For the next two years, Stowe saw little action. The 1st Massachusetts remained encamped near Washington for several months. In January 1862, he was transferred to the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery Regiment, which was assigned to garrison duty at Fort Runyon and other nearby forts southwest of Washington. The presence of a celebrity's son in the regiment thrilled Frederick's new comrades, prompting the regimental historian to note his arrival in his journal and comment that he had considerable social prestige. Stowe was soon promoted to second lieutenant.

Garrison duty was monotonous; days were filled with endless drills and guard duty. For Stowe, who was still drying himself out, the temptation to drink came often, despite nightly temperance meetings in Union camps. On September 17, 1862, Stowe wrote to his mother and complained about the dreariness of camp life: My regt will neaver [sic] go into action and so long as I remain here I shall neaver be advanced.

Harriet quickly acted on her son's complaint. She traveled to Washington in late November, stopping at Fort Runyon to see Frederick before meeting with President Lincoln to discuss the forthcoming Emancipation Proclamation. While in Washington, she spoke with an old friend, Brig. Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr, a divisional commander in the Army of the Potomac's XI Corps, about her son's problem, and he agreed to appoint the young lieutenant to his personal staff as assistant adjutant general, with a promotion to captain.

As a general's aide-de-camp, Stowe was exempt from combat duty. He delivered messages and filed reports for his commanding officer, usually performing his duties a fair distance away from the fighting. But that changed when the Union army moved onto the field at Gettysburg.

The XI Corps was one of the first to arrive and clash with the Confederates at Gettysburg. At 1 p.m. on July 1, 1863, Maj. Gen. Oliver Howard followed Brig. Gen. John Buford's cavalry onto the high ground outside the town. Howard sent part of his corps to meet the Confederate troops already sweeping through Gettysburg, and posted his remaining forces on Cemetery Hill.

Frederick spent the duration of the Battle of Gettysburg on Cemetery Hill. His corps took heavy casualties during the battle for the hill on July 2, the second day of the conflict. The next day the men waited nervously for the inevitable final push that would determine the outcome of the battle. At about 2:30 p.m., a monstrous Rebel artillery barrage began on Cemetery Ridge to soften the Federal lines in preparation for Maj. Gen. George Pickett's doomed charge. During the shelling, according to General von Steinwehr's official report, Capt. F.W. Stowe, assistant adjutant-general of this division, was…severely wounded in the head by a piece of shell.

As word spread of the terrible battle at Gettysburg, the Stowes, like so many other Americans on the home front, waited anxiously for news. The family learned of Frederick's wound almost two weeks later, via a letter from a Union chaplain.

Addressed to Harriet, the letter stated that among the thousands of wounded and dying men on this war-scarred field was her son, who had been struck by a fragment of a shell, which entered his right-ear. The chaplain added that young Frederick was quiet–and cheerful, longs to see some member of his family, and is, above all, anxious that they should hear from him as soon as possible.

When the makeshift hospitals on the Gettysburg battlefield were closed, Stowe was sent to New York City for extended care and recovery. In the fall of 1863, when it became apparent that his condition would not allow him to return to combat, he was honorably discharged from the Army of the Potomac.

Soon after his discharge, Frederick moved to his parents' new home in Hartford and began drinking again, often disappearing for days at a time. When sober, he struggled hard to break his addiction. He joined the Episcopal Church, hoping that a new spiritual life would help dissuade him from the temptations of the flesh. His parents, thinking that a warm climate might help their wayward son, leased a cotton plantation and later purchased a citrus farm in Florida for Frederick to manage. But he continued drinking and failed miserably as a plantation overseer. In 1867, the Stowes paid for their son's stay at an alcoholic treatment center in Binghamton, N.Y., but he was still unable to kick his habit.

Stowe's problems were a great embarrassment to his family, yet his mother stuck by his side. Harriet implored her daughters to understand their wayward brother. Fred was no weaker, no more unsuccessful against his besetting sin than you against yours–only the consequences to him are more fatal and dreadful, she wrote. In another letter, Harriet asserted: Fred will not fall away so as to finally perish, and I have strong faith in his final recovery….God will hear my prayers and open some way of escape.

Harriet's prayers were not answered. During the summer of 1871, Frederick boarded a ship in Florida bound for the West Coast. He arrived safely in San Francisco after the long journey around Cape Horn. From there, he intended to go to sea, in hopes of breaking his alcohol addiction. But Frederick disappeared before boarding any ship. He was never heard from again. His parents hired private investigators, but no trace of their missing son was ever discovered.

What happened to Frederick Stowe? Suicide is one possibility. A few months before disappearing, he wrote to his mother, [D]id I only think of my own confort [sic] I would kill myself and end it all, but I know that you and all the family would feel the disgrace such an end would bring upon you and the talk and scandle [sic] it would give rise to. Other explanations for Stowe's disappearance are also plausible. Perhaps he met some gruesome end while touring the rough and rowdy waterfront taverns along San Francisco's wharf. Perhaps he was shanghaied and pressed into involuntary servitude aboard a sailing vessel for the rest of his life. Or he might simply have changed his identity and cut himself off from his family to avoid causing the Stowes further embarrassment.

Whatever the case, his disappearance devastated his mother. She lived another 25 years, longing daily for her lost son, often checking the mail for a missive from Fred in some far-off port. Once, when she was elderly and her memory was failing, Harriet embraced a total stranger on a Hartford street, thinking he was Frederick. But by then her son was long gone, another casualty of the war her famous book had helped to start.

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This article was written by James Tackach and originally appeared in the January 1999 issue of America's Civil War magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to America's Civil War magazine today!

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