Posted on 11/27/2019 8:17:57 PM PST by ConservativeStatement
Joshua Chamberlain did not receive his MOH until 1883. Thirty years after his action on Little Round Top.
Sickles was a Tammany politician with all the corruption that entailed. Of all the Medals of Honor for that battle his was the most egregious, for his persistent peddling of his acts, which were insubordinate, that is direct disobedience of his orders to hold the section of Cemetery Ridge... not march out and establish a huge undefendable salient, and leave the gap in the line behind him, endangering the flank, had Longstreet been successful in sweeping the ridge getting around/through his salient could have flanked the Union lines.
Always have thought that John Buford’s holding off an entire division of Harry Heth’s until the I Corps could come up, and his pursuit after the battle of the retreating columns all the way to Warrenton, VA, merited the MOH. Lincoln did promote him to Major General, while he was dying of typhoid at 37.
Battlefield promotion to Brig.General, by Grant, and at Appamattox, selected to receive the surrendering infantry, and did so with great dignity and honor. His wounds eventually caught up with him at 85, having volunteered for the Spanish American War at 70, and been rejected. Tough individual, mentally and all else.
I always thought that George Green should have been awarded the MOH for his defense of the East slope of Culp’s Hill against Johnson’s division.
Yes, that as well. It is a good thing that the MOH is no longer bandied about as it was then, seemingly “up for sale”. Your post— looked up the 64, and some of them were for “captured the flag”. WWI it was “assaulted a machine gun nest in withering fire, and saved the lives of his pinned down unit” that sort of description— the tactics of the Civil War against entrenched machine guns, still charging the trenches.
WWII Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone, the MOH for combat valor on Guadalcanal: “Sgt. BASILONE, in charge of 2 sections of heavy machine guns, fought valiantly to check the savage and determined assault. In a fierce frontal attack with the Japanese blasting his guns with grenades and mortar fire, one of Sgt. BASILONE’S sections, with its gun crews, was put out of action, leaving only 2 men able to carry on. Moving an extra gun into position, he placed it in action, then, under continual fire, repaired another and personally manned it, gallantly holding his line until replacements arrived. A little later, with ammunition critically low and the supply lines cut off, Sgt. BASILONE, at great risk of his life and in the face of continued enemy attack, battled his way through hostile lines with urgently needed shells for his gunners, thereby contributing in large measure to the virtual annihilation of a Japanese regiment.”
Sold War Bonds, and then volunteered to go back, The Navy Cross on Iwo Jima- extraordinary heroism, where he was killed.
So humbling, this kind of warrior. Thinking of the portrayal in “The Pacific” Episode 7 HBO. The human cost of our Freedom. Thanksgiving.
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