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Bailey, Joseph, 1827-

Military officer; born in Salem, O., April 28, 1827; entered the Union army as a private in 1861; acquired great fame by his skill in damming the Red River at Alexandria (May, 1864), by which the squadron of iron-clad gunboats, under Admiral Porter, was enabled to pass down the rapids there when the water was low. He had been a lumberman in Wisconsin, and in that business had learned the practical part which he used in his engineering at Alexandria, where he was acting chief-engineer of the 19th Army Corps. Other engineers said his proposition to .dam the river was absurd, but in eleven days the boats, by his method, passed safely down. For this achievement he was promoted to colonel, brevetted brigadier-general, voted the thanks of Congress, and presented with a sword and $3,000 by the officers of the fleet. He settled in Missouri after the war, where he was a formidable enemy of the “bushwhackers,” and was shot by them in Nevada, in that State, on March 21, 1867.

Harper and Brothers Publishers. . New York. 1902.

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