BUXTON was the son of Rodney R. and Salina (Stoddard) Buxton. He was born at Westminster, Vermont, West Parish, September 3, 1836. Buxton's preparatory studies were pursued chiefly at the Wesleyan Seminary, Gouverneur, New York; he also spent one year at Pawlet Academy, Pawlet, Vermont. When about ready to enter college an attractive position as teacher was offered to him any in his native town. This he accepted and held till he joined our Class in the beginning of Sophomore year, 1860, and remained with us through that year. He was one of the toast orators at our Biennial Celebration, was also a member of the Equitable fraternity. In the summer of 1861 he enlisted in the Fifth New York Volunteers, Colonel Duryea's Zouaves, as a private. This regiment was composed of picked men in physique and character, gathered from all the nationalities that make up our composite population. Americans, of course, were in the majority, but beside there were men, English, Irish, French and German, in nationality, with a seasoning of Italian, Spanish and Swede. Williams Quarterly for March, 1863, contains a paper contributed by Buxton entitled, "A Soldier's Journal." It is made up of selections from Buxton's journal, kept while he was stationed at Fortress Munroe and Baltimore. One of its selections is an interesting and discriminating account of the nationalities that composed his regiment. Buxton's first engagement in battle with the enemy was at Big Bethel, and he received a wound at Gaines's Mills. The largest part of the autumn of 1861 and a portion of the following winter were spent in Baltimore, at Fort McHenry. In July, 1862, when the Army of the Potomac was stationed in Virginia, not far south of Washington, Buxton writes: "Here we are again (in the vicinity of the first battle of the war) and scarcely a point gained, though there have been millions of money wasted and thousands of precious lives sacrificed." Soon after there came the second battle of Manassas, where our classmate received a severe wound in his right arm. Eventually an amputation was necessary that was successfully performed, and as a result there was good promise of recovery, but Buxton's powers of endurance had been greatly weakened. He died in hospital at Washington, October 21, 1862.

Before entering college, while in the academy at Pawlet, Buxton became engaged to a young lady in Pawlet, but he never married. In the autumn of 1860 he made a profession of religion and joined the college church. He ended his life, which he had purposed in entering upon his collegiate course to devote to the ministry, in the service of his country as a loyal, brave and fearless Christian soldier. He was buried in his native town on the western banks of the Connecticut River. His record on the books of the local Grand Army Post at Westminster contains the statement that he was a lieutenant in the Fifth New York Volunteers, Company K, but I am not able to verify this and consider the item based on doubtful authority. Buxton was entered upon the roll of graduates by the granting of the baccalaureate degree in 1869, nearly seven years after his death.

I venture to quote the following bit of personal experience recorded by Buxton in "Soldier's Journal," already referred to. In writing of "the picket guard duty in an enemy's country as the most dangerous, certainly the most exciting part of actual warfare," he adds, "I have stood from eleven o'clock at night till three in the morning behind a big tree in the dark pine woods of Virginia, with head bent forward and thumb upon the hammer of my musket, ready upon the instant to give the signal of danger, so intent as scarcely to note the flight of time or feel the weariness of an unchanged position." 

Source:  Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903