Origin of ‘Medal of Honor’ has roots in the American Civil War

I recently posted that I was reading a very interesting book called Stealing the General.  I finished it today. I read this one in just a few days so I got a real sense of the flow of the story.

This is the true story of twenty Union soldiers, mostly from Ohio, who started in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and walked to Chattanooga then to Big Shanty (Kennesaw Mountain), Georgia, where they stole a steam locomotive (The General) in April 1862. They stole it right out from under the noses of the Confederates.

An insuing chase took place as Yankee boys fled north toward Chattanooga in hopes of destroying telegraph wires, pulling up track, and destroying important bridges along the way. The ultimate goal was to cut off Chattanooga from the Southern connection to Atlanta, thereby sufficiently paralyzing the Confederacy’s ability to ship men and materiel from Atlanta to Richmond.

The amazing thing is that the Yankee boys nearly succeeded. They missed it by “that much”. Some of the boys would be hanged for their “crime”; some would serve a very severe prison term, and few would escape.

The true story is worthy of the time it takes to read this book.  Besides just a great story worth being told, and hopefully re-told on the big screen again some day, one of the really interesting things about this true Civil War tale was that some of the Yankee boys involved in stealing the General received the very first award of the Medal of Honor.

It’s not just that they were the first soldiers to ever receive that coveted award that makes the story interesting. But learning about the origin of the Medal of Honor – initiated by Abraham Lincoln – and why the Yankee boys were given the award, added a nuance to the real train chase that compelled me to keep reading this book until the last page.

Great story about a Civil War locomotive chase

I’m currently reading a very well-written and enjoyable book, Stealing the General, by Russell S. Bonds.

It’s the true account of how a band of Union soldiers swept down near Atlanta in April 1862 and stole a locomotive called The General.

They almost got away with it but many would lose their lives by being hanged by the Rebels.

The General on display in Georgia

The simple and weak confound the wise and the strong

This picture is of several slaves probably spanning three generations.  Notice the two oldest women are on the extreme left and right. Look at the humbleness of their personal posture.  The seated man (left) with cane and cigar has an interesting expression. He does not seem bowed or humbled.  The man seated to his right, an older man, does seem humbled by life’s experiences. The two children, the girl and boy must be between ages seven and nine.  Full of life, vigor, unbroken, still hopeful.  The younger female, probably the mother of the children stands left. She seems resolved to her life as a slave but has the look of hope in her face that maybe her children will not always be slaves.

Let’s go back to the old woman on the far left. That is Harriet Tubman. Tubman was born in 1820 and died in 1913. She was one of the most powerful and influential characters in all of the Civil War; yet she was black, an escaped slave, and a woman!   She had more influence and power than 99% of the formally recognized power-elites during her lifetime.

Tubman was a runaway slave from Maryland who became famously known for helping perhaps as many as 300 slaves escape to freedom during the Civil War era via the Underground Railroad. She was known as ‘Moses’ to the slave community. She endured great personal risk and injury several times as she led escapes to the North.  There was even a bounty on her head for her capture in the tens of thousands of dollars. She also suffered all her life from an early childhood accident which resulted in her sporadically losing awareness – sort of blanking out for a few seconds.

She also worked as a spy for the Federal government and even led a military raid near Charleston South Carolina during the war. Tubman is an example of how the simple and the weak confound the wise and the strong.

Harriet Tubman

Learn more about Harriet Tubman.

What happened in ‘February’ during the American Civil War?

1861

February 1 – Texas secedes from the Union, the sixth State to do so.

1862

February 6 – Under combined land/river forces led by Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew H. Foote, Federal forces capture Confederate-controlled Fort Henry on the Tennessee River.

February 16 – a second major blow is delivered in the Western theater in the same month when General Grant demands the ‘unconditional surrender’ of the Confederate forces at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in Tennessee. C.S.A. General Simon B. Buckner surrenders the fort to Grant.

February 22 – Jefferson Davis, from Kentucky, is formally inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America, having served as provisional President.

February 25 – Nashville, Tennessee, becomes the first southern State capital to be captured by the Union, without a shot even being fired. It will remain in Federal control the remainder of the war. Also on this day, Lincoln signs the Legal Tender Act creating the first national currency.

1863

February 25 – National Currency Act goes into effect for the United States, (later to become known as the National Banking Act of 1864) making it easier to finance the war with government bonds.

1864

February 17, 1864 – H.L. Hunley – Confederate submarine – sinks a Union ship then disappears in the Charleston Bay. The entire crew is lost.

February 27 – first Federal prisoners are delivered to Andersonville Prison in Sumter County, Georgia. Some 43,000 Union soldiers will eventually spend time at the prison. Over 13,000 men died there. Less than 350 escaped.

1865

February 1 – Sherman begins Carolinas Campaign.

February 3 – February 3 – Lincoln meets with Confederate Peace Commission at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

February 6 – Robert E. Lee is named commander in chief of all Confederate armies by Confederate Congress.

February 17 – Columbia, South Carolina, falls to Sherman.

February 18 – Charleston seized by Union troops.

February 22 – Joseph E. Johnston re-called to command forces against Sherman.

For a complete timeline of the American Civil War see the Civil War Gazette’s timeline here.