Rev. Wm. H. Stevens, Chaplain

Chaplain William Henry Stevens—Enlisted as Private, H Company [148th PA Volunteers]; elected Second Lieutenant on organization of Company; appointed Chaplain September 7, 1862. Mustered out with Regiment June, 1865. Died Shelby, Iowa, June 10, 1901; buried in Three Spring Cemetery, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.

“William Henry Stevens was of Scotch-Irish descent, born near Shirleysburg, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, December 12, 1831, and died of neuralgia of the heart, a legacy of his army experience, after but fifteen minutes sickness, in Shelby, Iowa, June 10, 1901. Ten days prior to the public memorial service of the G. A. R. Post, of which he was Chaplain, he had from the theme, "Who shall be the next?” delivered an eloquent and pathetic address upon the rapid passing of his comrades. His death was the answer to his question.

Sunday morning, June 2d, he preached his last sermon from Revelations 22:5. "There shall be no night there." What are believed to be his last written words closed a letter to his son a few hours before his death. He had just conducted a prayer meeting service, and in writing of it and his own peace of mind and heart, closed with his personal testimony, "My happiness is not based on things temporal and seen, but on things unseen and eternal."
His body rests in the Three Springs Cemetery, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania Comrade Thomas W. Myton , of Company H, whom the Chaplain had aided when sorely wounded at Chancellorsville, represented the Regiment at his funeral and, in a feeling and appropriate manner, paid a beautiful tribute to his character as a man and Christian, and his fidelity as a soldier and Chaplain.”

From The Story of Our Regiment: A History of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers (The story of Chaplain Stevens’ Civil War service is detailed in a chapter, “The Chaplain’s Story”, Pages 191-227)