Francis Morrison

Francis Morrison was born on January 15, 1845, in Ohiopyle, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. He grew up in the rugged southwestern part of the state and was still a teenager when the American Civil War began. His surviving military record would eventually connect this young Pennsylvanian with some of the hardest campaigning of the Union Army and with an act of battlefield compassion that earned him the Medal of Honor. Morrison entered United States military service from Drakestown, Pennsylvania, and served as a Private in Company H of the 85th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. The regiment was organized at Uniontown in 1861 for three years of service. Morrison remained a Private during the period associated with his Medal of Honor action, and no reliable evidence has established a later higher military rank. The 85th Pennsylvania Infantry became an experienced Union combat regiment. Its wartime assignments carried it through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and eventually back to Virginia. The regiment served with several Union commands as the strategic focus of the war shifted from the Peninsula to the Carolinas and ultimately toward Richmond and Petersburg. During the early part of its service, the 85th Pennsylvania operated with the Army of the Potomac. The regiment took part in campaigning on the Virginia Peninsula, where Union forces attempted to approach Richmond during 1862. The regiment’s operations included the Yorktown and Williamsburg areas and the difficult campaign around the Chickahominy. Later the regiment was transferred away from the main Army of the Potomac and served in North Carolina and South Carolina. Its assignments eventually included operations around Charleston and the coastal islands, where Union forces attempted to reduce Confederate defenses protecting one of the South’s most important ports. By the spring of 1864, the 85th Pennsylvania had returned to Virginia as part of the X Corps in the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. The regiment then became involved in Major General Benjamin F. Butler’s Bermuda Hundred Campaign. Bermuda Hundred was a peninsula created by the James and Appomattox Rivers south of Richmond. Butler’s Army of the James landed there in May 1864 with the strategic objective of threatening both Richmond and Petersburg while General Ulysses S. Grant’s larger campaign pressed Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia from the north. The campaign quickly became difficult. Confederate forces moved against Butler’s army, and a series of engagements developed around the roads, railroads, defensive lines, and wooded terrain between Richmond and Petersburg. The Union force became increasingly restricted within the Bermuda Hundred position, but fighting continued as Federal troops attempted to disrupt Confederate communications and support operations against Petersburg. By June 1864, the wider Union campaign was shifting toward Petersburg. Petersburg was strategically vital because numerous railroad lines passed through the city, carrying supplies toward Richmond and Lee’s army. The struggle for the city would soon become one of the longest and most important campaigns of the Civil War. On June 17, 1864, Private Francis Morrison was serving with Company H of the 85th Pennsylvania Infantry in the Bermuda Hundred area. The situation was extremely dangerous. Union forces were exposed to heavy Confederate fire during the confused operations associated with the movements between Petersburg and the Bermuda Hundred defenses. During the fighting, one of Morrison’s comrades fell wounded in an exposed position. Enemy fire continued across the area. Morrison saw the wounded soldier and voluntarily left relative safety to reach him. He deliberately exposed himself to the Confederate fire in order to bring the wounded man back. The official Medal of Honor citation later preserved the essential facts of the episode in remarkably concise language: Morrison voluntarily exposed himself to heavy fire to bring off a wounded comrade. The simplicity of the citation does not diminish the danger of the act. Morrison was not required to advance toward the wounded man. His decision placed him directly within the enemy’s field of fire at a moment when the larger Union force was already under severe pressure. He nevertheless went forward. Reaching a wounded soldier on a Civil War battlefield was only the beginning of the difficulty. A helpless or severely injured man had to be lifted, supported, or carried, which dramatically reduced the rescuer’s ability to move quickly or protect himself. Morrison accepted that additional danger. His action therefore represented a particularly personal form of battlefield heroism. He did not earn recognition by capturing an enemy flag, leading an assault, or taking a defensive position. His Medal of Honor resulted from voluntarily risking his own life in an attempt to save a fellow soldier. The event of June 17, 1864 became the defining military action of Morrison’s life. His wartime experience, however, did not immediately end after the rescue. The 85th Pennsylvania remained engaged in the operations around Richmond and Petersburg. The regiment later participated in the movements north of the James River associated with Deep Bottom and other operations intended to threaten Confederate communications and draw troops away from Petersburg. About a month after the Medal of Honor action, Morrison himself was severely wounded during fighting in the Deep Bottom area. A musket ball struck him in the breast and passed through his body, leaving a serious wound. The circumstances created a striking reversal. Only weeks earlier Morrison had voluntarily exposed himself to enemy fire to bring a wounded comrade from danger. He now became one of the many Union soldiers suffering severe wounds during the continuing campaign around Richmond and Petersburg. Morrison survived. His survival was significant given the limitations of Civil War medicine. Gunshot wounds to the chest could easily prove fatal from internal injury, blood loss, infection, or later complications. The 85th Pennsylvania continued campaigning until late 1864. The regiment’s three-year term of service concluded in November, when the original organization was mustered out. Veterans and recruits whose service obligations continued were transferred to other Pennsylvania units. Morrison’s highest securely verified military rank remained Private. His extraordinary action of June 17, 1864 was not immediately rewarded with the Medal of Honor. More than thirty-three years passed before the United States formally recognized what he had done. On August 2, 1897, Francis Morrison was presented with the Medal of Honor. The distinction between the action date and the award date is especially important for his historical profile. His act of heroism occurred on June 17, 1864. His Medal of Honor was issued on August 2, 1897. Because his actual award was issued in 1897, the correct historical database designation is Medal of Honor 1896–1903 Army — 1897. This date range identifies the Army Medal of Honor design and ribbon period applicable when Morrison received his decoration. It does not alter the date of the battlefield action itself. The Medal of Honor had originated during the Civil War. Congress authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862 as a national decoration for soldiers whose conduct distinguished them through extraordinary service and heroism. Many soldiers received the medal during the war itself, but a considerable number of Civil War veterans were recognized decades later when their actions were formally reviewed and documented. Francis Morrison belonged to that later group. When he finally received the Medal of Honor in 1897, the teenage soldier who had entered the Union Army had become a middle-aged Civil War veteran. More than three decades separated him from the dangerous battlefield at Bermuda Hundred. The medal transformed an act remembered from wartime service into formally recognized national military history. No additional clasp, star, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified for Morrison’s Medal of Honor. His verified Medal of Honor entry therefore remains one decoration without an additional device. A separate Civil War Campaign Medal has not been included in Morrison’s verified ribbon rack. There is no question that Francis Morrison performed genuine Civil War service. His membership in Company H, 85th Pennsylvania Infantry, and his Medal of Honor action establish that beyond doubt. However, the Civil War Campaign Medal was created decades after the conflict. Under the evidence standard applied to his profile, qualifying wartime service alone does not establish that a particular veteran personally received or was specifically issued the later campaign medal. No sufficiently strong recipient-specific issuance evidence has been established for Francis Morrison. For that reason, the Civil War Campaign Medal remains excluded rather than being added on the basis of eligibility alone. His final verified medal history therefore consists of one award: Medal of Honor 1896–1903 Army — 1897. After the Civil War, Morrison returned to Pennsylvania and spent much of his later life in the region where he had been born. He remained closely associated with Ohiopyle and the surrounding Fayette County community. In his later years Morrison served as postmaster at Ohiopyle, becoming a recognizable public figure within the community. His life had moved far from the battlefields of Virginia, but his identity as a Civil War veteran and Medal of Honor recipient remained an important part of how he was remembered locally. He also maintained connections with the veteran generation that had fought the war. By the early twentieth century, Civil War veterans had become powerful symbols of national memory, and communities throughout Pennsylvania regularly honored surviving Union soldiers at reunions, memorial observances, and funerals. Morrison lived long enough to see the United States transformed dramatically from the nation he had known as a teenage soldier. He witnessed Reconstruction, industrial expansion, the growth of railroads and manufacturing, the Spanish-American War, and the emergence of the United States as a major international power. Through all of those changes, his Medal of Honor remained connected to one decision made under enemy fire in 1864. Francis Morrison died on April 30, 1913, in Hopwood, Pennsylvania. He was sixty-eight years old. His funeral was held at the Baptist Church in Ohiopyle and was reported as one of the largest funerals held in the community in years. Civil War veterans participated as pallbearers, and members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows also attended, reflecting Morrison’s strong connection with both his community and the surviving veterans of his generation. He was buried in Sugar Grove Cemetery near Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. His resting place returned him permanently to the same Fayette County landscape in which his life had begun in 1845. Morrison’s military legacy is ultimately defined by self-sacrifice rather than rank or command. He was never a senior officer. He did not command a regiment or brigade. He remained a Private. Yet on June 17, 1864, when a fellow soldier was wounded and exposed to enemy fire at Bermuda Hundred, Morrison chose to go after him. He knowingly entered the dangerous ground, exposed himself to heavy Confederate fire, reached his comrade, and attempted to bring him from the battlefield. That action became the reason the United States eventually awarded him its highest military decoration. The story gained additional meaning when Morrison himself was seriously wounded during later operations. He understood from personal experience what it meant to be struck down on a battlefield and dependent upon others for survival. Francis Morrison is therefore remembered as a Private of Company H, 85th Pennsylvania Infantry, a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War, a wounded combat soldier, an Ohiopyle community figure and postmaster, and a Medal of Honor recipient whose heroism centered on risking his own life for another soldier. His single verified decoration, Medal of Honor 1896–1903 Army — 1897, remains the official recognition of the courage and selflessness he demonstrated at Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, on June 17, 1864.