[Illustration: COL. SION S. BASS]




                                COLONEL
                              SION S. BASS
                               1827-1862


                      Prepared by the Staff of the
             Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County
                                  1954

    [Illustration: Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen
    County]

One of a historical series, this pamphlet is published under the
direction of the governing Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne
and Allen County.

           BOARD·OF·TRUSTEES·OF·THE·SCHOOL·CITY·OF·FORT·WAYNE

  _Mrs. Sadie Fulk Roehrs_
  _B. F. Geyer, President_
  _Joseph E. Kramer, Secretary_
  _W. Page Yarnelle, Treasurer_
  _Willard Shambaugh_

                 PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD FOR ALLEN COUNTY

The members of this Board include the members of the Board of Trustees
of the School City of Fort Wayne (with the same officers) together with
the following citizens chosen from Allen County outside the corporate
City of Fort Wayne:

  _James E. Graham_
  _Arthur Niemeier_
  _Mrs. Glenn Henderson_
  _Mrs. Charles Reynolds_




                                FOREWORD


At the time of the War Between the States the name of Colonel Sion S.
Bass was well known in Fort Wayne; today few citizens of the Summit City
recall his heroism. Only a bare outline of his life can be constructed
from the meager information available. Grace Leslie Dickerson,
grandniece of the Colonel, assembled most of the material for this
biographical sketch. Supplementary details were found in the Fort Wayne
newspapers of the Civil War years.

The Boards and the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen
County gratefully acknowledge the kindness of Mrs. Dickerson and other
members of the Bass family. This biography is presented in the hope that
the life and sacrifice of Colonel Bass, Civil War hero, will become more
familiar to his fellow citizens.


Not many years ago, the Fort Wayne post of the Grand Army of the
Republic was an active organization. Today that post, named for Sion S.
Bass, is no longer in existence. His name, as well as Civil War terms
like Shiloh, United States Volunteers, and Copperhead, has almost lost
its significance for the average citizen.

The honorable causes espoused and defended in the tragic Civil War were
championed by many men of heroic stature—men worthy of the unstinted
admiration and respect of each succeeding generation. These were the
soldiers who acquitted themselves honorably in fighting for the causes
they believed just. Colonel Sion St. Clair Bass, a successful young man
who could have avoided military service, was one of the many who gave
their lives in the struggle.

Colonel Bass was born on a farm near Salem, Kentucky, on January 6,
1827. He was descended from a line of early settlers in Virginia, the
Carolinas, and Kentucky. In 1805, at the age of three, Sion’s father had
been taken by his parents from Virginia to the wilderness of Christian
County, Kentucky. Sion’s mother, Jane Todd Bass, who had come with her
family from Charleston, South Carolina, was also an early pioneer in the
bluegrass country. In Kentucky, Sion’s father acquired large areas of
farmland and became prominent in local affairs.

The young Sion enjoyed a normal, happy childhood with his brothers, John
and Jerden, and his sister, Emily Jane. The children helped to till the
fields and performed their daily household chores. Their most exciting
diversions were holiday journeys to nearby Paducah where they could
watch the barges and steamboats on the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. The
children were educated in the schools of Kentucky. Sion, the eldest,
later attended Bartlett’s College of Commerce in Cincinnati.

After his graduation in February, 1849, Sion followed his mother’s
advice and came to Fort Wayne. Jane Bass believed that Fort Wayne,
already a thriving town, would offer good business opportunities for her
sons because of its favorable location at the confluence of the three
rivers. Chicago, she believed, would soon grow too large. In Fort Wayne,
Sion found employment with the great western fur traders, Ewing, Chute,
and Company, and soon became a trusted confidential agent of the firm.
In this position, he became acquainted at first hand with the dangers
and privations of frontier life.

Very little material can be found concerning his private life in Fort
Wayne. It is recorded, however, that he married Eliza Bayles, and that
they were the parents of two daughters, Georgia and Beverly. And we do
know that the young man was a devout member of the Episcopal Church.

In 1853 Sion became a member of Jones, Bass, and Company, which
manufactured iron products. In 1857 the firm was sold to the Pittsburgh,
Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railroad. In September of the same year, Sion
Bass formed a partnership with William H. Jones. The partners
established a new foundry and machine shop along the Pittsburgh, Fort
Wayne, and Chicago Railroad and the Wabash Railroad. In 1858 a
partnership, which had been formed by Edward Force and Sion’s brother
John, leased the plant. And the following year, the plant was sold to
the Fort Wayne Machine Works. The activities of Sion Bass cannot be
traced from the completion of the sale negotiations until the onset of
the War Between the States.

In 1861 the Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston
Harbor signaling the outbreak of bitter civil strife. Drafting of men
for military service was not practiced in the United States at that
time; both sides relied upon volunteers to fill their fighting ranks.
Sion Bass found himself in a dilemma; he was torn between his fond
attachment for the South, where he had spent his childhood and early
youth, and his loyalty to the North. Because of his southern background,
many Northerners did not trust him. Besides, he was the sole breadwinner
of his family; his wife and two children were wholly dependent upon him.
He could have refused to face the issue; he could have continued his
daily routine as a civilian in the North. But his firm conviction of the
moral wrong of slavery and his desire to fight for the Union overcame
all his reservations. In response to President Lincoln’s call for
volunteers, he enlisted in the Union Army.

On September 12, 1861, Sion Bass received his appointment as colonel of
the Thirtieth Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which was then being
recruited. By September 24, the quota for the regiment had been filled,
and the Thirtieth was organized at Camp Allen in Fort Wayne. Although he
was himself untrained for military service, Colonel Bass entered upon
the task of disciplining and training his raw recruits with such energy
and devotion to duty that he soon won the praise of his superior
officers.

    [Illustration: _Georgia • Mrs. Eliza Bass • Beverly • Col. Sion S.
    Bass_]

On October 2, the Thirtieth Indiana left Camp Allen and traveled to
Indianapolis by special train on the Wabash Railroad. The train stopped
en route at Peru, Indiana, where the ladies of the town met the regiment
at the depot and provided an excellent dinner. This act of kindness,
although not possible under the strict army regulations of our day, was
typical of the spirit of the times and was much appreciated by the
hungry soldiers.

The Thirtieth remained in camp at Indianapolis only for a few days.
During this time, the men underwent further training; arms, uniforms,
and accouterments were issued to them. The unit was then ordered to
proceed to Kentucky. On October 13, 1861, the regiment was assigned to
the Fifth Brigade, Second Division in General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of
the Ohio. For the next few months Colonel Bass and his Thirtieth Indiana
Regiment marched with Buell’s army but saw little action.

The anxiety which his family felt for him is shown in the following
letter written by his mother to her younger son John:

  Salem, Lexington County, Kentucky
  November 29, 1861

  Dear Son,

  It is with great pleasure I write you hoping to hear from you soon, as
  I have not heard from you for months. I know not where your brother
  is. I hope he is not in Columbus. We hear the firing of cannons every
  day at Cairo, Columbus, Belmont, and several other places.

  We have had no FORT WAYNE TIMES for two weeks till yesterday. It gave
  an account of his being in Nevin, about the center of the state, where
  I think he will be killed.

  John, could you have no influence over him? Why did he go? What will
  become of his little children? Buckner and he will come in contact
  with each other soon, and what will be the event? God only knows. I
  never expect to see him again.

  Richard M. Ford was killed in the Battle of Belmont, six miles from
  Columbus. I expect his wife is in Texas. Ford Sterling was killed at
  Bowling Green. Mr. Pippen died the nineteenth of November, and you
  heard of the death of Mr. Barker.

  Beverly was here yesterday and says they are all well. Every person
  has left Salem except for a few families. Your Pa says, “I have done
  nothing in no way”; and he expects to stay at his home and do the best
  he can.

  All the ferryboats are sunk, and there is no way to cross the river.
  The troops pass through Salem—the Northerners and the Southerners. I
  am afraid of their meeting sometime in Salem.

  This may be the last letter you ever will get from me. I expect the
  mail will stop. Give my respects to Eliza and the children, and write
  often. Let me hear from your brother if you ever hear again.

  I close by saying,

                         Your ever affectionate mother,
                                                               Jane Bass

In February, 1862, Buell attempted to march his army northward to
reinforce General Grant’s Army of the Tennessee in the attack on Fort
Donelson. Adverse weather conditions and impassable roads forced the men
to return to camp after an advance of only fourteen miles. In March
General Buell received orders from General Halleck to join Grant and the
Army of the Tennessee at Pittsburg Landing near Shiloh. General Grant
and his forces were to remain in camp at Pittsburg Landing while
awaiting Buell’s arrival. It was planned that the two armies would join
forces and then advance on Corinth. The delay thus necessitated in the
Union advance afforded the scattered Confederate forces an opportunity
to consolidate their strength. On the sixth of April, under the able
leadership of General Albert Sidney Johnston, the Confederate troops
launched a surprise attack against Grant’s encampment.

The roar of cannon could be heard by the men of Buell’s advancing army
although they were still many miles distant from the battlefield. Hour
after hour, the men of the Thirtieth followed their commander southward
through swampland to Savannah, Tennessee. Boats ferried them from that
city across the Tennessee River to Pittsburg Landing. On the morning of
the seventh, the Fifth Brigade, which included Colonel Bass’s regiment,
was ordered into battle as a replacement for General Rousseau’s brigade,
which had undergone murderous fire in defense of the road leading from
the landing to the battlefield. The Thirtieth was engaged in mortal
combat with the enemy. Confederate artillery to the right, left, and
center maintained a continuous fire which inflicted heavy casualties.
Colonel Bass led his regiment into battle and encouraged the men by his
presence. Three times he led them impetuously against the foe; thrice
his men were repelled. Yet at each command of its gallant Colonel, the
Thirtieth again moved forward.

Suddenly, the Colonel’s horse was wounded and became almost
unmanageable. Colonel Bass dismounted to examine the wound. Just as he
reached the ground, he was struck in the upper thigh by a musket ball.
Nevertheless, he soothed his horse, remounted, and continued to fight.
He rode calmly among his men and exhorted them to still greater efforts.
But soon he became faint and could no longer sit in the saddle. The
wound was a mortal one, but death did not come immediately. Colonel Bass
was carried from the battlefield to a Tennessee River steamer and
transported to Paducah, Kentucky. He passed away at St. Mark’s Hospital
in that city a week after he had been wounded. His wife, mother, and
brother were present at his bedside.

After news of his death reached Fort Wayne, a meeting was called at the
courthouse for the purpose of paying due honor to his memory. A
committee of fifteen was appointed to meet the remains at Peru and to
act as an escort to Fort Wayne. Mr. W. H. Withers proposed the following
motion which was adopted:

“RESOLVED, that while the remains are passing from the cars to his late
residence, and during the funeral ceremonies of the lamented Colonel
Bass, this meeting requests that all secular business be suspended, that
the bells of the city be tolled, that the flags be hung at half-mast,
and that the business houses of the city be closed during the funeral
obsequies.”

Another committee was appointed to draft resolutions expressing the loss
sustained by the country and the community in the death of Colonel Bass.
On April 21, 1862, these resolutions were published in DAWSON’S DAILY
TIMES AND UNION:

    [Illustration: _Colonel Bass was struck by a musket ball_....]

“RESOLVED, That the death of Colonel Sion S. Bass, distinguished alike
for his social qualities, his noble and unselfish impulses, his
stainless morality in private life, and his ability, humanity, and
gallantry as a soldier, is a severe affliction to the community in which
he lived. It is a calamity to the officers and privates under his
command, for their confidence in him as a leader was equaled only by
their love for him as a man. And it is a heavy loss to the country which
he served and to the cause which he had so heartily espoused.

“RESOLVED, That our grief for the death of Colonel Bass is aggravated by
the reflection that perhaps he and thousands of other Federal soldiers
who were slain or wounded in the Battle of Pittsburg Landing might today
be standing with arms in their hands. They might still be ready to do
battle in their country’s cause had it not been for the apparently
inexcusable and unparalleled neglect of the commanding generals in not
using those precautions against a ‘surprise’ which are always used by
trustworthy commanders at the head of armies in the presence of active
and powerful foes. Courage is only one qualification for a commander; to
personal bravery there should be united military science and skill,
vigilance, prudence, and self-control. Whenever it shall be discovered
that any general in command of Federal forces is deficient in those
indispensable qualifications, it is the imperative duty of the
Administration to relieve him of his command.

“RESOLVED, That, as Indiana has given without stint her noble and
cherished sons to the nation to aid in crushing a monstrous and
causeless rebellion, and as their blood has been freely shed on nearly
every battlefield where success has attended the Federal arms, she has a
right to demand and will demand that those who are still at their posts
shall not be unnecessarily sacrificed through the incompetency or
carelessness of commanding generals.

“RESOLVED, That the citizens of this county, while they mourn over the
untimely death of Colonel Bass, have the proud satisfaction of knowing
that, although he was born and raised in a state of doubtful loyalty and
although many of his early friends had joined in the great rebellion
against the Constitution and the Union, his loyalty never faltered. He
received his death wound while in the act of leading his men into the
thickest of the fight and while cheering them on to danger and to
victory.

“RESOLVED, That, while the death of Colonel Bass is a deep affliction to
all those who knew him, a calamity to the regiment he so ably commanded,
and a heavy loss to the nation in whose service and in whose defense he
so gloriously died, it is a terrible bereavement to his grief-stricken
family. We tender to his widow, to his father and mother, the hearty
sympathy of the entire community, which will ever cherish a fond
interest in their welfare and in the welfare of his orphaned children.

“RESOLVED, That the death of such soldiers as Colonel Bass, who have
been slain in the dreadful war into which the government of the United
States has been forced for the preservation of its existence, indicates
the value that should be placed upon our free institutions.

“RESOLVED, That, while lamenting the death of Colonel Bass and the
officers and soldiers under his command who have fallen in defense of
their country and its flag, and while congratulating the survivors on
the reputation they so dearly earned on the bloody field of Pittsburg
Landing, we are not unmindful of our fellow citizens of the Forty-fourth
Regiment, who on that same field and at Fort Donelson proved their
gallantry by deeds and losses almost unparalleled in modern warfare. We
lament, also, their noble dead. We tender to their wounded and bereaved
our sincere sympathy, and to their fearless and noble Colonel, Hugh B.
Reed, and to the remnant of his regiment which still remains at the post
of danger, our admiration for their valor and our gratitude for their
services.

“RESOLVED, That, with the daily accumulating proofs of the desolation
and woe which mark the existence of civil war, we earnestly invoke the
God of love and peace again to dispose the hearts of all the people of
the United States to obedience to lawful authority, to fidelity to the
Constitution and laws, and to the fraternal love and peace which in
other years united them as fellow citizens and sharers of a once happy
and prosperous but now deeply afflicted country.

“RESOLVED, That a copy of this report and these resolutions, signed by
the committee, be delivered to the widow and the father of the deceased
Colonel Bass; and that the same be published in the newspapers of Fort
Wayne and of the Tenth Congressional District of Indiana.

                                                          HUGH McCULLOCH
                                                          ALLEN HAMILTON
                                                          J. K. EDGERTON
                                                            SAMUEL HANNA
                                                         I. D. G. NELSON

Colonel Bass had won the confidence, love, and admiration of the people
of his adopted city. The tragedy of his death was felt by the entire
populace. An excerpt from DAWSON’S DAILY TIMES AND UNION, published on
April 18, 1862, describes the arrival of the funeral train in the city:

“The remains of Colonel Sion S. Bass reached here today at eleven
o’clock over the Toledo and Western Railway. The committee in charge was
sent from here and met the train at Huntington. A large concourse of
people was at the depot to pay that mark of respect due their late
fellow citizen. The coffin and hearse were properly decorated with the
national colors. When the funeral cortege moved, guns were fired, bells
tolled, and drums beat. The procession came down Calhoun Street to Wayne
Street, and then turned in the direction of his residence.”

He was interred in Lindenwood Cemetery on the following day. His final
resting place is marked by a sandstone monument which bears the
following inscription:

                              IN MEMORY OF
                              SION S. BASS
                     COL. OF 30TH REG’T. IND. VOL.
                   BORN AT SALEM, LIVINGSTON CO. KY.
                             JAN’Y 6, 1827:
                       DIED AT PADUCAH, KENTUCKY,
                            APRIL 14, 1862,
                           OF WOUNDS RECEIVED
                  WHILE GALLANTLY LEADING HIS REGIMENT
                        AT THE BATTLE OF SHILOH,
                             APRIL 7, 1862
                               ERECTED BY
                       HIS REGIMENT AND FRIENDS.




                          Transcriber’s Notes


—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
  is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
  _underscores_.