Alternate Spellings of Name: Elisha W. Bailey; Elijah W. Baily; E.W. Baily.

 

Nothing could be more satisfactory than the promptness and skill with which the wounded were attended to by Surg. E. W. Bailey [sic, Baily], Forty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers, medical director, and the entire medical staff of the command.

— Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan, United States Army, October 1862

 

Student. Teacher. A healer who was also a military strategist and hospital administrator during one of the darkest and deadliest times in world history. His name was Elisha W. Baily and he was one of the most determined of the avenging physician-angels to wage war repeatedly against the grim reaper during the American Civil War.

Sometimes victorious; often times not. He managed to guide his medical staff through the most difficult periods in their medical careers, enabling them to soldier on and save the lives of countless men who were at death’s door.

Post-war, he continued his life of service, both as a physician and as an elected member of the Pennsylvania Legislature.

Formative Years

Born in Londonderry Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania on 17 October 1821, Elisha Wilson Baily, M.D. was a son of Israel Baily (1789-1823 or 1826) and Hannah Baily (born circa 1800), who were members of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends. His siblings were Bayard and Susanna H. (“Susan”) Baily, who later wed Kersey Speakman.

* Note: Born sometime around 1815, Bayard Baily (alternate spelling “Byard”) died sometime around 1836 at the age of 19. Born sometime around 1818, Susan (Baily) Speakman died in Londonderry, Chester County on 21 April 1852, according to Quaker Meeting records (Fallowfield Monthly Meeting).

Their father, a farmer and auctioneer by trade, passed away when Elisha was just a young boy. Their mother remarried following Israel Baily’s death, and ultimately lived to see the end of America’s great Civil War. As the wife of Joshua Speakman, Hannah Baily Speakman gave birth to Elisha’s half-siblings: Col. Franklin B. Speakman, a commander of the 133rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry who became the proprietor of the Coatesville Hotel and passed away on 9 September 1901, and D. Hannah (Speakman) Jones, who wed and was widowed by Coatesville resident Harry Jones.

Education and Early Career

A Unionville Academy classmate of poet and novelist Bayard Taylor and graduate of that Chester County institution, Elisha Wilson Baily broadened his education by beginning the study of medicine and advancing his mathematical training under the guidance of Dr. Baily of Andrews Bridge in Lancaster County, after which he became an instructor in one of Pennsylvania’s local schools for two years.

He then pursued formal medical training at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where he was privileged to learn from one of the foremost surgeons and diagnosticians of his time, Professor Joseph Pancoast, M.D. A fellow Quaker and chair of the Departments of Surgery (1839-1841) and Anatomy (1841-1874) at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Pancoast had authored A Treatise on Operative Surgery the same year as Baily’s graduation.

After earning his medical degree in 1844, Elisha W. Baily, M.D. opened a private practice as an Allopathic physician in the community of Atglen, Chester County. On 10 November 1852, he married Mary A. Cook in New York City. A native of Point Pleasant, Ocean County, New Jersey, she was a daughter of farmers and New Jersey natives, Thomas and Ann (Williams) Cook.

During the federal census of 1850, Elisha W. Baily was documented as “E. Wilson Baily,” a married physician residing at the Sadsbury, Chester County, Pennsylvania hotel of Absalom Barber.

Sometime around 1855, Elisha and Mary Baily welcomed daughter Ella to the world. From 1856 to 1861, Dr. Baily cared for patients in Bloomfield, Perry County.The 1860 federal census confirms that he resided there with his wife, and six-year-old daughter, Ella.

Civil War Military Service

On 24 September 1861, Elisha Wilson Baily, M.D. left his family, patients and private practice in order to enlist in the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. He officially mustered in for duty the next day at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, and was commissioned as an officer and Full Surgeon.

According to the Biographical Annals of Lancaster County, Pa., “Dr. Baily took medical charge of Camp Curtin for three months, then with the 47th P. V. I., under Gen. Brannon [sic, Brannan], took part in the army movements until 1863, when he was made a member of Gen. Woodbury’s staff. He had general charge of the Island of Key West, and was health officer while on Gen. Woodbury’s staff.”

The Annals further note that, “[i]n the spring of 1864 Dr. Baily was placed in charge of a hospital boat on the Mississippi river where he continued until July, alleviating the miseries he could not cure, of the brave men placed in his care. From here he was sent through the Shenandoah Valley, with Gen. Sheridan, taking an active part in the battles of Winchester and Cedar Creek, remaining until the close of the war, being finally mustered out at Harrisburg” at the expiration of his term on 23 September 1864.

But these brief sentences hardly do justice to the tremendous level of support that he rendered to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers during his three full years of American Civil War service. Elisha Baily was, in reality, the head surgeon of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and was responsible for directing the actions of two assistant regimental surgeons, regimental hospital stewards, Civil War-era nurses, and other regimental personnel who rendered care to the members of the 47th Pennsylvania who were gravely wounded in battle or were felled by disease at duty stations far from home.

Elisha W. Baily, M.D. was the boss of the 47th Pennsylvania’s medical unit during the regiment’s initial defense of the nation’s capital (1861), its first major combat experiences—the capture of Saint John’s Bluff, Florida and the bloody Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina (early October-late December 1862), the Union’s Red River Campaign across Louisiana (March-June 1864), and a significant portion of the Union’s intense, tide-turning Shenandoah Valley Campaign across Virginia (mid-July-23 September 1864), as well as during the times members of the 47th were placed at increased risk of contracting tropical diseases or being hit by sniper fire when the regiment was assigned to occupation and garrison duties in Florida and South Carolina. He was also, at times during his service tenure, placed in charge of larger Union Army medical facilities, serving as the medical director at post hosptals on the ground and aboard medical transport ships.

So, important were his contributions that he was one of just two officers from the 47th Pennsylvania who were initially singled out for commendation by Brigadier-General John Milton Brannan, following the Battle of Pocotaligo. The other was Baily’s boss, Colonel Tilghman H. Good, the regiment’s founder and commanding officer:

Col. T. H. Good, Forty-seventh Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers (Colonel Chatfield being wounded early in the day), commanded the First Brigade during the latter part of the engagement with much ability. Nothing could be more satisfactory than the promptness and skill with which the wounded were attended to by Surg. E. W. Bailey [sic, Baily], Forty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers, medical director, and the entire medical staff of the command.

Return to Civilian Life and Private Practice

Following his honorable discharge from the military, upon completion of his three-year term of service, Elisha W. Baily, M.D. returned to Pennsylvania, where he resumed his private medical practice. By 1870, according to the federal census, he was a resident of Sadsbury Township in Lancaster County. Living with him were his wife, Mary, and their daughter, Ella, as well as two servants, Pennsylvania natives Mary Walker and Jacob Yelletts. Walker was shown on the census as a 25-year-old White female while Yelletts was described as a 13-year-old “Mulatto.”

In 1873, E. W. Baily, M.D. was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature, where he served three terms as a representative of Chester County. That same year (1873), he testified in a murder trial. According to the 31 October 1873 edition of the Reading Times, Dr. Baily, “a doctor living in Penningtonville, testified to the numerous wounds found and made on the body” of an unidentified man by William E. Udderzook:

…. Dr. Baily described nine distinct wounds on the body, in the side, through the abdomen and across the throat. The nose had been broken apparently with a blunt instrument, such as a spade, and the teeth driven in. He described the teeth minutely, saying that they were large, strong and healthy ones. In his opinion the deceased had been a man 35 or 40 years old, 5 feet 8 or 9 inches high, with a chest from 38 to 40 inches broad, and not a laboring man. The body had lost life for 10 or 12 days when found, in his judgment.

The cross-examination of the witness was directed mainly to show that his opinion of the length of time the deceased had been dead was not worth much.

The sensational trial details of a mysterious murder were heavily covered by newspapers nationwide; the murder victim, eventually identified as Winfield S. Goss, was believed to have been killed when an insurance scam concocted by the two men went wrong. Udderzook, who had been convicted of the crime, was executed by hanging at 12:15 p.m. on 12 November 1873. The Juniata Sentinel and Republican reported in its 18 November edition that Udderzook made no confession, but uttered the final words: “All I have to say is, I am a sinner saved by grace, and I am accepted of God.”

Following those services to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Elisha Baily returned to the Philadelphia area, where he made his home while continuing to practice medicine.

In April 1875, Elisha and Mary Baily’s daughter, Ella, wed George H. Martin in Philadelphia. Both residents of Penningtonville in Chester County at the time of their marriage, George and Ella Martin would go on to greet the arrival of their own children:

• Zelda: Born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey on 4 March 1880, she graduated from Christiana High School, wed John Chamberlain (1865-1956), passed away at the Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on 12 August 1955, and was interred at the Old Sadsbury Burial Ground (Sadsbury Friends Burial Ground) in Christiana, Lancaster County; and
• Norman: Born in Philadelphia on 7 February 1883, he attended Westchester State Normal School wed Susanna Carrell, resided in West Chester, and became a merchant before passing away at the Concord Villa in Concordville, Delaware County, Pennsylvania on 18 August 1963. He, too, was interred at the Sadsbury Friends Cemetery in Christiana, Lancaster County, according to his Pennsylvania Death Certificate.

By 1880, Elisha and Mary Baily were confirmed residents of Atglen in Chester County with one servant, John Stampson, a 23-year-old African American man who had been born in Maryland to parents who were natives of Washington. Sometime after Ella’s passing around 1887 at the age of 32, they adopted both of her children, Norman and Zelda Martin.

The 1890 U.S. Veterans’ Schedule noted that, at this time, Elisha W. Baily was residing at 1623 Vine Street in Philadelphia near the Hahnemann Medical College. As with many of the soldiers for whom he had provided medical care three decades earlier, he suffered chronic health problems related to his Civil War service.

By 1892, Elisha and Mary Baily had decided that a change of scenery was needed to improve Elisha’s health. So, they moved back to Sadsbury Township (roughly two miles west of Christiana). As they witnessed the dawn of a new century, they continued to raise their grandchildren, Zelda and Norman (shown as “Bailey Martin” on the 1900 federal census) at their Sadsbury Township home in what was then Lancaster County.

During this time, Dr. Baily supported his family as a farmer. Also residing and working in the Baily household were two African American servants, George Hall (born in Pennsylvania in May 1883) and William Washington (born in Pennsylvania in January 1891).

Two years later, on 10 November 1902, Elisha and Mary Baily celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

* Note: Although Beers’ Biographical Annals of Lancaster County states that Mary widowed Elisha on 8 January 1903, this is incorrect. The 1910 federal census confirms that Mary Baily was still alive and residing with her grandson/adopted son, Norman, at his home in Coatesville, Pennsylvania in 1910. Furthermore, her death certificate states that she died on 8 October 1918—one of the many who perished during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. She was interred at the Old Sadsbury Burial Ground (Friends Burial Ground) in Christian on 14 October 1918.

An Old Soldier Answers His Final Bugle Call

After a long and full life, Elisha W. Baily, M.D. passed away on 4 December 1904—felled by subacute congestion of the lungs. Town and Country and People’s Advocate and Press of Perry County both reported in their 7 December editions:

Dr. Elisha W. Bailey [sic], a resident of this place after the war for some years, and well remembered by our older inhabitants, died at his home in Sadsbury township, Lancaster county, on the 4th inst., at the age of 83 years. He was a native of Chester county, graduating from the Unionville Academy with Bayard Taylor, the noted author, and matriculating at Jefferson Medical College in 1844. He was a surgeon of the 47th Regiment Pa. Vols. in the Civil War, served as health officer at Key West, and while practicing his profession at Atglen represented Chester county three terms in the Legislature as a Republican.

A Mason, he had also been a member of the Adams Lodge in Perry County, Pennsylvania. Researchers currently believe that he was laid to rest at the Old Sadsbury Burial Ground (aka the Sadsbury Friends Burial Ground) in Christiana, Lancaster County since this is where his wife and children were later interred.

His wife, Mary, followed him in death on 10 October 1918. A victim of the Spanish Flu epidemic, she succumbed to complications from pneumonia. The “Friends Intelligencer” (Vol. 75, p. 701) reported her death as follows:

Mary A. Baily, wife of Elisha W. Baily, and daughter of the late Thomas and Ann Cook, of Point Pleasant, New Jersey, died suddenly from pneumonia on Tenth month 10th, in her 89th year, at Atglen, Pa., where she had been spending the summer months. She is survived by a beloved and only living sister, three grandchildren, and a host of friends, who will long remember her for her example of patience and kindliness to all. In the words of a notable woman poet of Japan, her end is best summarized,- ‘Without the shadow of a cloud to darken my soul, the sun of my life sets in a clear evening sky.’

 

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. I. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.

2. Biographical Annals of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: Containing Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens and Many of the Early Settlers. Chicago, Illinois: J. H. Beers & Co., 1903.

3. Birth and Death Records (Baily and Martin Families). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.

4. Civil War Veterans’ Card File. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.

5. Elisha W. Baily, in Journal of the American Medical Association (44:51). Chicago, Illinois: American Medical Association.

6. Elisha W. Baily, Bloomfield, Pennsylvania: Town and Country and People’s Advocate and Press, 7 December 1904.

7. Elisha W. Baily, in Second Day of Udderzook’s Trial – Examination of Witnesses – The Question of the Identity of the Murdered Man. Reading, Pennsylvania: Reading Times, 31 October 1873.

8. Martin-Baily, in Married. West Chester, Pennsylvania: The Village Record, 13 April 1875.

9. Mary A. Baily. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Friends Intelligencer, Vol. 75, p. 701, 1918.

10. Susanna H. Speakman, in Fallowfield Monthly Meeting Records, in Fallowfield Births and Deaths, 1811-1921; Collection: Quaker Meeting Records; Call Number: MR Ph 172. Swarthmore, Pennsylvania: Swarthmore College.

11. U.S. Census (1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1930) and U.S. Veterans’ Schedule (1890). Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

12. U.S. Civil War Pension Index (Application No.: 1136[or 7?]045, Certificate No.: 890671, filed from Pa. 4 November 1892. Application No.: 818325, Certificate No.: 591711, filed by widow from Pa. 13 December 1904). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 1904.