Colonel Sion S. Bass, 1827-1862

Sion S. Bass was twenty-nine years old when he led his regiment into battle at the Battle of Stones River in December 1862. Three days later, he was dead. This slender biography, originally prepared by the Fort Wayne Public Library in the mid-twentieth century, resurrects the brief but vivid life of a Indiana-born Union officer whose promise was cut short by the war's brutal arithmetic. Drawing on local records, military documents, and family recollection, the book traces Bass from his pre-war years in Fort Wayne through his rapid rise in the 19th Indiana Volunteer Infantry to his fatal wounding at Murfreesboro. What emerges is not just a military profile but a window into the ambitions, loyalties, and sacrifices of the generation that went to war in 1861. For readers drawn to Civil War history, or specifically to Indiana's role in the conflict, Bass's story offers a intimate counterpoint to the grand narratives of campaigns and battles. This is local history that punches above its weight, reminding us that every famous general once stood where a young colonel like Bass stood: on the edge of immortality or oblivion.