Chester S. Furman

Chester S. Furman was born on February 14, 1842, in Columbia, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He came of age at a moment when the United States was approaching its greatest internal crisis, and when the Civil War began in 1861, Furman entered military service with the Union Army. He was mustered into Company A of the 6th Pennsylvania Reserves on July 13, 1861, for a three-year term of service. The regiment was also carried in Pennsylvania records as the 35th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Furman served as a Corporal, the highest rank that can be firmly verified in the surviving records. Civil War Index The 6th Pennsylvania Reserves formed part of the Pennsylvania Reserve Division, a veteran formation that fought with the Army of the Potomac. By the summer of 1863, the regiment had already endured the hard campaigning that characterized the Eastern Theater of the Civil War. At Gettysburg, the 6th Pennsylvania Reserves served in the Third Division of the V Corps. On July 2, 1863, the second and bloodiest day of the battle, the regiment became involved in the fighting on the Union left, in the area extending through the Wheatfield and the rocky ground around Devil’s Den. The National Park Service records the regiment’s advance that afternoon through the Valley of Death and Wheatfield as Union forces fought to stabilize the threatened left flank. National Park Service It was during this fighting that Chester Furman performed the action for which he would eventually receive the Medal of Honor. Confederate sharpshooters had occupied a log house near Devil’s Den, giving them a protected position from which they could threaten Union troops. Rather than leave the position to continue operating against the Union line, Furman joined a very small volunteer party assigned to deal with it. Six soldiers volunteered for the dangerous mission. Furman was one of them. Army The six men moved against the log house despite the obvious danger posed by the enemy sharpshooters sheltering inside. They charged the position directly and succeeded in forcing the Confederate soldiers occupying it to surrender. The official Medal of Honor record specifically identifies Furman as one of the six volunteers who carried out this charge near Devil’s Den. The importance of the action was not simply that an enemy position was captured; the men voluntarily exposed themselves to a concentrated threat in order to eliminate a protected enemy post during one of the most violent phases of the Battle of Gettysburg. Army Furman was not alone in eventually being recognized for the extraordinary action. The small volunteer party included men from the 6th Pennsylvania Reserves who demonstrated exceptional courage in attacking the sharpshooter position. The incident became one of the notable small-unit acts of bravery associated with the fighting around Devil’s Den and the Union left at Gettysburg. Furman’s role is especially significant because he was serving as a noncommissioned enlisted soldier—a Corporal—when he voluntarily took part in a mission that went beyond the routine responsibilities of his rank. Only a few months after Gettysburg, Furman’s military career entered a different phase. Pennsylvania’s official volunteer roster records that on October 28, 1863, he was transferred from Company A of the 6th Pennsylvania Reserves to the United States Signal Corps. A separate historical Signal Corps roster likewise identifies Chester S. Furman of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, as having transferred from Company A, 6th Pennsylvania Reserves, and places him with the Army of the Potomac. Civil War Index The Signal Corps had an increasingly important role during the Civil War. Communication over long distances was essential to directing armies, coordinating formations, reporting enemy movements, and transmitting orders. Signal personnel used visual signaling systems and other communications methods to connect commanders across battlefields and campaign areas. Furman’s transfer therefore moved him from conventional infantry service into the Union Army’s wartime communications organization. The surviving summary records establish his transfer and assignment to the Army of the Potomac, although they do not provide enough recipient-specific detail to assign him particular later signal stations or individual signal actions with confidence. Civil War Signals The decoration that ultimately defined Furman’s military legacy was the Medal of Honor. The Army Medal of Honor itself was created during the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln signed the legislation authorizing an Army Medal of Honor on July 12, 1862, initially providing recognition for enlisted soldiers who distinguished themselves through exceptional gallantry. Congress broadened the law in March 1863. The Medal of Honor ultimately became the United States’ highest military award for valor. Army For Furman, however, recognition did not come immediately after Gettysburg. More than thirty-four years passed between his battlefield action and the formal issuance of his decoration. On August 3, 1897, Chester S. Furman was awarded the Medal of Honor for what he had done on July 2, 1863. The official U.S. Army record identifies him as a Corporal of Company A, 6th Pennsylvania Reserves, and recognizes his participation as one of the six volunteers who charged the log house near Devil’s Den and compelled the enemy sharpshooters inside to surrender. Army That long interval between action and award was not unusual among Civil War Medal of Honor recipients. Many acts from the war were reviewed and formally recognized years or even decades after they occurred. Furman lived to receive his medal; it was not a posthumous award. The Congressional Medal of Honor Society records the presentation date as August 3, 1897, and confirms his status as a U.S. Army Civil War recipient. Congressional Medal of Honor Society For the VictoriaCross.ca medal record we reconstructed, the Medal of Honor is therefore the single decoration that can be included with sufficient recipient-specific evidence. It belongs in the database under the period-specific category Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army, with the award year recorded as 1897. No clasp, service star, oak leaf cluster, or other ribbon device has been established for this award. Although Furman was unquestionably a Civil War veteran and lived well beyond the later creation of the Civil War Campaign Medal, eligibility by itself is not proof that a particular medal was actually issued to or officially documented for an individual. Under the project’s zero-assumption standard, the Civil War Campaign Medal was therefore not added to his final verified medal list. Furman’s military story is consequently more significant than the size of his medal rack suggests. His verified record consists of one decoration, but that decoration represents the highest level of American military recognition for valor. His legacy rests on a very specific moment at Gettysburg: six soldiers voluntarily advancing against a protected enemy sharpshooter position when doing so exposed them to extraordinary risk. Chester S. Furman survived the Civil War and lived for decades after the conflict. His association with Pennsylvania remained strong; the Medal of Honor Society records him as accredited to Bloomsburg in Columbia County, Pennsylvania. He died on July 22, 1910, at the age of sixty-eight. He was buried at Old Rosemont Cemetery in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, where his grave preserves the memory of a Civil War soldier whose battlefield courage was formally recognized during his lifetime. Congressional Medal of Honor Society Furman’s career—from infantry service with Company A of the 6th Pennsylvania Reserves, through the fierce fighting at Gettysburg, to his later transfer into the U.S. Signal Corps—illustrates the varied duties performed by Union soldiers during the Civil War. Yet the defining episode of his life remained July 2, 1863. Near Devil’s Den, while serving as a Corporal, he chose to join five other volunteers in an assault on an enemy-held position. Their success eliminated the sharpshooter threat and became an enduring example of voluntary courage under fire. More than three decades later, the United States formally acknowledged that courage with the Medal of Honor. Chester S. Furman’s surviving record does not need an inflated medal count to establish his place in military history. His single verified decoration, earned for his actions at Gettysburg and awarded in 1897, records the essential fact of his service: when confronted with a dangerous mission, he volunteered, advanced with his comrades, and helped compel an entrenched enemy force to surrender.