Wymac Matthew Fowler was born September 27, 1836, south of the Pacolet River in Union County, South Carolina. He was the youngest son — the fourteenth child — born to Susannah and Womack Fowler (1785-1849).
Wymac Matthew Fowler, grandson of Henry Ellis Fowler (1746-1808), married Jane (b. 1839) and had two children: James Madison Fowler (b. 1858) and Lula Fowler (1861–1877).
He enlisted in Company F of the 15th Regiment under C.W. Boyd’s South Carolina Volunteers on August 29, 1861, and was mustered into service on September 7 at Lightwood Knott Springs near Columbia. Many soldiers began their military life at these muster grounds before being sent to fight in Virginia or elsewhere, facing the possibility of death on every battlefield.
The soldiers of Company F 15th Regiment were sent to protect the coast of South Carolina from attacks by the Union army. They came face-to-face with the realities of war during the Battle of Port Royal Sound on Hilton Head Island on November 7, 1861. They remained on the Carolina coast until July 1862 when they were sent to Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
Wymac Fowler never made it to Virginia. Only twenty-five years old and just starting his life, he died of Typhoid Fever at Camp Elliott in Beaufort County, SC on May 18, 1862.
His widow Jane filed a claim with the Confederacy for money owed to her husband after his death.
Jane’s claim was approved in January 1864. She was to received $56.60: $6.60 due Wymac Fowler for his service from the last day he was paid until his death (May 1-18); and $50 for bounty money.
As she was a woman in an era when women had no rights, Jane was to receive her money by way of F. W. Eison on August 11, 1964, more than two years after the death of her husband and the father of her two children.
For more information on the short life of Wymac Fowler and the story of his widow Jane after the war, please click on the following link:
THE FOWLER FAMILIES OF UNION COUNTY, SC 