Pueblo County Biographies

Pueblo County, Colorado
WILLIAM K. CARLILE

Contributed by Karen Mitchell.

At New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, Mr. Carlile was born May 4, 1844, and moved to Carroll County in 1849. He enlisted, in 1862, in Company A, Eightieth Ohio Volunteers, and during the rebellion was in many skirmishes and thirteen general engagements—the battles of Corinth, Iuka, Grand Junction, Holly Springs, Davis' Mill, siege of La Grange, Wolf River, Forest Hill, Jackson (Louisiana), Grand Junction, Port Gibson, and the seven days' fight at Jackson, Miss. He was shot in the thigh in the last-named battle, taken prisoner, and, after three months' imprisonment at Jackson, was conveyed in boxcars and on old hulks of vessels twenty-one hundred miles to Belle Isle, kept there three days, and then taken to Libby Prison. After he had suffered there months in that pen of horror, he was paroled, and sent to St. John's Navy Hospital, Camp Parole, Annapolis, Md. He was transferred from Camp Parole to Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, and appointed one of the permanent party to do duty at Tod Barracks, Columbus; and, on the day of President Lincoln's second inauguration, reported one hundred and sixty men to Gen. Hancock for his Veteran Reserve Corps. In his capacity as one of the permanent party, at the close of the war, he went via New York and Fortress Monroe with sentenced men to the Dry Tortugas; helped to rescue a part of the Seventeenth Iowa who were wrecked on the Rip Raps, and reported to his command at Alexandria, Va. With it he went to Washington to the grand review of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the West. He was ordered when the review was over to report to Maj. Skyles, of his regiment, at Columbus, and deliver to him the discharges and pay-rolls of thirty members of his company of whom he had command, and who, with himself, were mustered out of the United States service as soon as he arrived. He was Second Sergeant during the war. He refused a First Lieutenancy in another regiment; he was recommended for the appointment of Second Lieutenant of his own company, and received his commission eighteen months after his appointment was forwarded to Washington, and after he had his discharge. A short stay at home was made by him, canvassing for the " Life of Sherman," and then the advantages of Colorado influenced him to go to St. Joseph, Mo., and hire the owner of a mule train to take him as passenger to her Territory. A year's residence on a ranch within her borders was concluded by his going to Pueblo and serving a short clerkship for Messrs. Berry Bros., and then opening the first livery, sale and feed stable opened in the city. Three years of successful business was done by him, when, believing the prospects on the Greenhorn River for doing business still better, he disposed of his stable and engaged in ranching and stock-raising in its valley. After a loss of all his crops, and everything else he had but his stock by three floods was sustained on the Greenhorn, he located at his present home, Pleasant Park, near Goodnight Station, on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, which is one of the best improved, most valuable and beautiful farms in Colorado. It is a garden of fruit trees, flowers, shade trees, arbors and bowers, of which a written description would give but a faint idea, and is a popular picnic ground and recreation resort. He is now extensively dealing in blooded horses, in partnership with his brother, the Hon. J. N. Carlile. Here it may be told that he was nominee on the Republican ticket and opponent of his brother, J. N., when the latter was elected to the Legislature in 1876 on the Democratic ticket, and was defeated by the number of votes the Democratic party had in the county more than the Republicans. He married Miss Abagail Price, in Carroll County, Ohio, February 16, 1871. He has four children—Nannie May, Minnie Bell, John Francis and William Scott. History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado O L Baskin & Co., Chicago, 1881

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