Born in England, raised in Wisconsin, and forever tied to Arkansas as the first man to win a Congressional Medal of Honor in the state during the Civil War, First Sergeant William Ellis of the Third Wisconsin Cavalry Regiment will forver hold a historic place in the annals of Yell County and Dardanelle.
Ellis received a Medal of Honor for gallantry in the January 14, 1865, action at Dardanelle (at the battle of Haguewood Prairie Battle.)
Ellis was born in England in 1834 and immigrated to the United States. By 1860 he was living in the household of woolen manufacturer Simeon Ford in Watertown, Wisconsin’s Third Ward.
Ellis, then age twenty-eight, was a wool carder in Ford’s employ.
After the Civil War began, Ellis enlisted as a sergeant in Company K of the Third Wisconsin Cavalry on October 21, 1861, eventually rising to the rank of first sergeant.
The Third Wisconsin organized at Janesville on November 30, 1861, and mustered in on January 28, 1862.
The regiment served in Kansas, Missouri, the Indian Territory, and Arkansas before mustering out on September 8, 1865, at Fort Leavenworth, having lost sixty-four men killed and mortally wounded and 153 to disease.
The regiment was based in Little Rock when Ellis became part of a detachment of 276 dismounted cavalrymen from the Seventh Army Corps who were dispatched to Dardanelle on January 14, 1865.
Four hours after occupying the stockades that commanded the roads into town, the Union troops were attacked by 1,500 Confederate cavalrymen led by Colonel William H. Brooks.
The Federal troops, backed by the cannons of a section of the Second Kansas Battery, held off the attackers for four hours before Brooks broke off the attack.
During this engagement, Ellis was struck three times by enemy fire but stayed at his post, leaving it only at the direct order of his commanding officer, Major J. D. Jenks of the First Iowa Cavalry, after being wounded a fourth time.
Some months after the fight at Dardanelle, Congress honored Ellis with a Medal of Honor in recognition of his gallantry in the battle. His name was misspelled “Elise” on his Medal of Honor citation.
Ellis was presented his Medal of Honor in late 1865 with the following citation:
"First Sergeant William Elise of Company K, Third Wisconsin Cavalry, has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Elise earned the medal for his valor and bravery above and beyond the call of duty of January 14, 1865, at Dardanelle, Arkansas. He is the first Arkansan to earn the Army Medal of Honor.
Elise enlisted in the Union Army at Little Rock, Arkansas. He is representative of the large number of Arkansans (one Arkansan in five who fought in the war did so wearing the Union blue) who did not favor secession and the disruption of the United States.
In January of 1865 the Confederates sent a detachment of troops under Colonel William H. Brooks to harass Union steamboats traveling on the Arkansas River between Little Rock and Fort Smith.
To stop the Confederate attack the Union commander at Lewisburg, Colonel Abraham H. Ryan, sent Major James D. Jenks with 276 men to occupy Dardanelle and contest control of the south bank of the Arkansas River with any Confederate forces he might find in the area.
At 10 a.m. on January 14, 1865, Brooks with 1,500 men attacked the Union forces entrenched on the outskirts of the town and a fierce four-hour battle was waged. In the end Colonel Brooks was unable to overcome the Union defenders of the town and was forced to retreat.
It was during this battle that Elise held his position even after receiving three wounds and would not withdraw for medical attention until he received a fourth wound and was ordered to retire by his commanding officer."
After recovering from his wounds, Ellis transferred to reorganized Company E of the Third Wisconsin, and he was promoted to second lieutenant of the company on March 9, 1865.
Ellis resigned from the regiment on August 26, 1865. He lived at Frog Bayou in Crawford County for a time before heading west, where he died at Cahon Pass in San Bernardino County, California, on February 1, 1875.
The location of Ellis’s burial is unknown.
Ellis' heroism is honored with a plague at the Arkansas Medal of Honor Memorial on the State Capitol Grounds, but the U.S. Army History website lists his name as "William Elise".
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