Civil War Service.
William J. Fisher CDV , Friends of the Gettysburg National
Military Park 2002 calendar, April
William J. Fisher served in the United States Army. He was commissioned August 1861, as a 2 nd Lieutenant in Company G, 10 th United States Regular Infantry. He was 17 years old at the time.
He was a member of Company G, one of ten Regular Army Regiments sent to Gettysburg. At 19 years of age, his unit, one of several Fifth Army Corps units, was sent to the Wheatfield. During a battle in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, Lt. Fisher was shot in the right breast and 5 minutes later died. Sgt. Terance McCabe assisted Lt. Robert Welles and Lt. George Hamilton in carrying William Fisher off the battlefield. Both lieutenants were wounded while carrying the mortally wounded Fisher.
His body was first buried in a temporary shallow grave east of Little Round Top. This grave was identified by a marker made by Pvt. John Buchan, a member of William’s company. His father later retrieved his remains and had them shipped home to be placed in the family cemetery.
In a letter written by Terance McCabe, 1 st Sergeant, Co. G, 10 th U.S. Infantry to Isaac Fisher while he was recovering from a wound acquired while he was carrying Lt. Fisher from the battlefield, listed the campaigns the two soldiers had fought in together:
“…I have had the honor to serve under immediate
command of this really excellent officer ever since
he entered the service and have been in his company
in the 7 days fight, the battle of Gaines Hill, Mahon
Hill, the battle of Antietam, the 1 st Fredericksburg
fight, the battle of Chancellorsville, the battle of
Gettysburg and several minor Skirmishes.”
On the left is Private John Buchan and on the right is Sergeant Terance McCabe.
Feelings About Lt. William Fisher
In a letter from E.B. Bush, Captain, 10 th U.S. infantry to William’s father on September 8, 1863, he attempted to comfort the Fisher family when he wrote, “I knew your son as a very gentlemanly and quiet unassuming officer and was very sorry that his career was so soon terminated. But he died in a good cause and like a soldier.”
Pvt. John A. Buchan, Co. G, 10 th U.S. Infantry, wrote these words in his letter to Isaac Fisher:
“…He was greatly missed in the Company, in fact
in the whole regiment. The first battle I was with
him was at Fredericksburg the 13 th of December
last he was as cool in the battle as he was out of
it and as brave a man as there is in the regiment.
There was not one man in the regiment but what
thought a great deal of him and when on duty
with him he wasn’t cross like some of them
he was kind and genteel to all of us. …He was
always the same way…another nice and kind
man…called a brave officer (sic) by all that
knew him.”
Terance McCabe included his observations about Lt. Fisher in his letter to William’s father when he wrote, “In all these general engagements he behaved with a coolness, intrepidity—and personal bravery almost unequalled (sic) during my long time of service. While in the Army, he was always of a sedate, contemplative character and never did I hear a profane word come from his lips.”