Bio from Find a Grave

Birth: Aug. 19, 1846
Ohio, USA Death: Jan. 23, 1953
Los Angeles County
California, USA
William Allen Magee, 106, one of America's last three veterans of the Union Army, answered his final muster yesterday [January 23, 1953] when he died unconscious in his bed at Wadsworth General Hospital at the Veterans Administration Center at Sawtelle. During the War Between the States he served as a private in Company M, 12th Volunteer Ohio Cavalry, enlisting October 20, 1863. The old soldier, who ran away from his Ohio home as a 13-year-old youth to become a bugle boy with Gen. Sherman on his historic march to the sea, was a veteran of five of the nation's wars. He retired as a master sergeant in 1898. He had been in excellent health all his life until last Jan. 2, when he suffered a stroke at the home he shared with his youngest daughter, Miss Isabelle Magee, 68, at 14313-1/2 Victory Blvd. in Van Nuys. He was removed unconscious to the hospital and failed to rally. Sgt. Magee's passing thinned the nation's ranks of Union veterans to two, one of whom is younger than Magee, who would have reached his 107th birthday next August 19. The two are James A. Hard, 111, of Rochester, NY, and Albert Woolson, 105, of Duluth, Minn. "Our beloved United States," Magee said on his last birthday, "has never been licked in war and we never shall be licked. They just can't lick her, because we have the power. We have real power -- and we have real men." Until he suffered the stroke that was to bring the end of his life, he remained spry, alert and able to read newspapers without the aid of eyeglasses. Although slightly hard of hearing, he bore up until the last with remarkable stamina and dignity. Of his onetime enemies in the Confederate Army, only four remain. His uniform blouse of blue bore medals which attested to the fact that he served under Lincoln in the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American war and skirmishes on the Mexican border before Gen. Leonard Wood joined the chase for Pancho Villa in 1914. "Remember one thing, young man," he said in his last interview with newspapermen, "you can't beat the American … always remember that. We are free men." He was preceded in death by two comrades-in-arms in the past few years. All of them were members of the Last Man's Club -- Magee, Douglas T. Story and Charles L. Chappel -- and all of them were commanders of the Stanton Post of the GAR. On his last birthday, Sgt. Magee had some advice on alcoholic beverages. "Haven't had a drink of liquor myself for the past 50 years," he said. "And when I did drink, it was pure corn whiskey that the mountaineers made. It was good for a man. Today the young men mix their drinks. That is what shortens their lives." Sgt. Magee leaves three daughters, seven grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. His other two daughters are Mrs. Florence Rahming, Los Angeles, and Mrs. Georgina Owen of Chicago. Arrangements for a Catholic Requiem Mass were being completed yesterday with final services to be conducted at 8:45 a.m. next Tuesday, with full military rites, at the Sawtelle National Cemetery Chapel. The bugler's favorite music, the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground," will accompany the burial ceremonies. He will be laid to rest with his fighting comrades of all of America's wars in the West Los Angeles cemetery of heroes. Los Angeles Times January 24, 1953.

Inscription:
OHIO
1ST SGT CO H 2 REGT INF

Note: CIVIL WAR ~ SPANISH AMERICAN WAR