Obituary – Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee

Obituary.

———-

Gen. Barnard E. Bee.

Upon the wings of shining Victory comes the dark shaft of Death. And with the first impulsive leapings of the heart in the glad shout of triumph for our arms and our cause, the breath of Carolinians is stilled in mourning for our gallant dead. In that they lived, they were ours – int that they are dead, it was for use they died. Upon each heart in Carolina they have levied a tribute. The bitter, bitter tears of those who loved them dearest in life, the little hands of pleading children, demand of us, even in the rush of life, and the fierce cry of victory, to pause in silence over their biers, and to mingle our sorrows with the unutterable grief of hearts that cannot be comforted. And to-day South Carolina, like a Spartan mother, mourns her lost sons.

Perhaps there was no man of his age in the Confederate service who had won for himself a fairer fame, both as an accomplished officer and high-toned gentleman, than the late Gen. Barnard E. Bee, of this State. Upon the desperate field of battle, where more than once his gallant blade had won him the applause of the army and of his native state, sword in hand, he perished – an untimely death.

Gen. Bee, descended from an old Carolina family of gentlemen, was about 35 years of age, and leaves a widow and an infant son.

He entered West Point a Cadet in 1841; was made Brevet Second Lieutenant, 3d Infantry, in 1845. Curing the Mexican war he served with marked distinction, winning two brevets before the close of the war – that of First Lieutenant, “for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Cerro Gordo, on the 18th April, 1847,” in which he was wounded, and that of Captain, in the storming of Chepultepec, on the 13th of September, 1847, “for gallant and meritorious conduct.” Since 1848 he acted as Adjutant, and rose to a full First Lieutenancy in March, 1851.

His achievements, since that time, in wars amongst the Indians, were such as to attract towards him the attention of his State, and in his dying hand, on the field in which he fell, he grasped the sword which South Carolina had taken pride in presenting him.

Few men of his age had attracted more attention in his profession, and such was his reputation, that President Davis, at once raising him from the rank of Captain, appointed him a Brigadier-General in the Provisional Army.

It will not be easy to fill his place in the Confederate service; but South Carolina, more especially, mourns his loss, for he was a true representative of her race. Mild, modest, amiable of deportment, open, generous, bold and dashing in achievement, nice of honor and punctilious of fame, winning friends by sterling conduct, as fearless of foes as sensitive of regard, he was all that his State could ask of a Gentleman, a soldier and a patriot. South Carolina will ever bend in honor over the tomb of such a son.

The Charleston (SC) Mercury, 7/23/1861

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