WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden will award the Medal of Honor on Wednesday for “conspicuous gallantry” to two Union soldiers who stole a locomotive deep in Confederate territory during the American civil war and drove north for 87 miles while destroying railroad tracks and telegraph lines.
U.S. Army privates Philip G. Shadrach and George D. Wilson were captured by the Confederates and executed by hanging. Biden is recognizing his courage 162 years later with the country highest military decoration.
The posthumous recognition comes as the legacy of the Civil War, which killed more than 600,000 servicemen – both Union and Confederate – between 1861 and 1865, continues to shape US politics in a contentious election year in which issues of race, constitutional rights and presidential power is at the forefront.
Biden, a Democrat, said the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters was the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War. Meanwhile, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, commented at a recent rally in Pennsylvania about the Battle of Gettysburg and Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Shadrach and Wilson are being recognized for participating in what became known as “the Great Locomotive Chase.”
A Kentucky-born spy and civilian scout named James J. Andrews gathered a group of volunteers, including Shadrach and Wilson, to degrade the railroad and telegraph lines used by the Confederates in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
On April 12, 1862, 22 of the men of what were later called “Andrews’ Raiders” met in Marietta, Georgia, and hijacked a train called “The General.” The group tore up tracks and cut telegraph wires as they took the train north.
Confederate troops pursued them, initially on foot and then by train. Confederate troops eventually captured the group. Andrews and seven others were executed, while the others escaped or remained prisoners of war.
O first Medal of Honor the award already given was to soldier Jacob Parrott, who participated in the hijacking of the locomotive and was beaten while imprisoned by the Confederacy.
The government later recognized with honor another 18 participants who took part in the operation, but Shadrach and Wilson were excluded. They were later allowed to receive the medal as part of the Fiscal 2008 National Defense Authorization Act.
Born September 15, 1840, in Pennsylvania, Shadrach was just 21 years old when he volunteered for the mission. He was orphaned at a young age and left home in 1861 to enlist in an Ohio infantry regiment after the Civil War began.
Wilson was born in 1830 in Belmont County, Ohio. He worked as a shoemaker before the war and enlisted in an Ohio-based volunteer infantry in 1861.
Walt Disney Corp. made one 1956 film about the kidnapping 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.
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