Barnard Elliott Bee Jr. (8 February 1824 – 22 July 1861) was a Brigadier-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Barnard E. Bee was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1824 to a prominent family (he was the brother of General Hamilton P. Bee), and his parents moved to Texas in 1836, leaving him with his mother's three sisters in Pendleton, South Carolina to continue his education. He graduated from West Point in 1845 and served in the Mexican-American War, being promoted to Lieutenant after fighting at the Battle of Cerro Gordo and being wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec. After the war, he served in the US Army in New Mexico and fought against the Mormons in Utah, and he decided to resign his commission and side with the Confederate States Army when the American Civil War broke out in 1861. He commanded the 1st South Carolina Regulars in the Army of Northern Virginia at the start of the war, and his only battle would be the First Battle of Bull Run. He was mortally wounded as the Confederates began to gain the upper hand inthe battle, and his death was an early loss for the Confederacy. Bee is famous for remarking on how General Jackson was defending a ridge "like a stone wall", leading to the general being nicknamed "Stonewall Jackson".