Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 11:25:50 EDT
From: "Cook, James H" <JIMCOOK%WVNVM.bitnet@KSUVM.KSU.EDU>
To: "Civil War History discussion list" <H-CIVWAR@UICVM.BITNET>
Subject: Re: QUERY: Bio. information on Pvt. Thornberry Brown
The monument to Bailey Brown is located where U.S. Highway 50 crosses the
Tygart River, just west of Grafton.
Reference to the incident is made in several other county histories,
including "Now and Long Ago: A History of the Marion County Area," Fairmont,
W.Va.: Marion County Historical Society, 1969. [p.627]:
On the eve of May 23, 1861, Virginia's general election [referendum on
the secession article passed in convention on April 17,] about 1,000
Confederate troops arrived at Webster on their way to rendezvouz at Grafton.
They were here, it was said, "by the authority of Virginia to defend the
country against Northern aggression." At this time, there was a Confederate
force of about 200 men, including William P. Thompson's Marion Guards,
stationed at nearby Fetterman (Grafton). At about nine o'clock p.m., W. S.
Knight, a confederate picket guarding the railroad at the eastern end of town,
shot and killed T. Bailey Brown, a Union organizer. Brown, with Daniel Wilson,
was returning from Pruntytown, where he and Wilson had been recruiting men for
the Union army. They were told to halt; the order was resented; a dispute
followed; Brown drew his pistol and shot away a piece of Knight's ear; Knight
shot Brown in the chest with his old-fashioned smooth-bore musket. The gun
was loaded with slugs, one of which passed through Brown's heart. Wilson
turned and ran, and Knight, or someone else, shot off the heel of his boot.
The authors do not cite the original source of this information, but I find
two aspects of the story to be interesting. First, Brown is not referred to
as a private in the Union army, but as a "Union organizer." Second, he is
said to have fired the first shot. I think it is fair to suspect that the
original source was biased toward the southern cause. That the event occurred
seems to be in little doubt, as Western Virginia was one of the "hot spots"
following Sumter. Indeed, as everyone here is apt to remind us, the first
land battle of the war was fought at Phillipi, fifteen miles due south of
where Bailey Brown was killed.
Jim Cook
West Virginia University