Barnard Elliot Bee Jr. (1824 - 1861)

Ancestors

Biography

Son of Barnard E. Bee, Sr. and Ann Fayssoux, CSA Brigadier General Barnard Elliot Bee, Jr. died of wounds he received during the first battle of Manassas in the Civil War.

One of the first general officers to be killed in the American Civil War, Barnard is best remembered for inspiring the famous nickname "Stonewall" upon then Brigadier General Thomas J. Jackson at the First Battle of Bull Run (also known as First Manassas). Born in Charleston, South Carolina to a prominent family of English ancestry, he moved with his family to Pendleton, South Carolina in 1833, where he attended the Pendleton Academy. Three years later, his parents moved to Texas, but he stayed behind with his mother's sisters to pursue his education. He received an appointment to attend the US Military Academy at West Point, New York and graduated in 1845 with a commission as a 2nd lieutenant and was assigned to the 3rd US Infantry.

His first assignment was serving in the military occupation of Texas. During the Mexican-American War, he was twice brevetted for gallantry, first at the Battle of Cerro Gordo near Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, where he was wounded, and then at the Battle of Chapultepec in Mexico City. After the Mexican-American War, he was assigned to garrison duty at Pascagoula, Mississippi, where he served as adjutant, followed by frontier duty, mostly at Fort Fillmore in New Mexico Territory from 1849 to 1855. In 1855 he was promoted to the rank of captain of Company D of the Tenth Infantry and assigned to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. In 1857, his unit participated in the Utah War, where he was placed in command of the Utah Volunteer Battalion and brevetted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He started a leave-of-abscence after his time in the Utah Volunteer Battalion ended on December 1st, 1858 (Cullum, 133). In 1860, he was posted to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, briefly serving as the fort's commanding officer.

When the Southern States seceded from the Union in 1861, he resigned from the US Army and returned to Charleston where he was elected lieutenant colonel of the 1st South Carolina Regulars. On June 17, 1861 he was appointed brigadier general and given command of the 3rd Brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah, under Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, that was mobilized at Manassas Junction in Virginia. During the subsequent battle, later known as the First Battle of Bull Run, he is purported to have used the term "stone wall" in reference to then Brigadier General Thomas J. Jackson and his men, giving rise to the name "Stonewall Jackson" and his Stonewall Brigade. He was mortally wounded as the Confederates began to gain the upper hand in the battle and he died the following day at Manassas, Virginia at the age of 37. Because he died shortly after the battle, it could not be fully determined whether his naming of "Stonewall" Jackson was intended as praise, a condemnation, or whether it was simply a miss attributed quote. His older brother, Hamilton P. Bee, was also a Confederate Army brigadier general who served in the Texas campaign.

He was buried with his parents in St. Paul's Episcopal Church Cemetery in Pendleton, South Carolina (Find A Grave.com).

Bio by: William Bjornstad

Sources

• Wikipedia Biography [1]

• Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1903; rpt., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965). Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Gray (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959) [2]

• Find A Grave Memorial [3]

• Cullum, George W. 1879. "Barnard E. Bee." In Biographical register of the officers and graduates of the U. S. Military academy, from 1802 to 1867, Vol. 2, 132-33. New York: J. Miller. https://archive.org/details/biographicalregi02cull/page/132/mode/1up.

• "General Barnard Elliot Bee," Historical Marker Database, published by J. J. Pratts, accessed on Nov 2, 2023. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=540.

• "1860 United States Census," database, Ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2023), entry for Barnard D. Bee (aged 30), Group No. 29, Series No. M653, page 247, Fort Laramie Reservation, Unorganized county, Nebraska Territory; citing NARA FHL microfilm roll 803665.