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A HERO AND 'WE' KILLED
HIM
Then and Now by
Patrick Brophy, The Nevada Daily Mail, Nevada, Vernon County,
Missouri. Thursday, November 29, 2007, page 4.
"Just in
time for last-minute Christmas gift-giving comes a highly recommended
new book about an important figure in Vernon County history.
Joseph Bailey, Union war hero, became one of the only two local peace
officers to be slain in the line of duty, when, on Mar. 26, 1867, as
Vernon County sheriff, he went out to arrest two suspected hog-thieves.
Michael J.
Goc, a Wisconsin writer, has produced an excellent biography, the only
Bailey life story to have appeared, so far as we know. It seems to
have been more-or-less self-published at Friendship, Wis., and deserves
wider recognition than it likely will get. It's a high-quality
hardback, well researched and lavishly illustrated. The full-color
dust jacket copies a mural in the Wisconsin state capitol, showing
Bailey being crowned with a laurel wreath.
Bailey was
born in Ashtabula, Ohio, in 1825, but moved to Wisconsin in 1847.
Eventually he settled in Kilbourn City, where he engaged in lumbering
and building railroad and other bridges.
Lacking all
engineer training, he soon showed an innate practical knack for
engineering. Though usually called a "civil engineer," by modern
standards, according to Goc, he was merely the "project manager" on a
succession of engineering jobs.
His chief
prewar preoccupation was a dam on the Wisconsin River, in the scenic
Wisconsin Dells area. The dam was a failure, thanks to the
corruption of the company involved. Bailey emerged from the
debacle unscathed, the only honest, competent man in the crowd.
When war
broke out he raised a company of lumbermen, entering Federal service as
captain of Company D, 4th Wisconsin Infantry. The tides of war
eventually took him to Louisiana, and in 1864 Lieutenant Colonel Bailey
was chief engineer of Franklin's XIX Corps of Nathaniel Banks's army,
hopelessly bogged down on the Red River.
The Red
River campaign was a shambles of divided command, wrongheaded
objectives, and civilian meddling. Roundly defeated, commander
Banks was ready to withdraw, leaving the Navy in the lurch, its boats
trapped by a sudden fall in the river's level.
Bailey
repeatedly submitted a plan to get the fleet over obstructing rapids by
damming the river. But the Navy wasn't interested in being
lectured or rescued by a lowly Army officer. Not, at least, till
the situation grew downright critical. At last commanders
listened, if with only half an ear. Even as work began, most
remained doubters, and openly jeered.
Included in
the book are a number of illustrations, taken from major magazines,
showing Bailey's dam in various stages of construction, making it easier
to understand his achievement.
As the fleet
moved to safety, jeers turned to cheers, Bailey's reputation took off.
Soon the Army had to call on him again to rig up a boat-bridge to get
troops and wagons over the swollen Atchafalaya River. He went on
to other feats, notably in the siege of Mobile.
He received
a promotion, the official thanks of Congress, plus a sword and golden
punch bowl crafted by Tiffany's, engraved with scenes of the boats'
rescue.
Out
of the Army, Bailey return to Wisconsin, but soon looked back south.
He accompanied friends on a "land-looking expedition" to southwest
Missouri, where he was "attracted to Bates and Vernon counties."
The area was still chaotic, but Bailey didn't let that discourage him.
Settled in Harrison Township, he had to haul supplies from Warrensburg.
Finding himself respected even by disfranchised ex-Confederates, in 1866
Bailey agreed to run for sheriff, and was easily elected. He'd
been in office but three months when a justice of the peace forwarded
the warrant for the arrest of Lewis and Perry Pixley.
According to the late GAR authority Fred L. Harriman, Bailey "had the
old British idea that all people respected the law," and so he never
carried a gun. Goc doesn't mention this, but he does give a likely
accounting for why Bailey behaved as he did in not searching the
arrested Pixleys and letting them ride behind him: "Disarming the
Pixleys on their own front porch was not likely to be easy, especially
for a solitary lawman without any backup. If he confronted the two
brothers at gunpoint, how many other armed and hostile bushwhackers
would appear? As for his riding ahead, "Perhaps it was mere
bravado."
Goc repeats the Vernon County history's account of the sheriff's body
being found "face down in the water" in Scott's Branch, about half a
mile off the main road.
"Scott's Branch" remains unlocated. "The Pixleys lived near
Moore's Mill," according to the county history. And Moore's Mill
stood near present Pumphouse Bridge. Presumably Bailey crossed the
Marmaton by the road leading to the Fort Scott-Balltown road. And
the only tributary anywhere in the area is so-called Green River,
actually a slough or old river channel.
Goc questions the "standard version" that the Pixleys acted alone, and
repeats the story supposedly told "many years later" by the sheriff's
grandson, Herbert E. Bailey, to a reporter, in turn told to him by one
John Jackson in the park in El Dorado Springs.
"A band of diehard Vernon County Confederates had drawn up a list of
carpetbagging newcomers who, courtesy of the Drake Constitution, had
taken power in the county and were to be bushwhacked. Joseph
Bailey's was the first name on the list.
"Jackson said that 'Doe Walters' of Nevada City drew Bailey's name and,
accompanied by the prosecuting attorney, shot him in the back of the
head." Goc goes on, "If Jackson was correct, then Walters and
(prosecuting attorney John T.) Birdseye were waiting on the Scott's
Branch road when Bailey and the Pixleys approached. They stopped
the horsemen, told Bailey to dismount, and Walters shot him. The
body was dragged to the creek bottom. The Pixleys were paid off
and told to get away as far and as fast as they could."
The weakest link in this story, as Goc points out, is that John Birdseye
was a Union veteran who "had no reason to conspire against Joseph
Bailey."
There were indeed other men, ex-Confederates, who might have hated
Bailey just on general principles, but there's no evidence whatever
implicating anybody. "Doe Walters" remains an unknown.
Well, but decide for yourself after reading "Hero of the Red River: The
Life and Times of Joseph Bailey," by Michael J. Goc (Friendship WI: New
Past Press, 2007). It's available from the Bushwhacker Museum, 212
W. Walnut (hours 10 to 4 weekdays), for $25."
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