et duty in fulfillment of an order which directed Companies D, A, C, F and I (the 47th Pennsylvania’s right wing) to take over after the left wing companies (B, G, K, E, and H) were forced to return to camp by Confederate troops.
On 22 October 1861, his regiment took part in a spectacular Divisional Review, described by historian Lewis Schmidt as massing “about 10,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, and twenty pieces of artillery all in one big open field.” And on 21 November, his regiment engaged in another morning divisional headquarters review – this one under the watchful eyes of Colonel Tilghman H. Good, the 47th’s commanding officer. 1st Lieutenant James W. Fuller, Jr. also likely participated in the regiment’s move from its Virginia camp back to Maryland, where it was quartered in barracks at Annapolis.
But unlike his fellow members of the 47th, he did not board the steamship Oriental on 27 January 1862 to head for Fort Taylor in Key West, Florida. Instead, his military records confirm that he resigned his commission on 9 January 1862. the 23 January 1911 edition of The Allentown Leader confirm that his service and departure were both honorable, as was his later support for the military:
During a long, active and useful career, James W. Fuller, second, was prouder of nothing more than of his association with the 47th Regiment, of whose Veteran Association he was president when he died [in 1910].
Return to Civilian Life
Following his resignation from the military, James Wheeler Fuller, Jr. returned home to Pennsylvania. From roughly 1862 to 1864, he sold Queen’s ware (Wedgwood cream ware) in Philadelphia. (His former superior, Major William H. Gausler, would also later engage in a similar enterprise following his own discharge from the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers in 1864.)
On 8 December 1864, James Wheeler Fuller, Jr. wed Kate Thomas, the daughter of Hopkin and Catherine Thomas, in the parsonage of Catasauqua’s Presbyterian Church. On 18 September 1865, they welcomed daughter Maud Miller Fuller (1865-1938) to the world. (Born in Philadelphia and baptized there two years later, Maud would go on to wed Joseph Sketchly Elverson at the Presbyterian Church in Catasauqua on 1 June 1893.)
Sometime around mid-March 1866, James W. Fuller, Jr. entered into a partnership agreement with his uncle Charles D. Fuller, friend James Harper McKee (1818-1895), brother-in-law James Thomas, and William R. Thomas (1829-1917) to create McKee, Fuller and Company in order to manufacture railroad car wheels. Together, they purchased roughly eight miles of land along the Lehigh Valley Railroad’s main line, got their factory up and running, and were able to achieve a production rate of 15 wheels per day.
Daughter, Blanche Thomas Fuller (1867-1936), was born in Philadelphia on 19 April 1867, followed by son George Llewellyn Fuller (1869-1890) on 27 July 1869. (Blanche wed Louis Audenried Saladé in 1888. They raised their family in Philadelphia and then relocated to Jackson County, Oregon.)
Another daughter, Mary Louise Fuller (1871-1951), arrived at the Fuller home in Catasauqua on 23 June 1871. (Mary Louise later wed Hiram Dryer McCaskey and, like her older sister Blanche, relocated with her husband to Jackson County, Oregon.)
On 2 April 1873, James W. Fuller, Jr. and his wife, Kate, welcomed son James W. Fuller, III (1873-1929) to their Catasauqua home.
* Note: Colonel James W. Fuller, III would go on to become a successful businessman in his own right as head of the Lehigh Car, Wheel and Axle Works and receive a staff appointment with the office of the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1911. While traveling in Honolulu, Hawaii and California, he contracted sleeping sickness, was confined to St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco, and died there on 4 April 1929. His remains were returned home, and buried at the same cemetery where his father and grandfather were interred. According to the Shamokin News Dispatch announcement published that same day:
The colonel was president of the Allentown Portland Cement Company, Valley Forge Cement C