Term: Fairchild, Cassius 1829 - 1868

Definition:

soldier, businessman, politician, b. Franklin Mills (now Kent), Ohio. The son of Jairus C. Fairchild (q.v.), he joined his uncle, F. J. Blair, in Milwaukee in 1843, and settled with his father's family in Madison in 1846. He attended Twinsburg (Ohio) Academy and Waukesha Academy (Carroll College). A Democrat, he was a delegate to the Democratic congressional conventions of 1854 and 1856, and was alderman in 1858. In 1859 he was chairman of the Democratic party in Wisconsin, and served as state assemblyman in 1860. From 1859 to 1861 he managed the Fairchild family business interests in cranberry production, a sawmill in the pineries, and property rentals. A member of the governor's guard, he was commissioned major of the 16th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry in Oct., 1861, was wounded at the battle of Shiloh, and took part in the capture of Vicksburg and Sherman's campaigns in the South. He was made a colonel in 1864 and brevetted brigadier general in 1865. The next year he was appointed U.S. marshal with headquarters in Milwaukee. In 1868 he was a member of the national executive committee of the Soldiers and Sailors Convention. L. Fairchild Papers; C. R. Tuttle, Illus. Hist. of Wis. (Boston, 1875); Wis. Mag. Hist., 10; Milwaukee Sentinel, Oct. 26, 1868; WPA field notes.

View newspaper clippings at Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles.