Reluctant Confederate

History's Headlines: The reluctant Confederate

It was the first week of March in 1861 and no one had to tell Secretary of the Treasury John A. Dix that his days in that office were numbered. Dix, a Democrat and New York politician who would later become a Union General and Republican, had been appointed by President James Buchanan in January to a post that was clearly temporary. Now Buchanan was headed for retirement at “Wheatlands,” his Lancaster County, Pennsylvania estate. With the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln on March 4th his time was almost over. But there was one piece of business Dix had to take care of. Three Treasury revenue officers, a captain and two lieutenants in New Orleans, had surrendered their ship to the state of Louisiana, aka the rebel government. Assuming they had joined the Confederacy, “it is hereby directed by order of the President of the United States that their names be stricken from the rolls of said service.”

In its March 9th issue, Harper’s Weekly, which was featuring a serialization of Charles Dickens’ latest novel “Great Expectations,” printed a small copy of Dix’s order. But in it the name of one of the lieutenants was misspelled, either a mistake by Dix or Harper’s, as Thomas D. Foster. Thomas D. Fister was the man’s actual name and he was a native of Kutztown, Berks County.

It was many years later in 1912, long after he had returned to Kutztown and became prominent in local politics as Col. Thomas Fister, and while he was recovering from a prolonged illness at the home of his daughter and son-in-law in Minnesota that he decided to tell his story to the local press. It appeared under the headline “Col. Fister Tells Why He Was A Fighter In Confederate Army.” Somehow the headline writer confused the Confederate Navy in which Fister served with the Confederate Army. Fister’s testimony did not…
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