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J. C. Fiser

J. C. Fiser

Confederate (CSV)

Lieutenant Colonel

John Calvin Fiser

(1838 - 1876)

Home State: Tennessee

Command Billet: Commanding Regiment

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 17th Mississippi Infantry

Before Sharpsburg

Born in Tennessee,

Fiser and his family relocated to Panola County, Mississippi about the time of the Mexican War [1847-8]. Mr. Fiser died in Panola before September of 1852 ... young John then moved in with his uncle, a prominent citizen of Mississippi. At age 15 he began clerking at a country store on the banks of the Tallahatchie River. He left his home in Panola about three years after his father's death and relocated at Memphis. While in this city, he was engaged in the cotton and Mercantile business.
(from Willoughby)
In April 1861 he returned to Mississippi and helped recruit the Regiment which became the 17th Mississippi Infantry, Winfield S. Featherston, Colonel. He was elected First Lieutenant, Company H ("Panola Vindicators"). He was appointed Regimental Adjutant just before the first battle of Manassas (June 1861), and Brigade Adjutant immediately after. In the Army reorganization of April 1862 he was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the 17th.
At Malvern Hill, 1 July 1862, about six in the evening, they made a desperate charge upon the Federal line, under a terrible fire of shell, grape, canister and Minie balls, but without success. Colonel Holder was wounded and Lieutenant-Colonel Fiser took command.
(from Rowland)

On the Campaign

He commanded the regiment in Maryland.

The rest of the War

He was severely wounded, losing an arm, in the assault on Fort Sanders, at Knoxville, TN, on 29 November 1863. By March 1865, he was a full Colonel, and in command of a Brigade of Georgia troops in action against Federal General Sherman in the Carolina Campaign.

After the War

He was in business in Memphis,TN after the War, being President of the Office Security Building and Loan Association at the time of his death of dysentery there in 1876 at 38 years of age. He had been elected President of the Confederate Historical and Relief Association in 1871.

References & notes

His service basics from Rowland.1 Personal details from a biographical sketch published in the Memphis (TN) Daily Appeal of 15 June 1876 and General John C. Fiser, a biographical sketch by Earl Willoughby, originally posted online by Natalie Huntley at the Dyer County TNGenWeb [now gone]; Mr. Willoughby also kindly provided the photograph seen above. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Minerva Hays Dunn (1848-1911) in Tennessee in November 1866 and they had 3 daughters.

He changed his name from Fiser to Fizer in 1866, shortly after his marriage; his name is listed as John C Fizer in some Civil War literature.

Birth

5/4/1838; Dyersburg, TN

Death

06/14/1876; Memphis, TN; burial in Chapel Hill section, Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, TN

Notes

1   Rowland, Dunbar, Military History of Mississippi 1803-1898, The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi, 1908, Nashville: Press of the Brandon Printing Company, 1908  [AotW citation 29552]