
Give my Love to All: The Life & Death of Lt. William J. Fisher
Abraham Lincoln commissioned 17-year old William J. Fisher Second Lieutenant in the 10th U.S. Regular Infantry on August 5, 1861. Fisher served with the 10th throughout multiple campaigns, including The Peninsula Campaign, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. The latter engagement claimed the young lieutenant's life. This project is biographical, detailing Fisher's life and death while serving in the Regular Army during the American Civil War. Key aspects examined are: his commission, life in the Regular Army, views on African- Americans, his death and how his family coped with the loss. The project places Fisher into larger discourses such as how the Victorian dealt with death Research is primary, utilizing the records left by Fisher and his father. Research methodology employed was archival analysis of the William J. Fisher Collection, housed at the Gettysburg National Military Park's archives. This project is by no means a retelling of battles. It is more a social history. Fisher, who stands as analog to the many men and families who endured unimaginable hardships in our countries most trying ordeal; also, this project illuminates an understudied topic of the Civil War, the United States Regular Army. Unlike the multitudinous of accounts by veterans of the Volunteers, there are few formal histories by Regulars. This is because they did not have the same community bonds. Volunteer regiments were raised with men from the same communities, whereas the Regulars were composed of men throughout the Nation.
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Work Title | Give my Love to All: The Life & Death of Lt. William J. Fisher |
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License | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) |
Work Type | Masters Thesis |
Deposited | December 08, 2017 |
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