Charles Dearborn Copp

Charles Dearborn Copp was a Union Army officer whose military career during the American Civil War ultimately brought him the Medal of Honor and promotion to the rank of Captain. He was born in Warren County, New Hampshire. Surviving authoritative records do not agree completely on his exact birth date, so the safest historical treatment is to retain Warren County as his verified birthplace rather than force a disputed date into his biography. Copp entered United States Army service through Nashua, New Hampshire, and became an officer in Company C of the 9th New Hampshire Infantry. The regiment was organized at Concord and mustered into Federal service in August 1862. It was an infantry regiment raised for three years of service and soon left New Hampshire for the active theater of war. The 9th New Hampshire joined the Army of the Potomac and was assigned to the IX Corps. Its entry into active campaigning was remarkably rapid. Soon after leaving the state, the regiment became involved in the Maryland Campaign. The regiment's documented service included the Battle of South Mountain in September 1862 and the Battle of Antietam only a few days later. These actions gave the newly organized regiment an exceptionally difficult introduction to Civil War combat. Following the Maryland Campaign, the 9th New Hampshire moved through Virginia and eventually toward Fredericksburg as Major General Ambrose Burnside prepared the Army of the Potomac for a major offensive against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. By December 1862 Charles Copp was serving as a Second Lieutenant in Company C. It was at this rank—not his later rank of Captain—that he performed the action for which he became a Medal of Honor recipient. The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought in December 1862 and culminated in a series of disastrous Union assaults on December 13. Confederate troops occupied powerful defensive positions overlooking the city, particularly along the heights west of Fredericksburg. Union infantry advancing across the open ground faced artillery and musket fire from strongly positioned Confederate forces. The 9th New Hampshire entered this dangerous environment as part of the IX Corps. During its advance, the regiment encountered intense enemy fire. Maintaining formation under such circumstances was extremely difficult. Smoke, casualties, battlefield obstacles and the loss of key soldiers could quickly throw a regiment into confusion. Regimental colors had an especially important role in nineteenth-century warfare. The national and regimental flags were not simply ceremonial symbols. Soldiers used them as visual reference points through battlefield smoke and confusion. The position of the colors showed men where their regiment was located and where they were expected to rally. Because of this role, color bearers were among the most exposed soldiers in a regiment. They carried large, highly visible flags and became obvious targets. When a color bearer fell, the loss of the flag could create confusion at precisely the moment when discipline and unit cohesion were most important. On December 13, 1862, the color bearer of the 9th New Hampshire was shot down during the fighting at Fredericksburg. Second Lieutenant Charles D. Copp immediately seized the regimental colors. Instead of withdrawing with the flag, Copp raised and waved the colors while exposed to heavy Confederate fire. His action provided the regiment with a visible rallying point and helped restore cohesion among the men under fire. The official Medal of Honor record summarized his deed by stating that he seized the regimental colors after the color bearer had been shot down and rallied the regiment while under heavy fire. This was the defining act of Copp's military career. He was a commissioned officer, but taking possession of the colors placed him in one of the most dangerous and conspicuous positions on the battlefield. The colors became the point around which soldiers could reorganize, making Copp's decision both an act of personal courage and an important contribution to the immediate functioning of his regiment. Copp survived Fredericksburg and continued his military career. The 9th New Hampshire remained in service and subsequently operated in several different theaters of the Civil War. In 1863 the regiment was sent west and became involved in operations connected with Vicksburg, Mississippi. The regiment served with the IX Corps during the Vicksburg Campaign and participated in operations surrounding the Confederate stronghold. After Vicksburg fell in July 1863, the regiment performed additional duties in Mississippi and Kentucky. It later returned east and, in 1864, again became part of the major Union operations against Lee's army. The documented service history of the 9th New Hampshire during 1864 included the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, Totopotomoy, Cold Harbor and the prolonged operations around Petersburg. Because a regiment's battle history does not automatically prove the presence of every individual officer in every engagement, these should be understood primarily as the documented campaign history of Copp's unit rather than automatically converted into a separate personal battle credit for him without individual records. What is firmly established is that Copp continued to advance in rank. From Second Lieutenant he eventually rose through the officer grades and attained the rank of Captain, which is his highest verified military rank. For the database profile, Captain is therefore the correct rank to use even though his Medal of Honor action occurred while he was a Second Lieutenant. The 9th New Hampshire continued serving through the final stages of the war. Its later service included the siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign. After Confederate resistance collapsed in Virginia, the regiment moved to the Alexandria area and participated in the Grand Review in Washington in May 1865. The regiment was mustered out on June 10, 1865. Its wartime history had extended from the Maryland Campaign of 1862 through the destruction of the Confederacy in 1865, giving Copp's military career a connection with some of the most important campaigns of the Civil War. Recognition for Copp's heroism at Fredericksburg did not come immediately. Nearly twenty-eight years passed between the battlefield action and the formal issuance of his Medal of Honor. On June 28, 1890, Charles D. Copp was formally awarded the Medal of Honor for his conduct at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. He was alive to receive the award; it was not a posthumous decoration. The Medal of Honor had originated during the Civil War itself. Congress authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862, making it the principal national military decoration available to Union soldiers for extraordinary battlefield conduct. During the Civil War, acts involving the preservation, capture or carrying of colors were frequently recognized because carrying a flag exposed a soldier to exceptional danger while also having direct importance for battlefield organization and morale. Copp's award fits directly into this Civil War Medal of Honor tradition. His decoration recognized a specific action rather than his entire record of military service: the moment when he took the fallen colors and rallied the 9th New Hampshire while exposed to heavy enemy fire. For his final medal profile, the verified decoration is the Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army. No clasp, star, bar or other device has been verified for his Medal of Honor. Although Copp unquestionably served during the American Civil War, his service alone is not sufficient evidence to place a separate Civil War Campaign Medal in his published rack. That medal was established long after the war, and under the project's recipient-specific evidence rule, qualifying service cannot be treated automatically as proof that a particular veteran received or was entitled to a specific later-issued medal. Without sufficient individual entitlement or issuance evidence, the Civil War Campaign Medal remains excluded from Copp's final verified medal list. Copp also remained connected with the community of Union veterans after the war. He became a companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, an organization whose membership included officers who had served the Union during the Civil War. His membership reflected the continuing importance of his wartime service in his later life. His status within that organization also preserved his recognition as Captain Charles D. Copp, reinforcing the distinction between his Second Lieutenant rank during the Fredericksburg action and the Captain rank he eventually attained. Copp lived for decades after the Civil War and after the presentation of his Medal of Honor. He died on November 2, 1912, in Clinton, Massachusetts. He was buried at Middle Yard Cemetery in Lancaster, Massachusetts. His Medal of Honor itself has also remained connected to his later Massachusetts community, with institutional records identifying the Clinton Historical Society/Holder Memorial in Clinton as the location associated with the medal. Charles Dearborn Copp's military legacy centers on a moment of extraordinary responsibility during one of the Union Army's most difficult battles. At Fredericksburg, when the regiment's colors fell with their bearer, Copp did not allow the flag to remain on the ground. He took it up, exposed himself to heavy fire and used it to rally the men around him. From that action as a Second Lieutenant, through his later rise to Captain and his long life as a Union veteran, Copp remained part of the history of the 9th New Hampshire Infantry. Nearly three decades after Fredericksburg, the United States formally recognized what he had done by presenting him with the Medal of Honor. His final verified medal record therefore remains: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — no device or clasp. That single decoration represents the documented act that placed Charles Dearborn Copp permanently among the Medal of Honor recipients of the American Civil War.