Biden to bestow Medal of Honor on two Civil War heroes who helped hijack a train in confederacy
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will award the Medal of Honor on Wednesday for “conspicuous gallantry” to a pair of Union soldiers who stole a locomotive deep in Confederate territory during the American civil war and drove it 90 miles north, destroying railroads and telegraph lines as they went.
U.S. Army privates Philip G. Shadrach and George D. Wilson were captured by the Confederacy and executed by hanging. Biden recognizes their bravery 162 years later with the highest military award.
The posthumous recognition comes as the legacy of the Civil War, which claimed more than 600,000 military lives — both Union and Confederate — between 1861 and 1865, continues to shape American politics in a contentious election year that has seen issues of race, constitutional rights and presidential power take center stage.
Biden, a Democrat, has said that the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters was the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War. Meanwhile, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, joked at a recent rally in Pennsylvania about the Battle of Gettysburg and Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Shadrach and Wilson are recognized for their participation in what became known as “the Great Locomotive Chase.”
A Kentucky-born civilian spy and scout named James J. Andrews assembled a group of volunteers, including Shadrach and Wilson, to destroy Confederate rail and telegraph lines in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
On April 12, 1862, 22 men of what would later be called the Andrews’ Raiders met in Marietta, Georgia, and hijacked a train called The General. The group tore up tracks and cut through telegraph wires as they took the train north.
Confederate troops pursued them, initially on foot and later by train. Confederate troops eventually captured the group. Andrews and seven others were executed, while the others escaped or remained prisoners of war.
The first medal of honor The only award ever given went to Private Jacob Parrott, who took part in the hijacking of a locomotive and was beaten while held captive by the Confederates.
The government later recognized 18 other participants who took part in the raid with the honor, but Shadrach and Wilson were excluded. They were later authorized to receive the medal as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.
Shadrach was born on September 15, 1840, in Pennsylvania and was only 21 years old when he enlisted for the mission. He was orphaned at a young age and left home in 1861 to enlist in an infantry regiment in Ohio after the start of the Civil War.
Wilson was born in 1830 in Belmont County, Ohio. He worked as a shoemaker before the war and enlisted in the Ohio volunteer infantry in 1861.
The Walt Disney Corp. made a 1956 film about the hijacking titled “The Great Locomotive Chase” starring Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter. The 1926 silent film “The General” starring Buster Keaton was also based on the historical event.