George Pickett’s division prepare for its now-famous charge. Sitting in the darkness that night and listening to the groans of injured and dying men “made the night more dreadful than any I have ever experienced,” he wrote. They republished Fairbanks’ “Notes of Army and Prison Life 1862-1865” in 2004, and also created an audio CD of a condensed version of the book read by Vermont Civil War historian Howard Coffin. She and her husband, George, decided the memoir was worth reprinting. He printed a few copies of the slender volume and presumably gave them to friends and family.Ī copy ended up at the Bethel Historical Society, where Janet Hayward Burnham found it. He did so in 1899 at his daughter’s urging. So, Lorenzo Fairbanks with “trembling hand signed the death warrant, as he called it.”Ĭharles Fairbanks was one of 34,238 Vermonters to serve in the Civil War but one of the few to write a memoir of his experiences. Charles asked him to sign the paperwork, but told him that he would run away anyway if he didn’t. He returned to the farm and found his father resting in the hayfield. Both he and his brother were accepted, but because he was so young, Charles still had to persuade his father to give his permission in writing. Put 10 shots out of 10 through a 10-inch ring from a distance of 100 yards, they were told, and they were in.įairbanks’ confidence proved well founded. “(A)s each of us was born with a gun in his hands, we decided to try to enlist,” he wrote. But he also learned that the recruiter was looking for sharpshooters.
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