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William J. Whyte, the son of James and Jane Whyte, was born in Albany on the 6th of March, 1843. He was a youth of mild and generous spirit, and of superior talents, and very early became interested in religious subjects. As his parents had lost six out of eight children, and he was the only remaining son, and as his father too was dead, he was specially dear to his
widowed mother.
When the rebellion broke out, he, in common with many others, was inspired with a youthful and patriotic ardor to serve his country in the hour of peril. He was very anxious to enlist, but his mother felt that he was too young to endure the hardships and dangers of war, and endeavored to persuade him to remain at home. But the very month that Fort Sumter was fired upon, April, 1861, he enlisted in Company F, Third Regiment New York Volunteers, under Col. Townsend. His mother, however, feeling that, after the great losses she had sustained, she could not give up her only remaining son, obtained his discharge from the regiment.
But the fires of patriotism were not extinguished in the heart of her boy. He loved his mother and sister, and the home of his childhood. He loved his church and his Sabbath school, for he had been for fifteen years a scholar, and at this time he was a teacher in the Albany Bethel Sabbath school, under the care of the Rev. John Miles. But he loved also his country, and was willing to give his life to sustain it.
He waited until May 31st, 1862, when he enlisted, for three months, in Company A, Twenty-fifth Regiment N. Y. V. He served through this period with great faithfulness, and was honorably
discharged.
On the 13th of October, 1862, he again enlisted, in Company F, of the One Hundred and Seventy-seventh Regiment New York Volunteers. While connected with this regiment, he displayed all the qualities of a good and brave soldier. But the hardships to which he was exposed brought on a fever, and he died in the hospital at Bonnet Carre, La., aged twenty years. He was buried in the hospital burial ground.
We regret that we have no further particulars of his history.
