By Evan Phifer The Medal of Honor’s story is one of continuity and change and of history and memory. What the nation considers worthy of the nation’s highest military honor
By Evan Phifer When the Civil War broke out, John Barclay Fassett volunteered as a private in the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry for three months in 1861. Soon afterwards,
Small in stature yet formidable in his resolve, quiet and unassuming Christian Abraham Fleetwood abandoned his bookkeeping job in Baltimore the moment Black men were allowed to enlist. Born free
During the wee hours of April 2, 1865, an incident on Petersburg’s front lines forever intertwined the lives of three Union enlisted men. They served in the ranks of Company
Captain George Newman Bliss expected a routine day on Sept. 28, 1864. A large cavalry force, including his troopers in the 1st Rhode Island, rode through Waynesboro, Va., to water
Drummer boy Johann Christoph Julius Langbein’s nickname “Jenny” traces back to his 1861 enlistment in the 9th New York Infantry, popularly known as Hawkins’ Zouaves. One writer noted that the
The light of dawn on June 17, 1877, revealed a column of about 106 U.S. Cavalry troops, plus a couple dozen civilians and scouts, moving down a trail along a
At Atlanta on the afternoon July 22, 1864, a massive assault by Maj. Gen. Frank Cheatham’s Confederate corps tore into the Union’s western front. The attack landed squarely on the
Marye’s Heights proved one of the hardest fought patches of ground in the Civil War’s Eastern Theater. The first attempt by Union forces to take it, during the December 1862
On May 24, 1861, Ephraim D. Ellsworth, 52, happened to be in the telegraph office in Mechanicsville, N.Y., when a shocking message came across the wires. The operator wept openly,
