Joseph Bailey (general)

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Early life

Bailey was born near the village of Pennsville in Morgan County, Ohio. He earned a civil engineering degree at the University of Illinois, and then moved to Wisconsin and became a civil engineer and lumberman.

Civil War

Entering the Union army at the outset of the Civil War as a captain in the 4th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment, Bailey was part of Major General Benjamin F. Butler's Army of the Gulf which occupied New Orleans after Admiral David Farragut captured that city in April 1862. He was named acting chief engineer for the city of New Orleans shortly after its capture.

Promoted to major in May 1863, he contributed to the Union Army's engineering activities in support of the Siege of Port Hudson. In August 1863, in recognition of his service at Port Hudson, Bailey was promoted to lieutenant colonel when the regiment was redesignated as the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry.

Red River Campaign

Bailey's engineering brilliance during Major General Nathaniel P. Banks' ill-fated Red River Campaign is widely attributed as the reason that campaign did not result in the devastating loss of the entire 30,000 soldier Army of the Gulf. Having landed his Army at Simmesport, Louisiana in March 1864 with the intention of moving north along the Red River 200 miles to capture the city of Shreveport, the headquarters of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, Banks was stopped at the Battle of Mansfield on April 8, 1864, by Confederate General Richard Taylor and his force of 12,000 men.

Retreating back down the Red River, Banks found that the low level of the river at Alexandria prohibited the downriver movement of Commander David Dixon Porter's fleet of ten Federal gunboats, part of the Union Army's Mississippi Squadron. Hounded by Taylor's slightly reduced forces in the rear, Banks faced the humiliating necessity of abandoning Porter's entire fleet. Lacking the fleet's supporting fire power, his entire Army risked capture before it could safely return to New Orleans.

Resigned to his fate, Banks reluctantly listened to Porter's suggestion to give Bailey's outlandish suggestion a try. Bailey suggested building a winged dam, similar to the kind he had built as a Wisconsin lumberman. The dam, Bailey argued, would lift the level of the river. When it was high enough to lift Porter's fleet over the falls, Bailey would dynamite the dam, and the fleet would be saved.

Persuaded by Porter, Banks agreed to the plan. For ten days, 10,000 troops worked feverishly on both banks of the River to build the dam. Finally, on May 10, 1864, the river rose, the dam was broken, and the fleet floated past. Porter's fleet, and Banks' army was saved. The ruins of "Bailey's Dam" can be seen to this day in Alexandria.

A grateful United States Congress voted Bailey the Thanks of Congress for his efforts, making him only one of fifteen men to receive such an honor during the Civil War. He was the only person to receive the honor who did not command a corps or division at the time.

The remainder of the war

In June 1864, Bailey became the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry's colonel. Later, Bailey was assigned to command the Engineer Brigade in the XIX Corps in the Department of the Gulf from June through August 1864. Bailey commanded the District of West Florida from August until November.

In November, Bailey was sent back to Louisiana to take charge of the District of Baton Rouge and Port Hudson. He was promoted to brigadier general and assigned to other commands in the Western Theater until the end of the war. In March 1865, he was breveted as a major general.

Bailey was killed by bushwhackers that he had arrested while serving as a sheriff near Nevada, Missouri, in 1867. He was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Scott, Kansas.

A monument to Bailey stands in Malta, Ohio.

ee also

*List of American Civil War generals

External links

* [http://members.aol.com/ohiocwtc/trail2.html Ohio generals]
* [http://www.civilwar.org/historyclassroom/hc_baileysdamhist.htm Bailey's Dam]
*findagrave|5893175 Retrieved on 2008-08-13

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NAME= Bailey, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Union Army general
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