Sherman's March

I've found a regimental listing for a William Ebert who I think may be related. If I'm correct that William and Maria D. Ebert in Scott Township in Sheboygan County were the parents of Sophie (Ebert) Heise and Marie (Ebert) Lubach, then William and August Ebert would have been the younger brothers of Sophie and Marie. William was 16 in 1860 and August was 14. The State of Wisconsin census lists August as the head of the household in 1865 when he would have been 19 and the youngest in the family of four. Maria D. Ebert was listed as age 57 in 1860 so she would have been 62 in 1865 and her husband, Wilhelm, perhaps a few years older than that. William Ebert enlisted with Company D of the 12th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry on February 22, 1864, in Scott Township. He served until January 9, 1865, when he was discharged due to wounds received in a battle in Atlanta. Apparently the 12th was part of Sherman's famous march to the sea. My guess is that the wound was fairly serious as most of the men listed as wounded in Company D either died from their wounds or managed to return to their unit in time to muster out in July, 1865. A wound severe enough to merit a discharge meant that the army did not expect him to recuperate enough to be fit for service within the two years remaining on his enlistment. The Ebert family does not seem to have still been resident in Scott Township in 1870. Perhaps Wilhelm and Maria were deceased by then. William may well have spent his adult life as an invalid, perhaps dependent at least for awhile on the support of his younger brother, August. Nearly two hundred men served in Company D of the 12th Wisconsin during the Civil War, ten of them from Scott Township and fifteen from nearby Kewaskum in Washington County.