by Rev. Canon Dr. Robert Girard Carroon, PCinC
Samuel Warren Fountain was born in Parkersburg, (West) Virginia, on December 13, 1846. Because he was only fifteen years old at the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion, Samuel Fountain had to wait until 1864 to enlist in the Union Army. On May 2, 1864, he enlisted as a private in the 140th Ohio Infantry, a 100-day regiment, VIII Corps, Army of West Virginia. Private Fountain was stationed at Camps White and Warren. He participated in the attack on Lynchburg, Virginia, led by Major General David Hunter. Private Fountain was discharged and mustered-out on September 3, 1864, at Gallipolis, Ohio, upon expiration of his term of service.
On July 1, 1866, Samuel Warren Fountain was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point from the Fifteenth Congressional District of Ohio. He graduated on June 15, 1870, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 8th U.S. Cavalry. From September 1870 until December 1875, Fountain served in Colorado and New Mexico. He was then transferred to Texas, where he served from January 1876 until June 1885. On October 22, 1878, he was promoted to First Lieutenant. In 1885, Lieutenant Fountain returned to New Mexico, where he was active in campaigns against Geronimo and the Apache tribes while commanding Troop C, 8th U.S. Cavalry. He led his troops in engagements at Snow Creek on December 9, 1885, and at Dry Creek on December 19, 1886. On April 11, 1889, he was promoted to Captain.
Captain Fountain later assumed command of Troop H, 8th U.S. Cavalry and led that force in campaigns against the Sioux in Montana and North Dakota during 1890 and 1891. During the Spanish-American War he commanded a squadron of the 8th Cavalry in Cuba. He was promoted to Major and transferred to the 9th Cavalry on February 2, 1901.
From February 28, 1901, to August 26, 1903, he served as Assistant Adjutant General of the Department of Mindanao and Jolo in the Philippines and was stationed at Zamboanga until August 1903. One of the captains on his staff was John J. Pershing, and the two men remained close personal friends for the rest of their lives. Major Fountain was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the 13th U.S. Cavalry on August 26, 1903, and two days later transferred to the 4th U.S. Cavalry.
Lieutenant Colonel Fountain was subsequently assigned to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, where he commanded the Jefferson Guard at the World’s Fair from September 1904 until March 1905. On April 10, 1905, Lieutenant Colonel Fountain was promoted to Brigadier General and retired the following day. Newspapers reported that under his direction the members of the Guard controlled the immense crowds on President’s Day so effectively that not a single incident marred the event. On the closing day of the Fair, when disorder and vandalism had been feared, every officer and member of the Guard was on duty, and when the lights went out and the St. Louis World’s Fair passed into history, not a disorderly act had occurred nor a dollar’s worth of property destroyed.
Brigadier General Fountain was elected a Companion of the First Class of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion through the Ohio Commandery on October 7, 1885, and assigned Insignia #4207. On April 15, 1893, he transferred to the Commandery of the District of Columbia, and on February 1, 1907, to the Pennsylvania Commandery. He served three separate terms as Commander of the Pennsylvania Commandery—1912-1913, 1924-1925, and 1926-1930.
He also served on the Council of the Commandery-in-Chief from October 28, 1925 to 1927 and was elected Senior Vice-Commander-in-Chief on October 27, 1927. He served in that office until September 5, 1930, when he succeeded Robert Means Thompson as Commander-in-Chief upon Thompson’s death.
In a speech delivered at the Union League of Philadelphia on February 9, 1921, General Fountain said of Abraham Lincoln, “Not too often and never too reverently can Americans pause to honor the memory of Lincoln or express gratitude to the Almighty for his services to his country. Other men have reunited a divided nation, or liberated an enslaved race, or carried to conclusion a fratricidal war, or swept immoral institutions from the earth by consummate statesmanship; but no man ever combined and carried through, chiefly by the clarity of his mind and the purity of his character, several such gigantic enterprises in half a decade. Washington welded a handful of colonies into a Confederation of States; Lincoln fused them, after they had fallen apart, into a self-conscious nation.”
Samuel Warren Fountain served barely two months as Commander-in-Chief, dying of heart failure at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 15, 1930. He and his wife, the former Katherine McGrath, had one child, Adele Fountain. Funeral services for General Fountain were held at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Philadelphia, with interment at Arlington National Cemetery. A number of Companions, including Major General John Clem, served as pallbearers. In addition to serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, General Fountain was also past Commander General of the Military Order of Foreign Wars.