Marion Fowler was the youngest son of Stephen Fowler (1798-1866), son of Ephraim Fowler (1765-1822), son of Henry Ellis Fowler (1746-1808). His mother was the second wife of Stephen –her name was Letticia and she may have been a Bentley by birth.
According to census records, Marion Fowler was born 1847. If true, then he was as young as 14 when he joined the Confederate Army.
A young Marion Fowler — his age was given as seventeen in 1861 — enlisted in Captain W. H. Sims’ Company H, 15th Regiment South Carolina Volunteers on September 11, 1861 at Mount Tabor in Union County. He was mustered into military service on September 16, 1861 at Lightwood Knot Springs near Columbia.
Marion Fowler’s first years of battle were uneventful : no illness or wounds sustained in battle were reported, nor capture by the Union army. He was “present” for company roll calls September 1861 -December 1863.
The fate of Marion Fowler was going to change in a big way. He was captured by the enemy on August 16, 1864 — on the third day of fighting — at The Second Battle of Deep Bottom, also known as The Battle of Fussell’s Mill, in Henrico County, Virginia, eleven miles southeast of Richmond.
The military records for his capture have a conflicting date of August 25, 1864. No matter, Marion Fowler was sent to Washington D.C., on August 29, transferred to Camp Delaware, sent to Camp Chase in Ohio, where he was paroled, and finally transferred to Point Lookout, Maryland on March 18, 1865.
Marion Fowler survived the war and returned to Union County. He married Frances Horn (1845-1928). Francis gave birth eleven times, but only one son and an abundance of daughters survived:
- Hattie Fowler (1870–1923)
- Annie L Fowler (1872–)
- William F Fowler (1875–1934)
- Lola Fowler (1882–1966)
- Addie Fowler (1885–)
- Lela Fowler (1887–)
After the Civil War ended, Marion Fowler, as did most of the white men in Union County and the greater part of the American South — became involved in the Klu Klux Klan. Many of the Klansmen from Union County left for Texas and parts unknown to escape arrest when men of law began rounding up these lawless men …. the ones who rode their horses in the darkness of midnight to terrorize and kill the newly freed blacks and anyone who sympathized with them.
Marion Fowler was arrested and tried in Columbia, South Carolina for his activities in the KKK. His age was given as nineteen when he pled guilty on December 20, 1872 and was ordered to pay a one hundred dollar fine. He was also sentenced to serve four years in the penitentiary in Albany, New York.
Marion Fowler, his cousin John Whitlock, and eight other men from Union, Yoik, and Spartanburg Counties convicted of Klan activities were loaded onto a steamship in Charleston — the James Aldger — and sent to New York City. They arrived on January 18, 1873 at the Warren Street Mooring on the Hudson River.
The prisoners were transferred to the Seneca, a Harbor Police Boat which took them to 42nd Street on the East River. They were taken to the Grand Central Depot train station — built by railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1871 — and were then transported by train to the penitentiary in Albany, New York.
Marion Fowler was a home-grown county-boy from the Pea Ridge section of Union County. True, he had seen several years of battle and had spent time as a Prisoner of War during military service for the Confederate Army, but his future as a convict must have shaken him to his core.
I can imagine the fear in his heart when his eyes fell upon the imposing structure that was to become his home for the next four years.
It was reported in January 1874 that Marion Fowler was pardoned for his crime of conspiracy against citizens of African descent to their right of suffrage.
It must be presumed that Marion Fowler soon afterwards returned to his home and family in South Carolina. He died before 1900. His wife Frances, who outlived him by many years, and at least two of his adult children were buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Spartanburg. I do not know where Marion Fowler was laid to rest.
THE FOWLER FAMILIES OF UNION COUNTY, SC 