Conrad Noll

When the color bearer of the 20th Michigan Infantry was shot down at Spotsylvania, Conrad Noll seized the regiment’s flag and fought his way out while Confederate troops pressed against the unit’s flank and rear. That act preserved one of the regiment’s most important symbols and ultimately earned Noll the Medal of Honor.

Noll was born in Germany on 20 February 1836. At the age of 26, he enlisted at Ann Arbor, Michigan, on 11 August 1862 and mustered into Company D of the 20th Michigan Infantry one week later. He was promoted to corporal on 25 December 1862 and served through some of the hardest campaigning of the Civil War. His official Michigan service record lists participation at Fredericksburg, Horseshoe Bend, Jackson, Vicksburg, Blue Springs, the siege of Knoxville, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor and two major actions before Petersburg.

On 12 May 1864, the 20th Michigan was engaged in the violent fighting around Spotsylvania Court House. During the action, the regiment’s color bearer fell. Noll took possession of the colors and refused to abandon them, fighting through an enemy force that had reached the regiment’s left flank and rear. The official citation records simply that he “seized the colors” and gallantly fought his way out with them.

Noll continued serving after Spotsylvania. On 30 July 1864, during the assault later known as the Battle of the Crater near Petersburg, he was wounded seriously enough that the injury ultimately ended his military service. He was promoted to sergeant on 1 January 1865 and discharged from Harper Hospital in Detroit on 14 July 1865 because of the wounds received before Petersburg.

The surviving records contain a minor rank discrepancy. Michigan’s official military record shows that Noll was a corporal at the time of the Spotsylvania action and became a sergeant in 1865. The official Medal of Honor citation identifies him as a sergeant, apparently using his later or final wartime rank. For a publication title, Sergeant Conrad Noll is appropriate, while the biography should note that he was likely serving as a corporal when he performed the deed.

More than thirty years after the battle, Noll received the Medal of Honor on 28 July 1896. He remained in Ann Arbor after the war and participated in the local veteran community. Three diaries that he kept during 1863, 1864 and 1865 survive in the Bentley Historical Library, providing a rare personal record of his daily life with the 20th Michigan Infantry.

Conrad Noll died in Ann Arbor on 26 May 1925 and was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery. His reconstructed honours entitlement consists of the Medal of Honor and the Civil War Campaign Medal, the latter representing retrospective recognition of his qualifying Union Army service. His Medal of Honor is preserved by the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.

Noll’s courage at Spotsylvania was centered on a single decision. With the regiment under pressure and its colors on the ground, he stepped forward, lifted the flag and carried it out through the enemy. His action preserved the colors, rallied those around him and secured his place among the most highly decorated soldiers of the American Civil War.