Convention, (he being absent from the State,) he informed them that he was forced by his his private affairs to decline. This declination produced great confusion. Green W. Caldwell was then nominated, but he declined, and James B. Shepard was nominated by the Central Committee, and defeated. Mr. Fisher's private business forced him to frequent visits to the West. On his return from one of these trips he was taken ill at Hillsboro', Scott County, Mississippi, where after an illness of ten days he died on May 7th, 1849.
He married Christiana, the daughter of Lewis Beard, by whom he had several children, one of them, Charles F., was Senator in the Legislature in 1854, and President of the Central Railroad. In 1861 he was appointed Colonel of the 6th Regiment North Carolina Troops and marched to Virginia. He fell July 21st, 1861, in the battle of Mannassas. No purer offering was made in the cause of his country, than this excellent and gallant man. A letter from Gen. Thos. L. Clingman to Col. S. D. Pool, published in "Our Living and Our Dead," dated at Asheville, 1873, describes his heroic death: "Colonel Fisher moved his regiment by the flank, into the pines. About sixty yards from the woods Rickett's battery was stationed; Colonel Fisher did not see the battery until he had passed it. Captain Isaac Avery's company was just opposite the battery. Finding themselves in this dangerous proximity, they fired into the battery at only sixty yards distance, this fire killed most of the cannoneers and their horses. The men ran down on them and finished the survivors with their muskets and bowie knives. Immediately after this, Colonel Fisher having passed the battery, received a ball which penetrated his brain and he fell dead about thirty yards to the rear of the battery they had taken. Captain Avery stated to me that while he was for a moment, on one of the captured pieces, he saw Colonel Fisher, who had moved forward to reconnoitre, waving his rifle above his head triumphantly. There was a regiment, they thought from Alabama, about two hundred yards to their rear, which continued to fire upon them--it was this fire that killed young Mangum and several others. Many think it probable that Colonel Fisher was thus killed. His regiment had advanced so far to the front and was on the ground so lately occupied by the enemy in heavy force, that the mistake was natural.
"The services of Colonel Fisher and his regiment cannot be overestimated on this occasion. Neither then, nor at any time since, have I doubted that this movement saved the day to the Confederacy."
Colonel Fisher was of
indomitable energy, of enthusiastic temperament, brave and bold as a lion, and
gentle and as pure as a woman. A more gallant and chivalric knight never couched
a lance, or wore a sword. His pure and unselfish character, his irreproachable
life his high sense of honor, his devotion to his duty, his manly courage
tempered by a gentleness and courtesy, as rare as it was winning, was seen and
felt by all who knew him. He fell at his post of duty, in a cause in which,
afterwards many thousands offered up their lives; but never was there a nobler
or purer spirit, than Charles F. Fisher. He died, as his brave spirit would have
desired had he had the choice; on the field of victory, happy in the purity and
brilliancy of his life and in the circumstances of his death. He could say as
Cicero of Agricola. '
History informs us, in the early part of this century a great battle was fought on the banks of the Danube. A determined charge on the Austrian centre gained the victory for France. The courage and example of one soldier, who there fell, contributed to the success
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