David H. Johnston

David H. Johnston was born on August 19, 1838, in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. He belonged to the generation whose adult lives were transformed by the American Civil War. When the conflict divided the United States, Johnston entered Federal service and became a soldier of the United States Army. His official Medal of Honor record identifies him as a Private in Company K, 8th Missouri Infantry, and Private is also the highest rank that can be securely verified for his wartime service. Although his regiment carried the Missouri designation, Johnston’s military record was associated with Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois, the place from which his service was credited. This distinction is important: the state name in a regiment did not necessarily mean every soldier had been born or lived there. Johnston was Pennsylvania-born, entered service from Illinois, and served in a Missouri infantry regiment fighting for the Union. The 8th Missouri Infantry became an experienced Union regiment and eventually operated with Major General William T. Sherman’s XV Army Corps. During the Vicksburg Campaign it was assigned to Colonel Giles A. Smith’s brigade in Major General Francis P. Blair Jr.’s division. By the spring of 1863, the regiment was participating in one of the most strategically important campaigns of the Civil War—the struggle for Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg occupied commanding heights above the Mississippi River and represented one of the Confederacy’s most important remaining strongholds on that great waterway. As long as Confederate forces held the city, the South retained an important connection across the Mississippi. Capturing Vicksburg would help give the Union effective control of the river and divide the Confederacy geographically. Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces approached Vicksburg after a difficult campaign through Mississippi. Union troops won important victories at places such as Champion Hill and Big Black River Bridge before reaching the city’s defensive works. Grant initially believed that Confederate forces, having suffered repeated reverses, might be vulnerable to a rapid frontal assault. On May 19, 1863, Sherman’s troops attacked the Confederate position known as the Stockade Redan, a powerful earthwork protecting the Graveyard Road approach into Vicksburg. The assault failed. Union troops encountered steep terrain, felled trees, fortified positions, and concentrated Confederate fire. Some Federal soldiers reached positions close to the defenses but could not break through. Grant nevertheless believed another, better-coordinated assault might succeed. During the night of May 21–22, preparations were made for a renewed attack. Union soldiers gathered boards and timbers that could be turned into planks and scaling ladders. The reason was simple but extremely dangerous: the attackers would have to cross the ditch in front of the Confederate works and then climb the defensive walls while under direct enemy fire. For the attack scheduled for May 22, 1863, approximately 150 volunteers were selected to move ahead of the main assaulting infantry. Their task was to carry the wooden planks needed to bridge the ditch and ladders needed to scale the Confederate works. Because these men would advance at the very front of the attack and absorb the first enemy fire, the group became remembered as the “volunteer storming party,” often described in later historical accounts as the Vicksburg “Forlorn Hope.” Private David H. Johnston volunteered. That decision became the defining moment of his military life. Early on May 22, Union artillery opened a heavy bombardment against the Vicksburg defenses. For several hours Federal guns attempted to weaken Confederate positions. At approximately 10:00 a.m., the artillery fire stopped and Union infantry advanced along a front extending for roughly three miles. Sherman’s sector attacked toward the Stockade Redan along Graveyard Road. The volunteer storming party moved ahead of the main infantry carrying the materials required to cross the Confederate obstacles. Johnston, serving with Company K of the 8th Missouri Infantry, was among the soldiers exposed at the front of this advance. The Confederate defenders waited until the attacking Union soldiers had approached dangerously close to their position. They then opened an extremely destructive fire. Musketry poured into the advancing troops as the volunteers attempted to carry their planks and ladders toward the ditch and defensive wall. Despite the intensity of the Confederate fire, members of the assaulting force continued forward. Union soldiers succeeded in placing planks across portions of the ditch, and some Federal colors were carried onto the exterior slopes of the fortifications. But the defenses remained too strong. The attackers were unable to break the Confederate line. Johnston survived the assault. The larger Union attack of May 22 also failed. Across the Vicksburg front, Grant’s army suffered more than 3,000 casualties during the day's operations. After the failure of this second major frontal assault, Grant abandoned attempts to take Vicksburg by direct storm and instead settled into formal siege operations. The strategic result eventually favored the Union. With Vicksburg surrounded and Confederate supplies steadily diminishing, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton eventually surrendered the city to Grant on July 4, 1863. The fall of Vicksburg, combined with the Union victory at Gettysburg at almost the same time, became one of the decisive turning points of the American Civil War. For Johnston, however, the events of May 22 remained the defining episode. His later official Medal of Honor citation was strikingly concise: “Gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party.” Those few words represented an action of extraordinary danger. Johnston had voluntarily joined a group ordered to move at the head of a frontal assault against a fortified position, knowing that the volunteers would be among the first exposed to Confederate fire. The Medal of Honor The decoration that ultimately recognized Johnston’s courage was the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration of the United States. The Army Medal of Honor had been established during the Civil War itself. President Abraham Lincoln approved legislation creating the Army award on July 12, 1862. The original legislation focused on enlisted soldiers and noncommissioned officers who distinguished themselves through exceptional gallantry and soldierly conduct, and eligibility was expanded in 1863. At the time Johnston fought at Vicksburg, the United States did not yet possess the broad hierarchy of valor decorations that would exist in the twentieth century. Awards such as the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, and Bronze Star Medal had not yet been created. The Medal of Honor therefore occupied an especially important position in Civil War military recognition. Johnston did not receive his Medal of Honor immediately after Vicksburg. His heroic action occurred on: May 22, 1863 — Vicksburg, Mississippi His Medal of Honor was presented on: August 16, 1884 More than twenty-one years separated the battlefield action from the formal recognition. This delay was not unique among Civil War recipients. Numerous acts of wartime courage were reviewed long after the conflict, and many veterans received the Medal of Honor years or even decades after the events for which they were decorated. Johnston was still alive when his award was presented, so his Medal of Honor was not posthumous. For the VictoriaCross.ca database, his verified decoration is correctly represented as: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1884 — No device or clasp The 1884 year records the year of presentation, while 1863 remains the date of the heroic action. Those dates must remain separate because the action and the award occurred more than two decades apart. No additional clasp, service star, oak leaf cluster, bar, or other device has been verified for Johnston’s Medal of Honor. He was a single Medal of Honor recipient, so the decoration remains plain. Johnston’s medal record is therefore small in number but extremely significant. One verified decoration is sufficient to represent his place in military history because that decoration is the United States’ highest award for military valor. Why the Civil War Campaign Medal Is Not Included Johnston unquestionably performed qualifying Civil War service in the United States Army, and he lived long enough to see the Army Civil War Campaign Medal established many years after the conflict. However, this project does not treat basic eligibility as proof that an individual actually possessed or was officially issued a medal. No sufficiently strong recipient-specific issue record, medal roll, or equivalent evidence has been established for Johnston’s Civil War Campaign Medal. For that reason it is not included in his final verified ribbon rack. His published medal record remains: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1884 — No device or clasp This conservative treatment does not diminish his Civil War service. It simply keeps his displayed awards limited to decorations that can be individually verified. Postwar Life Johnston survived the Civil War and returned to civilian life. Unlike his brief official Medal of Honor citation, his postwar life lasted for many decades. He lived through the enormous transformation of the United States that followed the war—from Reconstruction through westward expansion and into the early twentieth century. Later family and biographical material records that Johnston married Nancy Jane in 1872 and raised a family. His life eventually became closely associated with Nebraska, where his military legacy would later be preserved. For decades after the Civil War, Johnston belonged to the rapidly aging generation of veterans who had personally experienced the Vicksburg Campaign. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, battlefield parks, veterans’ organizations, monuments, and historical societies increasingly worked to preserve the memory of the men who had fought the war. Johnston lived until 1931, meaning that nearly seven decades separated the Vicksburg assault from the end of his life. Records agree on the year of his death, although surviving modern sources differ on the precise death location. His burial, however, is securely associated with Pierce Chapel Bureau Cemetery near Clarks, Nebraska. His grave became an important part of his Medal of Honor legacy. Johnston’s actual Medal of Honor also survived. It is preserved in the collection of the Merrick County Historical Society Museum in Central City, Nebraska, creating a direct physical connection between the soldier, the Vicksburg assault, and later generations studying the Civil War. His association with Nebraska later brought additional recognition. Decades after his death, his grave became the focus of renewed attention from descendants, veterans’ organizations, historians, and Medal of Honor preservation groups. A dedicated Medal of Honor memorial marker was eventually placed at his burial site, ensuring that his status as a recipient would remain permanently visible. His Lasting Military Legacy David H. Johnston’s military career is defined not by high rank, command authority, or a large collection of decorations. He remained a Private, and that is both his Medal of Honor action rank and his highest securely verified military rank. His importance comes instead from what he volunteered to do. On the morning of May 22, 1863, Johnston knew that the men moving ahead of Sherman’s infantry would have to approach one of the strongest Confederate defensive positions at Vicksburg. They would have to carry heavy planks and ladders rather than concentrate solely on their own protection. They would be visible to defenders waiting behind prepared fortifications. Yet Johnston volunteered to join them. The assault did not capture the Stockade Redan. The volunteer party could not break the Confederate defenses. But failure of the larger military attack does not erase the courage required to participate in it. Johnston advanced with the storming party under devastating fire and survived one of the most dangerous episodes of the Vicksburg Campaign. Twenty-one years later, the United States formally recognized that gallantry with the Medal of Honor. David H. Johnston is therefore remembered as a United States Army Private of Company K, 8th Missouri Infantry, veteran of the Vicksburg Campaign, member of the May 22, 1863 volunteer storming party, and Medal of Honor recipient. His final verified medal history is intentionally simple: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1884 — No device or clasp. Behind that single ribbon is the story of a young infantryman who volunteered to move at the head of an assault against the fortifications of Vicksburg, survived the Confederate fire, lived for decades after the Civil War, and ultimately left a military legacy preserved through his Medal of Honor, his grave in Nebraska, and the historical memory of the soldiers who formed the Vicksburg volunteer storming party.