David M. Buchanan

He jumped into a strong ebb tide to save a drowning shipmate

David M. Buchanan was born on January 28, 1862, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By the summer of 1879, at only seventeen years of age, he was serving in the United States Navy as an Apprentice aboard USS Saratoga. The old sailing warship had entered a new phase of its long career in 1877, when the Navy recommissioned her as a school ship for naval apprentices. Young sailors aboard Saratoga were being prepared for life at sea through practical instruction in seamanship, shipboard discipline, boat handling, and the responsibilities expected of enlisted sailors.

On July 15, 1879, Saratoga was off the Battery in New York Harbor. During the morning, another young apprentice, Robert Lee Robey, fell overboard from the after part of the ship. The situation immediately became dangerous. The tide was running strongly on the ebb, carrying water away through the harbor, and Robey was not an accomplished swimmer. With the current working against him, he was in genuine danger of drowning. Buchanan reacted without delay. He went over the rail after Robey immediately and did not even take time to remove his clothing before entering the water. It was a simple act in description but a dangerous one in reality: a fully clothed seventeen-year-old apprentice entered a strong tidal current to reach a struggling shipmate. His decision placed his own life at risk, yet his intervention kept the emergency from becoming a fatality. Buchanan remained with Robey in the water until a boat from Saratoga reached them and brought them safely back to the ship.

For his conduct on July 15, Buchanan was awarded the Medal of Honor. At that time the decoration could be bestowed for exceptional heroism in circumstances that were not necessarily connected with battle, and a number of nineteenth-century Navy recipients earned it for risking their lives to rescue men from drowning or for responding to dangerous accidents at sea. Buchanan’s award therefore belongs to an important early chapter in the Medal of Honor’s history, when extraordinary lifesaving courage during naval service could merit the nation’s highest military decoration. His official recipient record identifies him as an Apprentice of the United States Navy serving aboard USS Saratoga and places the Medal of Honor action at New York Harbor on July 15, 1879.

David M. Buchanan died in Philadelphia on May 25, 1936, at the age of seventy-four. He was buried at Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. His legacy rests on a moment that lasted only minutes but revealed the character for which he would be remembered: when a shipmate disappeared into a strong current, Buchanan did not wait for someone else to act. He went over the side immediately, entered the dangerous tide fully clothed, and helped ensure that Robert Lee Robey survived. The Medal of Honor preserved that act as part of the history of courage and lifesaving service in the United States Navy.

Medal of Honor citation

On board the U.S.S. Saratoga off Battery, New York Harbor, 15 July 1879. On the morning of this date, Robert Lee Robey, apprentice, fell overboard from the after part of the ship into the tide which was running strong ebb at the time and, not being an expert swimmer, was in danger of drowning. Instantly springing over the rail after him, Buchanan never hesitated for an instant to remove even a portion of his clothing. Both men were picked up by the ship's boat following this act of heroism.