William E. Jones was born in 1838 in Wales, Great Britain. His family came to the United States in the early 1850s and settled in the Village of Sandusky, Town of Freedom, where there was a sizable Welsh community. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Jones was 23 years old and apprenticed to a wagon maker in Elma. He enlisted on Aug. 26, 1862, in the Town of Freedom, joining the 154th NY, one of the so-called “Welsh Boys” of Co. F. He fought in the Battle of Chancellorsville and was captured on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Following his capture he endured a forced march to Richmond, Va., where he was imprisoned on Belle Isle. After seven months there, he was transferred to the newer prison at Andersonville, Ga., where he underwent extreme hunger and privation. In late 1864 he was paroled and released to Union custody in Charleston Harbor. After a period of recovery, he spent the remainder of the war working on supply lines in North Carolina. He was mustered out on June 11, 1865, four days after being promoted to the rank of corporal. Later in life, Jones lived in Albany and served as the overseer of the document room for the New York State Senate. I don not have a date of death, but his widow applied to receive his pension in February, 1907.
Source: Cattaraugus County Museum research from primary documents