American soldier, born in Salem, OH; killed near Nevada, MO, by desperadoes whom he had put under arrest, on the 21st of March 1867. He entered the United States military service in 1861, and distinguished himself by the engineering skill displayed in building two dams across the Red River, in Louisiana, in 1864, in order to deepen the water in the middle of the channel and thus enable the ships belonging to the Mississippi flotilla to pass over the rapids. By this expedient the imperiled gunboats of Admiral Porter, which accompanied General Banks’s disastrous expedition to Alexandria, were enabled to escape capture by the Confederates. For this service Colonel Bailey was made brigadier-general, received the thanks of Congress, and $3,000 from the officers and crews of the rescued fleet. In 1865 he resigned from the army, settled in Newton County, MO, as a farmer, and was sheriff of that county when slain.
