Christopher Fowler (Medal of Honor)

He showed gallant conduct when a ship's boat capsized at sea

Christopher Fowler served as a quartermaster in the United States Navy during the 1870s. On 11 May 1874, he was serving aboard the USS Fortune off Point Zapotitlan, on Mexico’s Pacific coast, when one of the ship’s boats capsized. Several members of the boat’s crew drowned. In the emergency, Fowler displayed gallant conduct, an act for which he received the Medal of Honor.

The surviving official accounts are brief and focus on the rescue emergency rather than on Fowler’s personal history. The Navy’s compiled register identifies him by name, rank, and ship, and records the date and location of the action. The Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s recipient entry preserves the fuller award wording. These records establish the circumstances of the award, but provide little reliable detail about Fowler’s life before or after his naval service. He was born in New York in 1850, and the medal was presented to him on 17 July 1874. No later service or death details are established in the consulted records.

Fowler’s recognition came in the early decades of the Medal of Honor, when the Navy awarded the decoration for conspicuous bravery in service. His action aboard the Fortune was a response to an immediate maritime disaster: a capsized boat, sailors in the water, and lives lost. The official record’s concise description leaves the precise actions he took undocumented, so a fuller account cannot be responsibly reconstructed from the available evidence.

Medal of Honor citation

Served on board the U.S.S. Fortune off Point Zapotitlan, Mexico, 11 May 1874. On the occasion of the capsizing of one of the boats of the Fortune and the drowning of a portion of the boat's crew, Fowler displayed gallant conduct.

Sources 1. U.S. Navy Department. Record of Medals of Honor Issued to the Bluejackets and Marines of the United States Navy, 1862–1888. Washington, D.C., 1889. 2. Congressional Medal of Honor Society. “Christopher Fowler,” recipient profile.