Col Silas M Baily
7 December 2018
This is Colonel Silas Milton Baily of the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves from a glass plate negative at the Library of Congress. He’d been commissioned Major of the regiment on 4 June 1862.
At the battle of Gaines’ Mill [27 June 1862], he was severely wounded in the face, and was carried, insensible, to Washington for medical treatment. When the Army of the Potomac entered upon the Maryland campaign, Major Baily, though pronounced by his surgeon to be unfit for service, determined to join his command. He overtook the division in camp near the Monocacy, and being the ranking officer, took command of the regiment, which he led with such distinguished gallantry, both at South Mountain and at Antietam, that he was promoted to the colonelcy as a reward for his meritorious conduct on the field of battle.
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