An officer of the Farmers' Bank when the war broke out. After the war he served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Alexandria Water Company until his death. He was the fifth child of Benjamin Trueman Fendall, surveyor of Port Alexandria, and his wife Elizabeth Alexander Dade Fendall. He married Eliza Eaches of Alexandria on January 15, 1850. Townshend and Eliza Fendall had four children -- three of whom lived into adulthood.

Parts of a letter from Townshend Dade Fendall to Aunt Mary Dade, December 28, 1861.

The joyous festival of Christmas has passed, not as formerly, fraught with happiness & glee it was a dull quiet day and but for the firing of powder crackers & pistols, would have scare been noticed. It rested like a mighty incubus, paralyzing, as it were, the elasticity of the spirits, that in gone by days were so buoyant & happy, how sad & painful the change from my boyish days, then the occasion was all excitement & preperation, for days before, followed by social parties, Egg-nogg & the varied innocent amusements, incident to the season...

Oh, mysterious fate, has every Sinful man brought this calamity upon us. War, Civil relentless War, has been lighted & the fratricidal arm, hurling death & direction, father against son, brother against brother, how awful to contemplate. Oh my County, once the land of the free & the home of the brave, thy once glorious fabric, reeling tottering to the dust, can it be, that we are no longer to rank among the nations of the earth. Must our nationality be blotted out? No, no, forbid it kind heaven, fanaticism cannot, must not prevail, two republics may grow up, but never can be blotted out from existence, we will be freemen, if we cannot agree as brothers, with our nationality, let us seperate and stop this suicidal carnage & let the land flowing with milk & honey be at peace. May God in his mercy grant this.