was A.W.O.L. from Camp Lincoln, Virginia and was listed as a deserter (one of the 270,000 deserters at the time) on June 1, 1862 at Cold Harbor, Virginia.  Luckly for Private Strang, President Lincoln gave amnesty to deserters that returned to service before April 1, 1863.  He returned to the Army on March 28, 1863; he had been gone for ten months and his health had deteriorated.  He spent two moths in a hospital and was medically discharged on April 3, 1863 at Governers Island (which was a deserters prison).  

He returned to Armonk, New York and resumed shoemaking.  He is on the censuses of 1870, 1880 and 1900 as a shoemaker.  He belonged to Grand Army of the Republic Post #436.  He died on December 27, 1902.  His wife, Margret M. Strang, received a widow's pension on January 3, 1903.