DOB/DOD: January 26, 1826 (Guilford, CT) – July 1, 1863 (Gettysburg, PA); 37 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Melissa Nash on December 5, 1853, in Norwalk, CT, who passed two years later, on September 14, 1855
CHILDREN: They had an infant daughter, who was unnamed and passed on October 5, 1855
ENLISTMENT: July 14, 1862
UNITS:
Captain in the 3rd Regiment, Company G
Captain in the 8th Regiment, Company H
Lt Colonel in the 17th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, Company A
FAMILY: Born to Richard Fowler (1794-1881) and Polly Hart Fowler (1797-1875). Siblings were Richard H. (1817-1862), Henry T. (1819-1877), Eliza H. (1822-1867), Charles (1824-1891), George H (1828-1910), Lydia F. (1830-1912), Sophia B. (1832-1909), Catherine (1835-1849), Jane M. (1838-1924) and Edward (1841-1924).
CIRCUMSTANCES: Killed on July 1, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
OTHER: Buried in an “unknown” grave in Gettysburg National Cemetery.
From findagrave.com
Civil War Union Army Officer. Served in the Civil War as Lieutenant Colonel and commander of the 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, having been commissioned as Captain of Company A on August 28, 1862, before being promoted on May 2, 1863. On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1, 1863), he led his men to a rise now known as “Barlow’s Knoll” north of the town. Riding a white horse, he made a conspicuous target to approaching Confederate gunners. Moments after arriving on the field, Lieutenant Colonel Fowler was killed when an artillery shell decapitated him. Major Allen G. Brady then assumed command of the regiment. When the Confederates started to force the Union troops from the field, an attempt was made to load Lieutenant Colonel Fowler’s body onto his adjutant’s horse to be removed from the field, but they were forced to leave him behind. On July 4th, after the Confederates had left the Gettysburg area, some of the men of the 17th Connecticut went to retrieve the bodies of their dead on the Knoll, but the Confederates had stripped the bodies of all but their underclothing and buried twenty or so Union soldier in a trench, making it impossible to identify any of the bodies. Because of this, Colonel Fowler today rests in an unknown grave, most likely in the Gettysburg National Cemetery. In 1885, the regimental survivors raised a flag pole on the spot where he fell, right near their regimental monument. They stand today on Barlow’s Knoll on East Howard in the Gettysburg National Military Park.
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