Early in April, 1865, on a Sunday afternoon the troops in Fort Harrison saw a large mass of Confederates marching in plain view in front of them. "We thought there must be a million of them marching there!" It was supposed that the Confederates intended soon to attack Fort Harrison. The occupants of the Fort sent out videttes so as to give the earliest possible notice of it. Those in the Fort made every preparation for resistence. But there was no attack. That night three unarmed Confederates came to the videttes and reported that there were no troops in front; that the Confederate lines had long been very thin and that the Federals could march right into Richmond.
This was found to be true, for on the following day the Union troops started for the Confederate capitol. Fowler's regiment reached there on the morning of the fall and went to State House Hill, but camped close to Libby prison, down near the river. A few days later—a day or two before Lincoln was shot—they left Richmond for City Point, where they first heard of his death. From there they were taken to Point Lookout, Maryland, to aid in the search for Booth. After Booth was captured, the regiment returned to City Point, and a week later was ordered to Brownsville, Texas, for the special purpose of getting the supplies,—a great collection of cotton, wagons and all sorts of munitions—that General Kirby Smith had tried to take to Mexico. The regiment remained there until the 15th day of October, when Fowler and the others were mustered out of the United States service.
In the spring of 1876 he was appointed a messenger in the Library of Congress, which was then and until about 1900 in the Capitol just west of the great dome. He was a strong willing worker. Doctor Spofford relied on him to find and bring forth from dark and dusty storerooms the files of old newspapers when needed for historical purposes. By the time that the magnificent Library of Congress building was completed and things were in shipshape, Fowler had reached an age when he was entitled to and given less heavy work.
For nearly twenty years he was daily at the door of the Reading Room to admit readers and to refer sightseers to the gallery for the best view of the grand and beautiful rotunda. He was always so cheerful and polite that it gave one pleasure to see and exchange greetings with him. His remarkable and most honorable career caused him to be regarded with much wonder by persons of the young generation, especially if from the North. By the whole staff of the Library and by the many research workers that daily came there, he was regarded with a fondness such as was felt toward no one else.
He died October 9, 1919, at the advanced age of about 87 and was buried in the great National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. There his grave and name can be seen among those of men who fought to preserve the Union, and in doing so destroyed slavery—the "sacred institution" of the old South and "the corner-stone" of the short-lived Confederacy. Fred Fowler served his race and his country well and he was well rewarded.
F. B.
Some observations on the death of Rachel Parker.
On the 21st of February 1918 the Oxford Press carried the following:
The death on Monday in Oxford of Rachel Parker Wesley, an aged colored woman, recalls an incident of the slavery times previous to the War of the Rebellion, in which Rachel was a principal figure. The question of slavery was paramount then, and later became one of the burning issues of the war. Maryland was a slave State, and an ablebodied negro man was worth in the slave market as much as $1400, while a girl often brought $1000. Frequently negroes were taken from the free State of Pennsylvania across into Maryland, where they might be sold.
Rachel Parker lived at the time with the family of Joseph Miller, on the farm in West Nottingham now owned by S. S. Boyd.