Harvard memorial biographies ...

Yohn Lyman Fenton.

235

1860, and appointed a justice of the peace on the 3oth of
August in the same year. He practised law in Charlestown
and Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, for two years, with good
success, - being associated with Mr. Tweed in the former
place, and with Mr. William F. Engley, in the latter.
In the summer of 1862, when government was urgently calling for enlistments, and men were greatly needed for their
country's protection, he responded by enrolling his name in the
list of the Ninth Massachusetts (De Vecchi's, afterwards Bigelow's) Battery, August 5, 1862; and after a month set out for
the seat of war. He returned home during the following
spring, on a short furlough, and married Miss Adelaide Victoria Burrill of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, March 18,
1863. She, with an infant son, survives him.
The battery was in no engagement until the afternoon of
July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg. It there assisted in supporting
the Third Corps, under Major-General Sickles. When the
corps was driven back, the battery was the last of five to leave
the field, while Longstreet was advancing. Reaching an angle
made by two stone walls, it was ordered to halt and hold the
position at any cost, without infantry support, until a new line
could be formed. Bravely did Captain Bigelow hold his post
against a whole Rebel brigade, whose centre alone could be
reached by his fire, while the wings closed in on either side.
After suffering a fearful loss, with every horse killed, and
only one commissioned officer and one sergeant left for duty,
the heroic little band was recalled, having given Major-General
Sickles time to prepare for a counter-charge, in which the lost
ground was regained, and the guns secured by the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, Captain Phillips.
Among the disabled sergeants was Fenton, who was wounded
in the right leg, below the knee. He was in the most exposed
position, and was taken prisoner, but was afterwards retaken by
our forces. He was removed, after three days, to the Jarvis
Hospital, Baltimore, and was thought not to be dangerously
wounded; but fever prostrated him, and, gradually sinking, he
died on the 28th of July. His wife and mother reached him