Samuel Wheelock Fiske

He taught and tutored at Amherst and was 'licensed to preach' - ordained - before 1855, when he traveled for a year in Europe and Asia - writing a travelogue for the Springfield (Ma) Republican under the name Dunn Brown. About 1856 he became pastor of the Congregational Church in Madison, Connecticut and served there into 1862.

He enlisted as Private in Company I of the 14th Connecticut in August 1862 and was elected 2nd Lieutenant on the 18th.

On 20 December he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and on 19 January 1863 Captain of Company G - most of whose men were from Madison. He was captured in action at Chancellorsville in May 1863 and imprisoned at Libby Prison, Richmond. He was released soon after, and was with his Regiment at Gettysburg.

He was wounded in action in the Wilderness (about 5 May 1864) and died in a hospital in Fredericksburg about two weeks later.

Biographical details are from the Memorial1, and his photograph is from the collection of the Library of Congress.2

Fiske's travels were published in Mr. Dunn Browne's Experiences in Foreign Parts (1857), now online from the Internet Archives. His wartime letters were published posthumously in Mr. Dunn Browne's Experiences in the Army (1866) which is also online in a GoogleBook scan.

07/23/1828; Shelburne, MA

05/23/1864; Fredericksburg, VA; burial in Shelburne Falls, MA