2 Union soldiers receive Medal of Honor for Confederate train hijacking

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Wednesday awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry to two Union soldiers who stole a locomotive deep in Confederate territory during the Civil War and drove it 90 miles north, destroying railroad and telegraph lines.

U.S. Army soldiers Philip G. Shadrach and George D. Wilson were captured by the Confederacy and executed by hanging. Biden recognized their bravery 162 years later with the nation’s highest military honor, calling the operation they took part in “one of the most dangerous missions of the entire Civil War.”

“Every soldier who served on that mission received the Medal of Honor, except two. Two soldiers died because of that operation and never received this recognition,” Biden said. “Today, we are righting that wrong.”

The posthumous recognition comes as the legacy of the Civil War, which left more than 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead 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 has said the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump was the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War. Meanwhile, Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, lashed out at a recent rally in Pennsylvania about the Battle of Gettysburg and Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The president said Wednesday that Shadrach and Wilson “fought and even died to preserve the union and the sacred values ​​on which it was founded: freedom, justice, fairness, unity.”

“Phillip and George were willing to shed their blood to achieve these ideals,” Biden said.

Theresa Chandler, Wilson’s great-great-granddaughter, told The Associated Press how the Union soldier, with the noose around his neck, spoke his last words on the gallows.

She said that Wilson essentially said he was there to serve his country and that he had no grudge against the people of the South, but that he hoped for the abolition of slavery and the country to be united again.

“When I read that, I got chills,” Chandler said. “We can feel that as a family and that we are enjoying our freedoms today, which is what he was trying to achieve back then.”

Brian Taylor, a great-great-great-nephew of Shadrach, said this was a chance for his ancestor to be remembered as “a brave soldier who did what he thought was right.”

“I feel like he was a little bit adventurous, a little bit of a free spirit,” Taylor said.

Shadrach and Wilson are honored for their participation in what would later become 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 from what would later be called Andrews’ Raiders met in Marietta, Georgia, and hijacked a train called The General. The group tore up rails and cut through telegraph wires as they rode 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 ever awarded 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 of Fiscal Year 2008.

Born on September 15, 1840, in Pennsylvania, Shadrach was 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 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 film about the hijacking in 1956, titled The Great Locomotive Chasestarring 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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