William H. Weirick was born around 1841 in Pennsylvania to Thomas and Margaret Weirick. The family lived in Hartleton, Pennsylvania, and his father died on October 9, 1843. By 1860, he was working as an apprentice tinsmith in Hartleton.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 6, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company A of the 131st Pennsylvania Infantry later that day. The regiment took part in the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the Battle of Antietam. He supported the Emancipation Proclamation, hoping it would “be the means of a speedy restoration of the Union; that peace & prosperity once more reign throughout the land.”
In February 1863, an acquaintance expressed a “poor opinion of the army of the Potomac,” insisting that its soldiers “will not fight.” Weirick defiantly responded that “they will fight if under the right kind of officers; it has not been the fault of the private soldiers that this army of the Potomac has not been more successful.” Two months later, he added that “if this army had been commanded by some such a man as [Joseph] Hooker or [Ambrose] Burnside at the time [George] McClellan commanded it, this war might have run to an end.”
He was promoted to corporal in April 1863, and he mustered out on May 23, 1863. He returned to the Union army in April 1865, mustering in as an assistant surgeon in the 213rd Pennsylvania Infantry. He mustered out on November 18, 1865.
He returned to York County after the war, and he earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1866. He married a woman named Harriet around June 1870, and they had at least four children: Agnes, born around 1872; Margaret, born around 1875; Ralph, born around 1878; and Evelyn, born around 1880. By September 1870, they were living in Deepwater, Missouri, and he was working as a physician. He owned $1,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property.
They moved to Washington, Illinois, in the 1870s. He applied for a federal pension in September 1895 and eventually received one. He died in Washington, Illinois, on June 28, 1912.