Born in 1827 in Union County, South Carolina, William E. Fowler was the son of William G. Fowler (1805-1886), grandson of Israel Fowler II, and great grandson of Israel Fowler from the Isle of Wight, Virginia.
It is probable that William E. Fowler married a woman named Elizabeth before 1850. My speculation is that Elizabeth the first wife died (in child birth?) and by 1855, William E. Fowler had married Susan Wright (1833-after 1870).
Two sons were born of this union:
- William Wright Fowler (b. 1856)
- Adolphus Fowler (b. 1860)
William E. Fowler was thirty-eight years old –according to military records– when he traveled to the Union Court House and joined Captain C.W. Boyd’s Company F of the 15th South Carolina Infantry on August 29, 1861.
As did many young men of the south, William E. Fowler left his family behind and marched off to war. He was mustered into service at Lightwood Knott Springs near Columbia on September 7, 1861.
On September 14, 1862, the Battle of South Mountain took place in Maryland. Three mountain passes – Crampton’s Gap, Turner’s Gap, and Fox’s Gap – became the battlegrounds. Confederate forces, outnumbered by the Union Army of the Potomac, suffered a devastating defeat.
General Robert E. Lee was forced to withdraw his southern troops after darkness fell, but not before over 300 of his men were killed, 1500 wounded, and 800 missing.
William E. Fowler was one of the missing.
The November/December 1862 Muster Roll for his regiment reported that William E. Fowler was “Missing in Maryland near Hagerstown since September 14, 1862. Nothing heard from him since.”
Having control of the battlefields, the burial details of the Union Army began the gruesome task of burying their dead on September 15.
The dead Confederate soldiers lay scattered and in piles, on stone walls and on the cold, bloody ground.
They were finally buried in mass graves, in shallow trenches, unidentified and uncared for in death. At least 58 of the Confederate dead were thrown down the well of Daniel Wise.
It took until September 18 for all of the dead to buried.
Although the bodies of some Union soldiers were retrieved and reburied later by their families –for the most part — the deceased soldiers from both north and south remained buried near where they fell. The Union Soldiers were exhumed and reinterred in 1867 into the Antietam National Cemetery. The Confederate dead were reburied at Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown in 1874.
It is doubtful that the body of William E. Fowler was ever found. It is likely that he lies in the cemetery in Hagerstown, Maryland next to the unidentified soldiers that he fought beside.
On May 27, 1864, Susan Fowler, widow of William E. Fowler, filed a claim for a settlement with the War Department for her deceased soldier husband.
I have to wonder when she found out that her husband was not coming home to her and her two young boys.
Susan Wright Fowler disappeared from records after the 1870 census.
Her son William Wright Fowler (1856-1900) married Martha Jane Johnson (1856-1934); their children:
- Magnolia Maggie Fowler (1884–1974)
- Corrie Melissa Fowler (1887–1972)
- Charles Manuel Fowler (1887–1973)
- William Wright Fowler (1889–1930)
For more information on this family:
For more information on the Burial of the Dead, I found this wonderful history:
https://www.historynet.com/confederate-bodies-daniel-wise-well/
THE FOWLER FAMILIES OF UNION COUNTY, SC 