The first
Union soldier killed by a Confederate soldier was Thornsbury Bailey Brown; he
was killed May 22nd 1861 in Taylor County, Virginia.
Thornsbury
Bailey Brown was born May 15th 1829.
He lived in the Taylor County, Virginia.
Union
Lieutenant Daniel Wilson and Brown, both members of the Grafton Guards; which
would become a part of the 2nd West Virginia Infantry, on May 22nd
1861 attended a recruiting rally in Pruntytown, Virginia. The two men were returning to Grafton,
Virginia in the evening when they encountered three members of the Confederate
Letcher Guards; which would become of the 25th Virginia Infantry,
George E Glenn, Daniel Knight, and William Reese. The three men where on picket duty at the
Fetterman Bridge, a crossing located on the Northwestern Turnpike and the
tracks of the Baltimore of Ohio Railroad.
The three
pickets ordered Brown and Wilson to halt; instead Brown fired a pistol at the
Confederates. The shot apparently hit
Knight in the ear. The Confederates then
opened fire on Brown and Wilson, killing Brown.
The Letcher Guards took Brown’s body to their camp and turned it over to
their commander Colonel George A Porterfield.
The commander of the Grafton Guards Captain George R Latham led his men
toward the Confederate camp planning to take the body back, by force if
necessary. They met the Confederates
returning Brown body.
Brown was
buried at first in a family plot. His
body was moved the Grafton National Cemetery in Grafton, West Virginia in 1903.
1 comment:
Interestingly, through my genealogical studies, George E. Glenn was Thornbury Bailey Browns' uncle.
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