Cornelius L Bailey

4605. Cornelius L. Baley, 1848–1863, son of George W. Baley and (1903) Sally Sackett, was one of the youngest soldiers, and unquestionably the very youngest non-commissioned officer who served in the Union army as a fighting soldier, during the war of the rebellion. He was born on his father's farm near Romulus, Seneca County, N. Y., May 11, 1848, and from there enlisted, Aug. 4, 1862, as a private soldier in Company C, 126th Regiment, N. Y. S. Vols., of which Hon. Eliakim Sherrill was commissioned colonel. On Aug. 22, young Baley was, with his regiment, mustered into the United States service, and three weeks later was under fire on Maryland Heights at Harper's Ferry. Here his regiment, after gallantly defending the position assigned it with a loss of thirteen killed and forty-two wounded, was surrendered with the remaining portion of General Milroy's command, to Stonewall Jackson's attacking force. Three days later the 126th N. Y., having in the interim been paroled, was on its way to the Union parole camp at Chicago, Ill., where it remained two months, awaiting notice of exchange. It was then ordered to Union Hill, Virginia, where it encamped during the winter of 1862-3. In June following, it was attached to Willard's Brigade, Second Corps, Army of Potomac. As the regiment marched from its winter's camp, Cornelius L. Baley was wearing the stripes of a corporal, for which he carried a warrant signed by Colonel Sherrill. Then came the great battle of Gettysburgh, into which the 126th moved with a total strength of 445 officers and men; and out of which it came carrying as trophies, five Confederate battle flags, captured in desperate and deadly conflict; for they left behind them there of their number the appalling total of 231, dead, dying and wounded, and ten unaccounted for. In the official list of their killed on that gory field--which was in fact the turning point in the great war for the preservation of the Union--we read the names of Colonel Eliakim Sherrell, their able commander, and of Cornelius L. Baley, their gallant boy corporal.

—Weygant, The Sacketts of America