JOHN BANKS' CIVIL WAR BLOG: Dying 108th N.Y. soldier: 'Tell Charlie I tried to do my duty'

Rifle pits at Petersburg, Va. Private John W. Bailey was mortally wounded at Petersburg
on June 18, 1864. (Library of Congress collection)

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In the spring of 1864, the hardfighting 108th New York struggled to replenish it ranks after brutal battles at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. "Difficulty was experienced in getting recruits to join our regiment," a soldier in the regiment recalled, "as they said it was sure death to join the 108th."

Chaplain Thomas Grassie, probably in a post-war photo.
He wrote a letter to Charles Bailey about his brother's
final hours after he was shot at Petersburg.

But when a call went out in Monroe County, N.Y., for men to join the 108th, John W. Bailey was all-in. And so, on Feb. 25, 1864, the 20-year-old orphan from Webster mustered into the regiment as a private, joining his brother Charles in Company F. (More than a decade earlier, the brothers' parents had died, leaving sister Lydia as their guardian. John leased a farm of "about 75 acres" in Webster, using income from his labors to help support Lydia and another sister.)

It didn't take long for Charles and John to participate in relentless, terrible fighting together. On May 6, 1864, Corporal Charles S. Bailey, a color-bearer, was wounded at the Wilderness, knocking him out of the war. At Spotsylvania Courthouse six days later, John was severely wounded, but he recovered in time to re-join the regiment at the front at Petersburg.

On the morning of June 18, the 108th New York came under fire near Petersburg, the strategic town about 25 miles south of Richmond, the Rebel capital. According to Thomas G. Grassie, the regiment's 32-year-old, Scottish-born chaplain, John was shot in the back when he "left the breastworks to go toward" Confederate fire. Another soldier recalled a slightly different scenario.

"... while the regiment was reposing upon a roadside, much annoyed by sharp-shooters," he recalled, "[Bailey] was struck by a ball on his spine. In his excruciating agony he partially raised upon his elbow, and seeing us across the road, cried out, 'Haven't I done my duty? I can die happy that I have done so.' We responded, 'Yes, yes, John you have truly and unflinchingly done heroic duty.' "

John Bailey's grave in City Point National Cemetery
in Hopewell, Va.
(Find A Grave)

John was transported to a hospital, where he "bore the pain with admirable fortitude and with Christian resignation," Grassie recalled in a poignant, six-page letter to Charles. (See complete transcription below.)

"I gave him a soothing medicine which soon eased his pain & lulled him to sleep," the chaplain remembered. But even though John's pain apparently briefly subsided, there wasn't much that could be done for the severely wounded private, who said he was unafraid to die.

In his final hours, Bailey told Grassie he had expected to be killed when he joined the army -- and spoke frequently about his brother, Charlie.

"Tell [him] I thought of him when I was dying -- and my sisters too," John said, according to the chaplain. "Tell Charlie I tried to do my duty to my country & tell him I hope he will be spared to his friends. Tell him I was ready to die & expect to see him again. Tell all our folks not to feel bad for me."

Two hours later, at about 10 a.m. on June 19, 1864, John W. Bailey died. "I had to go to the Regt. & had not returned before his brave spirit was released," wrote Grassie, who added John was buried in a II Corps graveyard near Petersburg. After the war, Bailey's body was recovered and re-interred in City Point National Cemetery in Hopewell, Va., where the remains of more than 5,000 other Civil War soldiers are buried.