Frank Baldwin

Frank Dwight Baldwin was born on 26 June 1842 near Manchester, Michigan, the son of Francis Leonard Baldwin and Betsy Ann Richards Baldwin. He grew up in Constantine, Michigan, with two half-sisters and received his early education there. As a young man he briefly attended Hillsdale Baptist College, later Hillsdale College. His life might easily have followed a civilian course, but the outbreak of the American Civil War changed it completely.

Baldwin was only nineteen when he entered military service in September 1861 as a second lieutenant in the Michigan Horse Guards. That first period of service was brief, and he was mustered out in November. He returned to the Army the following year, joining the 19th Michigan Infantry as a first lieutenant.

The young officer soon discovered the realities of war. During the Tennessee campaigns Baldwin was captured by Confederate forces and held as a prisoner before being exchanged. He returned to duty and continued campaigning with the 19th Michigan. By January 1864 he had been promoted to captain.

During the Atlanta Campaign Baldwin commanded Company D of the 19th Michigan Infantry. At Peach Tree Creek, Georgia, in July 1864, his company came under intense Confederate attack. Baldwin led a countercharge personally, advancing ahead of his own soldiers and penetrating the Confederate line. There he captured two armed Confederate officers and seized the guidon of a Georgia regiment before returning with his prisoners and trophy.

The action eventually brought Baldwin the Medal of Honor, although recognition came more than twenty-seven years later, when the medal was presented on 3 December 1891.

His official citation records:

“Led his company in a countercharge at Peach Tree Creek, Ga., under a galling fire ahead of his own men, and singly entered the enemy’s line, capturing and bringing back two commissioned officers, fully armed, besides a guidon of a Georgia regiment.”

Baldwin remained with the 19th Michigan through the closing campaigns of the Civil War and was mustered out of volunteer service on 10 June 1865. By then he had spent much of his early adulthood campaigning, had experienced captivity, and had risen from a teenage second lieutenant to an experienced company commander.

Civilian life did not hold him for long. Baldwin returned to Hillsdale College after the war and also experimented with farming, but neither replaced the Army. In February 1866 he accepted a commission as a second lieutenant in the Regular Army’s 19th United States Infantry. He was soon promoted to first lieutenant and subsequently served with units on the rapidly expanding western frontier.

On 10 January 1867 Baldwin married Alice Blackwood. They would have one daughter, Juanita. Alice remained an important figure throughout his life and later preserved his experiences by editing his memoirs.

Baldwin’s frontier service became almost as remarkable as his Civil War career. Serving principally with the 5th United States Infantry and closely associated with Colonel, later General, Nelson A. Miles, he participated in campaigns involving the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Lakota and other Native American peoples during the long and often brutal conflict between the United States and Indigenous nations of the Plains.

On 8 November 1874, at McClellan’s Creek in the Texas Panhandle, First Lieutenant Baldwin commanded two companies against a substantially larger force associated with the Cheyenne leader Grey Beard. Two young girls were being held captive. Rather than wait for reinforcements, which risked allowing the group to escape with or kill the captives, Baldwin elected to attack.

The assault succeeded and the two girls were rescued. For this action Baldwin eventually received a second Medal of Honor, presented in 1894.

His second citation states:

“Rescued, with two companies, two white girls by a voluntary attack upon Indians whose superior numbers and strong position would have warranted delay for reinforcements, but which delay would have permitted the Indians to escape and kill their captives.”

Baldwin thus became one of the exceptionally small number of American servicemen to receive the Medal of Honor twice, and his two awards recognized actions in two different periods of American military history.

His frontier career continued. Baldwin served under Nelson A. Miles and became an experienced scout and field commander during operations against Native American forces. On 18 December 1876 he led an attack against a camp on the Red Water River in Montana during operations associated with Sitting Bull. He subsequently participated in campaigning connected with Crazy Horse. His conduct in these operations resulted in brevet recognition for gallantry.

Baldwin remained in the Regular Army as the frontier campaigns diminished. He was promoted to captain in the 5th Infantry in 1879. In 1890 he received brevet advancement recognizing earlier gallantry, and in April 1898 he reached the permanent rank of major.

When war broke out between the United States and Spain in 1898, Baldwin was appointed lieutenant colonel and Inspector General of Volunteers. He served as Inspector General of the Third Army Corps during the mobilization. After returning to the Regular Army, he became lieutenant colonel of the 4th United States Infantry in December 1899.

Baldwin subsequently went to the Philippines, where the United States was fighting a very different conflict from the conventional war against Spain. Serving with the 4th Infantry, he took part in operations during the Philippine-American War and was involved in the campaign that resulted in the surrender of Filipino General Mariano Trías.

In July 1901 Baldwin was promoted to colonel and given command of the newly organized 27th United States Infantry. He returned to the Philippines with the regiment in 1902 and was sent to Mindanao, where American forces were attempting to extend their authority into the Lake Lanao region.

On 2 May 1902 Baldwin led his force in a major action against Moro defenders at Bayan. His troops fought their way through strongly defended positions in a difficult engagement that produced substantial casualties. The operation brought Baldwin considerable military attention and contributed to his promotion to brigadier general in June 1902.

After more than four decades associated with the Army, Baldwin retired from active federal service on his sixty-fourth birthday, 26 June 1906. His military story, however, was not quite finished. In 1915 Congress advanced him on the retired list to the rank of major general.

When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, the seventy-four-year-old Baldwin again answered a call to service. He was appointed Adjutant General of Colorado and helped administer the state’s military organization during the wartime mobilization. He remained in the position until 1919.

Baldwin spent his later years in Colorado, working on an account of his extraordinary military career and remaining active in veterans’ organizations. His wife Alice later drew upon his papers and recollections in preserving the story of his service.

Major General Frank Dwight Baldwin died in Denver, Colorado, on 22 April 1923 at the age of eighty. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where Alice was later buried beside him.

Baldwin’s career had stretched from the opening year of the American Civil War to the First World War era. He had served as a teenage volunteer, Civil War company commander, prisoner of war, frontier officer, scout and campaigner, regimental commander in the Philippines, general officer and state adjutant general.

Most remarkably, acts separated by a decade and occurring in entirely different conflicts brought him two Medals of Honor. His first recognized the young Civil War captain who charged ahead of his company into the Confederate line at Peach Tree Creek. His second recognized the frontier lieutenant who chose immediate action at McClellan’s Creek when the lives of two captives were at stake.