Postbellum Life
Following the war, Baird served as commander of the department of Louisiana. He was appointed an assistant inspector general with the grade of lieutenant colonel on June 17, 1867. He was appointed Inspector General of the Army on March 11, 1885 and was promoted to a full grade brigadier general on September 22, 1885. In 1887, he traveled to France to observe military maneuvers, and was named a Commander of the Légion d'honneur. Baird retired from the army on August 20, 1888.
On April 22, 1896, Baird was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for leading "an assault upon the enemy's works" at the Battle of Jonesboro on September 1, 1864.
He died at Relay, Maryland near Baltimore, Maryland, and is buried in section 1, lot 55, at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.
His son William Baird (1851-1930) became a Lieutenant Colonel in the army. His grandson John Absalom Baird (1890-1961) graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1911, and later became a full Colonel in the army.
Read more about this topic: Absalom Baird
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The symbol of perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long green ribbon, streams from the sod into the summer, checked indeed by the frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year’s hay with the fresh life below. It grows as steadily as the rill oozes out of the ground.... So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)