Brigadier Generals Epaulets Identified to George Dashiell Bayard

Brigadier Generals Epaulets Identified to George Dashiell Bayard – Inventory Number: IDE 298

Shoulder devices with original japanned tin case.

Original owners’ initials are present on inside the interior G.D.B. The only general who served in the Civil War whom had these initials was George Dashiell Bayard.

Killed in action at the Battle of Fredericksburg, VA.

He was born in Seneca Falls, New York on December 18, 1835. His family moved as homesteaders to the Iowa Territory. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1856 as a second lieutenant in the U.S. cavalry. Bayard fought in the Indian Wars in Kansas and Colorado from 1856 to 1861. Bayard was shot in the face with a Kiowa arrow on July 11, 1860 and suffered considerable pain for months.

On August 27, 1861, Bayard was promoted to colonel in the Ist Pennsylvania Cavalry, based in Tenallytown (now Tenleytown, Washington, D.C.). Late in November 1861, he was involved in a confrontation with rebel soldiers near Dranesville, Virginia, in which his horse and two of his fellow soldiers were killed. He escaped with only minor wounds and was subsequently commissioned Chief of Cavalry of the III Corps and brigadier general of U.S. Volunteers on April 28, 1862.

Bayard fought under John C. Frémont at the Battle of Port Republic. In August 1862, at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, he led a Union Army advance. He was eventually promoted to Chief of Cavalry of the Left Grand Division, Army of the Potomac. With his old wound still bothering him, Bayard took a leave of absence for 13 days in September and consequently missed the Battle of Antietam.

Bayard was struck in the leg with a piece of shrapnel from a Confederate artillery round on December 13, 1862 at the Battle of Fredericksburg. He died the next day from uncontrolled bleeding, just four days short of his 27th birthday. He was buried in Princeton Cemetery in Princeton, New Jersey.

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Inventory Number: IDE 298