Charles H. De Puy

Charles H. De Puy was born on September 8, 1842, in Sherman, Wexford County, Michigan. He would live for more than ninety years, but the defining chapter of his life came during the American Civil War, when experience gained as an artilleryman eventually placed him at the center of one of the most chaotic battles of the Petersburg Campaign. By the end of his military career he held the rank of First Sergeant and would later be recognized with the Medal of Honor for his conduct at the Battle of the Crater. De Puy’s Civil War service did not begin with the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters. On July 30, 1861, he entered service as a Private in Battery D, 1st Illinois Light Artillery. This earlier assignment is particularly important because it explains the wording later used in his Medal of Honor citation, which described him as an “old artillerist.” He therefore came to the Petersburg battlefield with genuine previous experience handling artillery rather than acquiring that knowledge during the action itself. Battery D of the 1st Illinois Light Artillery served as part of the Union’s expanding field-artillery arm. Operating Civil War artillery required specialized training and teamwork. Gun crews had to load powder and projectile, prepare the piece, aim it, control recoil, move ammunition and keep the weapon functioning under fire. Even an experienced infantryman could not automatically step into an artillery crew and operate a cannon effectively. De Puy’s earlier service gave him a skill that would later prove exceptionally valuable. His first artillery enlistment ended on February 19, 1863, when he was discharged because of disability. The surviving record does not justify embellishing the precise nature of that disability, but the discharge temporarily ended this phase of his service. De Puy later returned to military duty and became associated with Company H of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters. By the time of his most famous action he had advanced to First Sergeant, the highest verified rank associated with his Civil War service and the rank recorded in his Medal of Honor documentation. The 1st Michigan Sharpshooters was an infantry organization created for soldiers expected to possess above-average skill with the rifle. Its companies included men from several areas of Michigan, and the regiment became part of the Union forces operating in Virginia. Despite the title “Sharpshooters,” De Puy’s defining Medal of Honor action was not a long-range rifle engagement. Instead, the decisive skill he brought to the battlefield came from his earlier artillery service. During the summer of 1864, Union forces were locked in the prolonged Petersburg Campaign. Petersburg was strategically vital because its railroads and transportation routes supplied Richmond and General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Rather than successfully storming the Confederate defenses immediately, Union armies settled into siege operations designed to weaken and eventually break the defensive system. One of the most ambitious Union plans involved tunneling beneath the Confederate position known as Elliott’s Salient. Soldiers of the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry excavated a long mine beneath the Confederate works and packed it with explosives. The plan called for the mine to be detonated, opening a gap through which Union infantry could attack. Before dawn on July 30, 1864, the mine exploded with tremendous force. A huge section of the Confederate fortifications was destroyed, producing the enormous depression that gave the engagement its familiar name: the Battle of the Crater. The explosion initially created a remarkable opportunity for the Union Army. Confederate defenders in the immediate area were stunned, killed, wounded or displaced, and portions of their defensive works were shattered. But the Union assault soon became disorganized. Instead of rapidly passing around the crater and advancing beyond the broken defenses, large numbers of soldiers entered the crater itself and became trapped in a confused mass inside and around the ruined works. The 1st Michigan Sharpshooters became part of this violent struggle. The regiment entered an environment of destroyed fortifications, scattered guns, broken earthworks, smoke and intense Confederate resistance. It was during this battle that First Sergeant Charles H. De Puy’s earlier artillery experience became critically relevant. Within the captured or damaged Confederate position were artillery pieces associated with the shattered defenses. Brigadier General Joseph J. Bartlett became involved in attempting to put available guns into action. De Puy, recognized as an experienced former artilleryman, assisted Bartlett in operating the guns of the dismantled fort. The official description of De Puy’s Medal of Honor action is unusually concise, but its meaning is significant. It states that, being an experienced artillerist, he aided General Bartlett in working the guns of the dismantled fort. In the conditions at Petersburg, this was not routine artillery service. De Puy was serving as a First Sergeant in a sharpshooter regiment, yet when artillery expertise was urgently required inside a shattered Confederate defensive position, he stepped into that role. He had to apply skills learned during his earlier service while the Union position remained exposed to counterattack. The fighting around the crater became increasingly desperate. Confederate forces recovered from the initial shock and concentrated against the crowded Union troops. The advantage created by the explosion disappeared, and the battle eventually became a costly Union defeat. De Puy survived the battle. Some later military award records also classify him as a Civil War prisoner of war, although the major Medal of Honor records preserve far more detail about his July 30 action than about the precise circumstances and duration of any captivity. For that reason, the documented Medal of Honor action remains the strongest foundation of his military biography. Although De Puy’s courage occurred in 1864, formal national recognition came more than three decades later. On July 30, 1896, exactly thirty-two years after the Battle of the Crater, Charles H. De Puy received the Medal of Honor. The Medal of Honor itself originated during the American Civil War. Congress first established a Medal of Honor for the Navy in 1861 and authorized the Army version in 1862. During the Civil War it became the principal national decoration for extraordinary military conduct. Many Civil War veterans were recognized immediately or shortly after their actions, while others—including De Puy—received the decoration decades later after their cases were formally considered. For the project database, his verified decoration is appropriately represented as: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — No device or clasp. De Puy’s Medal of Honor was not awarded for his entire Civil War service in general. It recognized one specific act: using his prior artillery expertise to assist General Bartlett in working the guns inside the devastated Confederate works at Petersburg on July 30, 1864. No star, clasp, bar, oak leaf cluster or other device has been verified for his Medal of Honor. A separate Civil War Campaign Medal should not be added to his verified medal rack solely because he served during the war. De Puy clearly was a Civil War veteran and lived long after later campaign medals were established, but the project requires recipient-specific proof of entitlement rather than general eligibility. Without individual issuance or entitlement documentation, the Medal of Honor remains his only verified decoration for the final rack. Following the war, De Puy returned to civilian life. Historical records associate him with Michigan for much of his later life, including the Ludington area. Like many Civil War veterans who survived into the twentieth century, he lived through an extraordinary transformation of the United States—from the era of horse-drawn armies and muzzle-loading weapons to automobiles, aviation, radio and modern industrial society. His Medal of Honor recognition in 1896 ensured that his role in the Battle of the Crater would not disappear with the passing of the Civil War generation. His action was especially distinctive because it connected two separate phases of his military experience. He had begun the war as an artilleryman, later served as a senior enlisted soldier in a sharpshooter regiment, and then found himself using his original artillery training in the exact moment when that expertise was urgently needed. Charles H. De Puy died on January 6, 1935, at Elk Rapids, Michigan, at the age of ninety-two. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Kalkaska, Michigan. His life therefore spanned from the early 1840s to the middle of the 1930s, but his enduring military legacy remains tied to the morning of July 30, 1864. Amid the shattered earthworks of Petersburg, First Sergeant De Puy applied the artillery knowledge he had gained earlier in the war and assisted General Bartlett in operating guns within the destroyed Confederate position. More than thirty years later, the United States formally recognized that conduct with its highest military decoration. Final Verified Medal Record: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — No device or clasp Charles H. De Puy is remembered as a United States Army First Sergeant, former artilleryman, member of Company H of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters, veteran of the Battle of the Crater, and Medal of Honor recipient whose unusual combination of artillery experience and infantry leadership distinguished him during one of the most dramatic actions of the Petersburg Campaign.