Fickle's war record was exemplary. He was present on all muster rolls and in September, 1864 he received a gunshot wound to his head. Luckily for Fickle it was just a flesh wound; he spent three weeks in the hospital in Charlottesville, Va. He re-joined his unit in time to be taken prisoner at Mt. Jackson, Va on October 20, 1864. While in a Federal prison camp in Maryland, his back and hip were injured due to falling lumber.
After the war he resumed raising his growing family, and took up the occupation of blacksmith, which he had learned from his father. His family continued to grow and on May 3, 1877, his oldest daughter Alice was married to William T. Thurman. She was to divorce him several years later for abandoning her. The next week, on May 12, 1877, her younger sister Margaret, just 16 years old, was due to be married to William A. Ayers, a promising 23 year old lawyer in Lebanon. The marriage license was issued, the day was set, the dress was bought. Only the groom failed to arrive.
The Atlanta Constitution tells the rest of the story.
It is not known if Fickle found Ayers or not. However, the affair must have been the talk of the town; the May 15, 1877 edition of the Bristol News states:
SEEKING A SEDUCER
A Virginia Father on the Track of His Daughter's Destroyer.
In His Frenzy He Makes Free Use of a Pistol - Is Arrested and Thrust into Jail - And the Hawk gets Warning and Flies Away
Yesterday, before Judge Clark, of the City Court, Isaac Fickel, of Lebanon, Virginia, was arraigned for assault and pleaded guilty. He was discharged upon payment of costs. The facts in the case are as follows:
Mr. Fickel is a respectable and esteemed citizen of the village of Lebanon, Va., not a great way from Abingdon. He has a daughter of unusual attractions and accomplishments, who was the very apple of his eye, and the pet of the village. William Ayers was a young lawyer, who had settled in the town, and was possessed of a lucrative practice in his profession. He paid his attentions to Miss Fickel and was acknowledged as her lover and recently as her husband. Indeed the day of marriage was fixed and had been postponed until Thursday week, when
THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN MARRIED.
The lady made all her preparations and wedding robes had been purchased. Thursday came; but her intended was not to be found. He had mysteriously disappeared from the village. The distressed girl sat patiently by her window, watching, with a longing and solitude not often seen and that was remarkable. She expressed an abiding faith in the constancy of her lover and framed for herself and friends every possible excuse for his unaccountable absence. Thursday passed, and the agonized heart found no rest from its torture. Friday went by without tidings from the absent lover, and Saturday came without hope and without promise. What suffering and agony the frail heart bore and struggled to suppress no tongue or pen can venture to tell.
On Saturday the fearful truth presented so for recognition that the poor girl could no longer resist it. She became satisfied that her dream of love had ended - her confidence had been recklessly and ruinously betrayed. - Then it was that, with a bursting heart,
SHE MADE A REVELATION
to her mother of facts that ever appal the stoutest heart and fall like a killing frost upon the feelings of every parent. She revealed to that fond mother how her daughter's weakness had been taken advantage of and her virtue forever stolen from its shrine. - Her faithless pretended lover, had robbed her of that precious jewel, and and she was no longer the pure woman that the world and her own household regarded her. She had yielded, and had been lost. Already she was nearing the time when she would become a mother, and when the inevitable truth could no longer be concealed. Her mother, in the supreme mortification and anguish of her knowledge, did not dare to tell the awful truth to her husband for several days. When he did receive, in the bosom of his family, the fearful truth, it was as though a thunderbolt from a clear sky had descended upon him. He saw but one way in which to attempt a remedy for the further evils to flow from the awful situation. Learning that the seducer had gone to his mother's house in Bristol, Tennessee,
FICKEL WENT UPON HIS TRAIL.
At Bristol he learned that his man had come on to Atlanta, where he had a brother-in-law, and hither Fickel followed him. He arrived in this city on the State road train on Monday evening and at once went about the business at hand. He went across to the Southern Express office, where Mr. Barr, the brother-in-law of Ayers was employed. Finding him, Mr. Fickel demanded to know of him where Ayers was. The reply he says was that Ayers' whereabouts were unknown to him. This would not go down with the crazed and desperate father. He drew his pistol and placing against Mr. Barr was told that he must either tell the truth or be killed.
Mr. Barr is reported to have weakened before this demonstration, and, as a final answer, remarked that Ayers was at his (Barr's) residence. - Mr. Fickel at once prepared to secure an officer and go after Ayers, but he was at once arrested by the officers of the police upon a charge of assault preferred by Mr. Barr.
PLEADING FOR THE RIGHT.
When taken in charge, he gave up the work as to himself, but begged and entreated the officers to take his papers and go and arrest the seducer. None of the officers would do this, believing as they did that the warrants from Virginia were not good here.
Mr. Fickel was taken before Justice Butt and required to give bond for his appearance before the city court. Being an entire stranger in our midst, he could not give the bond, and therefore was committed to jail.
In the mean time Mr. Barr had time to communicate to his brother-in-law status of affairs, and that worthy at once, so Mr. Barr reports, pimped the town, carefully concealing the route he took.
Yesterday morning Mr. Fickel sent for "a Virginia lawyer," and in response to that call Mr. R. S. Jeffries, being himself a Virginian responded. He at once saw Judge Clark and had the case agreed upon for hearing. At about 9 a. m. Mr. Fickle was arraigned before Judge Clark, and upon a plea of guilty was sentenced merely to pay the cost. The agent himself desired to stop the prosecution.
THE AFFECTIVE SCENE.
The appearance of this stout, honest father in court and his grief, manifested by constant weeping while reciting his story, caused all present to sympathize deeply with him and several of the officers and spectators shed tears at the distress which was preying upon and crazing the loving father. The scene was one of solemn and pitiful import.
When released, Mr. Fickel found that the man who had so terribly outraged his family had fled. How such a man could so easily escape arrest, under the circumstance, is a commentary upon our laws, if it is true that they are not such as would have authorized his detention.
Mr. Fickel is still in this city and will not rest until he finds the seducer of his daughter and compels him to make all the reparation in his power.
The public should allow young Ayers a chance. I learn he passed through town last Saturday [May 12] on his way to Russell and means to set matters as near right as he can.William Ayers and Maggie Fickle had four children, two dying young. Margaret J. C. Ayers died on May 14, 1883, a few days after giving birth to her fourth child. William Ayers was said to be "deeply distressed". He eventually remarried and become a well known local judge.
Since writing the above Mr. Joseph Caldwell has returned from Russell and informs me that Wm. A. Ayers has been married to the lady whose name has been the subject of newspaper notice in connection with his own. This should go far as to set him right before the public.
