William Schneider's Civil War Record
William Schneider was Louisa Bittlingmeier's first husband. He was the son of Phillip and Sophie Schneider.
William had been serving with the New Jersey Volunteers, Company E, Second Regiment since the beginning of the war and had fought in many battles,
including Second Manassas, Antietam and Gettysburg. Prior to his enlistment, he worked as a "silver plater".
On January 5, 1864, the couple were married at the German Evangelical Reformed Church on Mulberry Street in Newark. Four months later,
Corporal William Schneider was killed in action in a skirmish at Lauren Hill (Spotsylvania Courthouse) in Virginia, on May 8, 1864.
He was only 27 years old and Louisa was a very young widow. She was also pregnant. On November 22, 1864, she gave birth to William Schneider, Jr.,
6 months after William Sr.'s death.
Notes from Bob Bechtold:
January 2020: We received an email from Jim Padgett, a volunteer at the Fredericksburg, Virginia Library, and the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, in response to a request for information about the possible location of William Schneider's grave. Here is the email:
I’m sorry to say that I could not determine the burial location of your ancestor. He is not on the list of people buried in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery where Union soldiers killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House were interred after the Civil War.
Because the fight at Laurel Hill was won by the Confederate Army, the Union dead were most likely left on the field or possibly buried in hasty graves. After the war the Federal government established the Fredericksburg Nation Cemetery to provide an appropriate site to inter and honor Union soldiers killed in action or died of disease in the vicinity of Fredericksburg. Teams were sent to locate and collect remains. There are a total of 15,243 Civil War interments, of those, only 2,473 are identified. Your ancestor is most likely one of the unknown soldiers in the National Cemetery. Today the cemetery is administered and maintained by the National Park Service.
He also offered the following links for further information:
Park Service virtual tour of Laurel Hill
Park Service page for the National Cemetery
