Captain Dennis Dailey and the Capture of Hagood’s Brigade at the Battle of Globe Tavern, Part 3: The Struggle for the 27th South Carolina’s Flag

This post is part of a series. Check out the Introduction, Part 1, and Part 2.

Johnson Hagood’s men were trapped! Due to poor intelligence from their division commander, they had foolishly charged into a moat at the base of a reentry angle in the Union line. Union infantry fire hit them from front and left flank, and Union artillery blasted canister from their right. How would they get out of this?

At this crucial moment, a Union officer offered Hagood’s men an olive branch. Amid the chaotic exchange of gunfire, Captain Dennis Burke Dailey of Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler’s staff rode between the lines. (Capt. Dailey served as Provost Marshal for the 4^th Division, 5^th Corps.) Mounting his bay horse, he galloped toward the nearest sally-port, ordering the nearby Union infantry to cease firing. Dailey came out in front of the 27^th South Carolina, and seeing the enemy color bearer in front of him, he demanded the surrender of the flag. It was a timely request. Hagood’s men had just reached their breaking point. In the center of the line, a cluster of men from the 27^th South Carolina raised their hands as a token of surrender. So remembered Confederate staff officer Thomas J. Mackey, “The color-sergeant, seemingly dazed, or perhaps paralyzed by the sublime effrontery of the demand, surrendered the colors.”

This photograph depicts Dennis Dailey as captain. This is probably how he looked during the Battle of Globe Tavern.

Promptly, Dailey grabbed the emblem, which happened to be a state flag with the arms of South Carolina emblazoned on it. With the captured flag in hand, Dailey shouted to all the rebels in the vicinity. If they surrendered, the Union troops behind the earthworks would cease firing and spare their lives. Dailey recollected, “A number of both officers and men, deeming their plight a hopeless one, obeyed the order almost mechanically.” They tossed their weapons aside. Slowly but surely, they forded the moat and began filing up the escarpment.

Brig. Gen. Hagood was only 75 yards away from this scene. He had other ideas. Believing he could still extract his brigade from the deathtrap into which it had charged, he shouted from his position behind the 21^st South Carolina that someone needed to shoot the intruding Union officer and reclaim the 27^th South Carolina’s flag. Unfortunately for him, no one listened. Recollected Hagood, “They either did not hear me or bewildered by the surrender of part of their number, failed to obey.”

Hagood was beside himself with shame. He was a diehard rebel with a vicious hatred of abolitionists; he couldn’t bear to witness his whole brigade march into enemy lines as prisoners. He recollected, “It was a critical moment and demanded instant and decided action. In a few minutes the disposition to surrender would have spread and the whole brigade [would] have been lost.”

With a wounded orderly—Pvt. Dwight Stoney—behind him, Hagood pushed his way through the ranks, turned right, and began running along the front of his brigade. The Union soldiers, who were still inside the parapet, and who were only 30 yards away, began firing at the fleet-footed general, but they failed to bring him down. As he ran along the line, Hagood drew his pistol and began firing at Dailey, but at such a great distance, his first shots had no effect. Eventually, Hagood came face to face with Dailey, who was superintending the movement of the Confederate prisoners into the Union earthworks. It was then that they had their parley.

There are several postwar versions of the conversation that followed. They are all basically the same, but there is a little variation between them. By combining these accounts, I’ve cobbled together the most plausible exchange of words. So please keep in mind, the dialogue that follows is a composite version of what happened.

As soon as he came on the scene, with his free hand, Hagood seized the bridle of Dailey’s horse. In his other hand, Hagood held his cocked revolver, which he leveled at Dailey’s chest. Meanwhile, Dailey had one hand on the reins and another hand on the furled flag, which he held upright, ferrule resting on the pommel of his saddle.

Angrily, Hagood barked, “Give me that flag, sir!”

A bit shocked, Dailey asked, “Who are you?”

Hagood replied, “I command this brigade. I admire your bravery. Give me the flag, and you shall return unmolested to your own lines.”

Dailey did not see any reason to believe Hagood’s bluster. He replied, “Your command has surrendered and you are a prisoner.”

Hagood rejoined, “No one but myself has any authority to surrender and I do not propose to do so. Return the flag and you are at liberty to return to your own lines!”

Hagood’s posturing still had no effect. Dailey replied, “You have made a brave fight, General, but if you will look behind you, you will see that you are lost.” Nodding, Dailey gestured to the west.

Hagood looked behind him and could see a crowd of Union troops—men from Griffin’s division—had exited from the protruding earthwork that encased Martin’s battery. They were now cutting off Hagood’s retreat.

Before Dailey could say anything else, Hagood cut him off. Peremptorily, he demanded, “Will you surrender that flag, sir, immediately, yes or no?”

Hagood had drawn his proverbial line in the sand.

This is the way Hagood later remembered what happened next:

Daly [sic] was a man of fine presence and sat with loosened rein upon a noble-looking bay that stood with head and tail erect and flashing eye and distended nostrils, quivering in every limb with excitement, but not moving in his tracks. In reply to [my] abrupt demand, the rider raised his head proudly and decisively answered, “No!”

As Dailey remembered it, his reply was: “By the living God, NO!”

This is the only known illustration of the Dailey-Hagood incident (of which I am aware). Dailey is depicted at left. Hagood is depicted at right. Incorrectly, Hagood is shown mounted. At the time of the battle, he was on foot.

With that, Hagood fired his pistol, just once, at close range. The ball entered Dailey’s right side, passed through his abdomen, but stopped inside his backbone. Dailey toppled over backwards, his hand still clutching the 27^th South Carolina’s flag.

Turning to the Confederate soldiers in his vicinity, Hagood shouted, “Run for it, men!”

Pvt. Stoney pulled the 27^th South Carolina’s flag from the Dailey’s grip. Both he and Hagood assumed the pistol shot had killed him. Meanwhile, Hagood mounted Dailey’s horse, and putting spurs to him, dashed off to his own lines. Some of his soldiers obeyed his orders, turning about and attacking Dushane’s Marylanders, who were in between them and freedom. Shrapnel from an exploding shell likely fired by Hart’s battery mortally wounded Captain Dailey’s horse.

The horse—whose name is lost to history—received a wound in the loin. It went down in a tumble, trapping Hagood beneath him. Another officer—Second Lieut. William J. Taylor of the 7^th South Carolina Battalion—arrived to help Hagood, pulling him from beneath the dying animal. In the horse’s last gasps, he kicked Taylor in the head, which concussed him so badly that an enlisted soldier had to lead him to the rear. According to a postwar source, Taylor suffered a permanent brain injury from the kick. In 1894, Hagood’s staff officer, Mackey, said that Taylor “never entirely recovered.”

Only a portion of Hagood’s brigade managed to escape. When it collected near the Vaughn Road, 449 officers and men (60% of the original complement) were missing. Union forces reported the capture of 517 prisoners. Most of these came from Hagood’s brigade, but a few belonged to other units in Mahone’s division. The 5^th Corps infantry captured six enemy flags from the field and they buried 211 enemy soldiers. Although the 27^th South Carolina’s flag got away, thanks to the efforts of Captain Dailey, many of Hagood’s brigade did not.

What happened to Dailey and Hagood after the battle? Find out in the last part!