I'm not sure if William ever served in the Conf. Army. In researching my book, "Phantoms of the South Fork:Captain McNeill and His Rangers, it seems that William returned to the family farm after the Battle of Lexington, where brother George was killed and Capt. McNeill wounded. Of course Capt. McNeill and son Jesse were later captured in Missouri and , after eventually escaping from Federal custody, returned to the Moorefield-Old Fields area of present-day WVa where they had lived before moving west and formed a partisan ranger band.