When the Civil War began, the U.S. military had few medals or awards to recognize bravery or exemplary conduct.  In fact, the American armed forces never had many decorations to serve as precedents for a new medal.  General George Washington created the Purple Heart in 1782 to recognize “singularly meritorious action;” a Certificate of Merit recognized bravery under fire during the Mexican-American War but did not initially provide for any medal.  This lack of decorations changed during the Civil War, a war unlike any the United States had ever seen.  Men fought and died in the Civil War to ensure the nation’s survival and destroy the brutal and dehumanizing system of chattel slavery.  As citizens volunteered to defend the country and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, legislators began to rethink the nation’s lack of military decorations.

The impetus for creating the Medal of Honor came not from the president or the executive branch, but from Congress, the legislative or “people’s branch” of the national government.  During the Civil War’s first winter, Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa, Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, introduced a bill to create a Navy Medal “to promote the efficiency of the Navy.”  The bill easily passed through Congress, and President Abraham Lincoln affixed his signature on December 21, 1861.  This Medal of Valor, as it was called, was the first authorized decoration to recognize gallant actions by American fighting men, but it applied only to the Navy.  Two months later, Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts introduced legislation calling for the creation of a similar medal for enlisted men of the Army.  Lincoln signed that bill into law on July 12, 1862—156 years ago today.  This date is considered the birth of what we now know as the Medal of Honor.  An amendment was added in March 1863 to make the award available to officers as well as enlisted men and making its availability retroactive to the beginning of the Civil War.

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles contacted James Pollock, Director of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, about designing the Navy medal shortly after Lincoln approved creation of that decoration.  Pollock had already submitted five designs to the Navy when he learned of the creation of the Army medal.  Pollock wrote to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to inform Stanton that one of his Navy medal designs would actually be appropriate for the Army as well.  The Navy approved one of Pollock’s designs in May 1862, and the Army followed suit six months later.  The firm of William Wilson and Son of Philadelphia was contracted to make 2,000 copies of each medal.

Both medals were star-shaped and consisted of a figure representing the Union holding a shield against a crouching attacker holding striking serpents.  In the left hand, the Union held the fasces, an ancient Roman symbol of unified authority consisting of an axe bound in staves of wood.  The medal was surrounded by 34 stars, representing the nation’s 34 states.  The medal’s reverse was blank to allow for the engraving of the recipient’s name and the date and place of action.  The only difference between the two medals was the manner by which it was connected to the ribbon: on the Navy medal, it was suspended by an anchor, on the Army medal by an American eagle standing atop crossed cannons.

The timing of the Medal of Honor’s creation—during the Civil War—certainly seems appropriate.  After all, when did the country have more at stake—not only the freedom of millions held in bondage, but the very survival of the nation itself?  Over 1,500 Medals of Honor were awarded to Union soldiers for actions during the Civil War.  While many were issued for conspicuous gallantry under enemy fire and at great risk to (and sometimes at the cost of) the recipient’s life, some were also issued as incentives for reenlistment or to political generals that openly campaigned for them.  (One Civil War veteran wrote to the War Department years after the war asking for a Medal of Honor “as a souvenir of days past.”  Unbelievably, he got it.)  Not until decades later, after additional decorations for valor had been created and the Medal of Honor rose to become the military’s highest award, did the reverence we now hold for this particular award emerge.  In later conflicts more so than during the Civil War, many more Medals were awarded to servicemen killed during the performance of their Medal of Honor action.

The standards of valor and personal risk that must be demonstrated for an action to be deemed worthy of the Medal of Honor have risen sharply since the Civil War.  When President Harry Truman prepared in 1946 to present Medals of Honor to a U.S. Navy Commander and a U.S. Army Master Sergeant for actions during World War II, he told them: “I’d rather have a Medal of Honor than be President of the United States.”  Truman, a World War I combat veteran, understood better than most political leaders what the young men standing in front of him had done to earn the nation’s highest award.

To date, just over 3,500 Medals of Honor have been awarded.  Nineteen men have received two Medals of Honor, the most famous being Thomas Custer during the Civil War.  Thomas Custer died with his brother and fellow Civil War veteran George Armstrong Custer at Little Bighorn.  Only one Medal of Honor thus far has been awarded to a woman: Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War doctor and the U.S. Army’s first female surgeon.  In 1917, the Army Medal of Honor review board purged the names of 911 recipients from its rolls.  Dr. Walker, who appeared on the list of rescinded medals, defiantly continued to wear her Medal for the rest of her life.  President Jimmy Carter posthumously restored her Medal in 1977.

Only one President of the United States has been a Medal of Honor recipient: Theodore Roosevelt.  President Bill Clinton presented Roosevelt’s Medal in January 2001, over a century after the Spanish-American War’s battle of San Juan Hill and 82 years after Roosevelt’s death.  Two father-son duos have received the Medal of Honor: Arthur and Douglas MacArthur (Civil War and World War II, respectively); and Roosevelt and his son, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (Spanish-American War and World War II, respectively).  The Medal of Honor is awarded in the name of Congress (which is why it is often called the “Congressional Medal of Honor”).  Today, the Army, Navy, and Air Force all have their own versions of the Medal; members of the Marine Corps and Coast Guard receive the Navy version.

The most recent Civil War soldier to receive the Medal of Honor was First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing for his actions during the repulse of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.  Cushing was killed performing the action that would result in President Barack Obama’s presentation of the Medal of Honor to his distant relative on November 6, 2014, over 150 years later.  In recent years, the nation has also attempted to review the Medal of Honor nominations of many service members previously denied the award due to racial discrimination.  Numerous African American and Asian American veterans of conflicts as distant as World War I have recently received Medals of Honor that should have been awarded decades ago.

On July 4, 1861—the Declaration of Independence’s eighty-fifth birthday and the first Independence Day since the onset of the Civil War—President Abraham Lincoln said of the war, “This is essentially a people’s contest.  On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men….”  If the Civil War was a “people’s contest,” then the Medal of Honor, created by and awarded in the name of Congress, is truly the people’s award.  Though the nation may not always fight for causes as noble and necessary as ending slavery or preserving the Union, we still do well to honor the men and women that volunteer to serve, are sent into harm’s way, and do extraordinary things in the most dangerous of circumstances.  In this way, then, the Medal of Honor is truly an award bestowed by all of us.