John Howlett was a wealthy physician and farmer in Chesterfield, VA prior to the war. He was granted his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in April 1847.
Doctor Howlett, although he did not bear arms for either army, will be forever associated with the Civil War due to the naming of the Howlett Line, the Confederate earthworks extending from the James River to the Appomattox River that were named after Howlett's home which was located at the north end of the line. Ironically, the fort located near the Howlett house, originally known as Fort Howlett, was designated Battery Dantzler shortly after the death of another R-MC alumnus, Col. Olin M. Dantzler of South Carolina, who died in battle in June 1864 during the Bermuda Hundred Campaign. The house was eventually destroyed by Union gunboat fire from the James River, and Howlett's farm property was badly damaged.
Howlett took the oath of allegiance on April 12, 1865, and in his July 24, 1865 application for amnesty he indicated his property before the war might have been valued as high as $100,000. He stated that he was left with "nothing but the naked ground, so much cut up by fortifications as to be of comparatively little value." He was granted amnesty but received no compensation. He died bankrupt on November 5, 1870.
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