George Dashiell Bayard

George Dashiell Bayard (December 18, 1835 – December 14, 1862) was a career soldier in the United States Army and a general in the Union Army in the American Civil War. He was wounded in the Battle of Fredericksburg and died the next day.

He was born in Seneca Falls, New York on December 18, 1835 to Samuel John Bayard and Jane Ann Dashiell.

His family moved as homesteaders to the Iowa Territory. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1856 as a second lieutenant in the U.S. cavalry. Bayard fought in the Indian Wars in Kansas and Colorado from 1856 to 1861.

At the start of the Civil War in 1861, Bayard was promoted on August 27, 1861 to colonel in the 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry, based in Tenallytown (now Tenleytown, Washington, D.C.). Late in November 1861, he was involved in a confrontation with rebel soldiers near Dranesville, Virginia, in which his horse and two of his fellow soldiers were killed. He escaped with only minor wounds and was subsequently commissioned Chief of Cavalry of the III Corps and brigadier general of U.S. Volunteers on April 28, 1862.

He fought under John C. Frémont at the Battle of Port Republic. In August 1862, at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, he led a Union Army advance. He was eventually promoted to Chief of Cavalry of the Left Grand Division, Army of the Potomac.

He was hit with shrapnel from a Confederate artillery round on December 13, 1862 in the Battle of Fredericksburg. He died on the following day, December 14, 1862. He was buried in Princeton Cemetery in Princeton, New Jersey.

Fort Bayard in Washington, D.C., was named in his honor. Bayard Street in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California, was named after him. Fort Bayard Park, which replaced the fort, is also named in his memory, as well as Bayard, New Mexico, Fort Bayard, New Mexico, and Fort Bayard National Cemetery. The latter is now part of the Fort Bayard Historic District, a commemoration of the Buffalo Soldiers.