Frank Bois

Frank Bois was born on September 13, 1841, in Quebec, Canada East. He was Canadian by birth but became closely connected with Massachusetts before the American Civil War. By the time war broke out between the United States and the Confederacy in 1861, Bois was living in the Northampton, Massachusetts, area and chose to enter Union military service. His Civil War career is particularly interesting because it involved service in two branches of the United States military. Bois initially enlisted in the Union Army and served as a Private in Company C of the 10th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He entered that regiment in June 1861, at the beginning of a conflict that would eventually place him in one of the most dangerous naval operations of the Vicksburg Campaign. The 10th Massachusetts Infantry was organized for three years of service and became part of the Army of the Potomac. Bois’s initial military experience therefore came as an infantry soldier rather than as a sailor. His time in the Army introduced him to military discipline and wartime service before his career took a very different direction. In September 1862, Bois transferred from the Army to the United States Navy. This change of service branch became the decisive turning point in his military life. Within the Navy, Bois demonstrated the seamanship necessary to serve as a Quartermaster. In the nineteenth-century Navy, Quartermaster was an experienced enlisted rating rather than the supply specialty associated with the same word in some later military usage. A naval Quartermaster assisted with navigation, steering, signals, flags, and duties connected with the safe handling and operation of the ship. By 1863, Bois was serving as Quartermaster aboard USS Cincinnati, one of the Union Navy’s ironclad gunboats operating on the western rivers. USS Cincinnati was part of the naval force supporting Union efforts to gain control of the Mississippi River. The river was one of the most strategically important transportation routes of the Civil War. Confederate control of fortified positions along the Mississippi divided Union-held territory and maintained an important connection between the eastern and western sections of the Confederacy. Vicksburg, Mississippi, represented the most formidable remaining Confederate stronghold on the river. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a sweeping bend in the Mississippi, Vicksburg was protected by heavy artillery batteries commanding the river approaches. Capturing the city became one of the principal Union objectives of 1863. Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s army conducted the land campaign against Vicksburg while Union naval forces operated on the Mississippi in support of the siege. On May 27, 1863, USS Cincinnati was ordered into action against the Confederate river batteries. The mission was extremely hazardous. The gunboat moved downstream toward the Confederate positions in an effort to engage the batteries and, if possible, provide useful fire against defenses connected with the Union operations ashore. Confederate artillery located on the high bluffs had an important advantage because its plunging fire could strike the relatively vulnerable upper surfaces of the ironclad. USS Cincinnati came under intense concentrated fire. Confederate artillery shells and solid shot repeatedly struck the vessel. Although the crew continued fighting, the damage accumulated rapidly. Shots penetrated the gunboat below the waterline, while other rounds struck critical parts of the vessel. One projectile entered the shell room. Additional shots penetrated below the waterline and caused water to pour into the ship. The pilot house was hit, steering equipment was damaged, guns were disabled, and the Cincinnati’s ability to remain afloat steadily disappeared. Throughout this increasingly desperate engagement, Quartermaster Frank Bois remained responsible for signaling duties. The ship’s flag staffs became particular casualties of the bombardment. One after another, the staffs carrying Cincinnati’s colors were shot away by Confederate fire. As the vessel continued sinking, the disappearance of the flag created a powerful symbolic problem for a nineteenth-century warship. For sailors of the period, a vessel’s colors represented both national identity and the fighting spirit of the ship. Allowing the flag to disappear while still engaged could potentially be misunderstood as surrender. Bois acted immediately. Under continuing enemy fire, he took the United States flag and secured it to what remained of the forward flagstaff. He nailed the colors to the stump of the forestaff. The action ensured that USS Cincinnati would continue displaying the national colors even as the badly damaged gunboat went down. Bois’s official Medal of Honor record specifically praised both aspects of his conduct: his conspicuous coolness while making signals during the engagement and his action in securing the flag after the Cincinnati’s staffs had been shot away. His courage was displayed while the vessel was undergoing catastrophic destruction around him. The Cincinnati continued firing until its condition became hopeless. With water entering rapidly, the gunboat was maneuvered toward the riverbank in an attempt to prevent it from sinking in deep water. The vessel eventually went down near the Mississippi shore. The loss of the ship was accompanied by serious casualties among the crew. Sailors struggled to reach safety while Confederate artillery continued firing. Several Cincinnati crewmen performed additional acts of courage while helping wounded comrades escape from the sinking vessel. The actions aboard USS Cincinnati on May 27 produced several Medal of Honor recipients, reflecting the extraordinary conditions endured by the crew. Frank Bois’s individual act remained distinctive. His Medal of Honor was not awarded because he commanded the ship or operated one of its principal guns. It recognized the calmness and discipline of a Quartermaster who continued performing his signaling responsibilities and refused to allow his ship’s colors to disappear while the vessel was being destroyed. The Union Navy recognized Bois remarkably quickly. His heroism took place on May 27, 1863. Only weeks later, on July 10, 1863, Navy General Order No. 17 formally listed Frank Bois among the sailors awarded the Medal of Honor. This makes his Medal of Honor substantially different from many Civil War awards that were approved decades after the war. Bois received his recognition during the Civil War itself. For the historical database, his correct verified decoration is therefore Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1863. The Navy Medal of Honor had been authorized by Congress in December 1861, before the Army version was established in 1862. During the Civil War it was intended to recognize enlisted sailors and Marines who particularly distinguished themselves through gallantry and exceptional seamanlike conduct. Bois’s award belongs directly to this earliest period in the history of the Medal of Honor. His action also reflected the naval culture from which the original Navy decoration emerged. He demonstrated courage, professional competence, devotion to duty, and what the Navy considered exemplary conduct under enemy fire. No additional clasp, bar, star, or other device has been verified for Frank Bois’s Medal of Honor. His verified Medal of Honor therefore remains a single award without an additional device. A Navy Civil War Campaign Medal has not been included in his verified ribbon rack. Bois unquestionably served in the Union Navy during the Civil War and survived for many years after the Navy’s Civil War campaign medal was created. He therefore lived into the period when such a medal could potentially have been issued to qualifying veterans. However, survival into that period and qualifying Civil War naval service establish possible eligibility rather than recipient-specific entitlement. No sufficiently strong individual issuance record, named medal, official medal roll entry, or equivalent evidence has been established showing that Frank Bois personally received the Navy Civil War Campaign Medal. For that reason, it remains excluded from his verified rack. His final confirmed decoration is therefore Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1863. Bois’s wider military career is also important because he had entered the war through the United States Army before transferring to the Navy. He therefore represents a genuine example of Civil War multi-service experience: first as a Private in the 10th Massachusetts Infantry and later as a Navy sailor. His heroic action, however, unquestionably belongs to the United States Navy phase of his career. At the time of the Medal of Honor action, his rank was Quartermaster aboard USS Cincinnati. Following his Civil War naval service, Bois eventually returned to civilian life. The detailed surviving record of his postwar occupation and family life is much thinner than the documentation surrounding his Medal of Honor action. Rather than expanding uncertain details, his later years are best understood through what can be securely established: he eventually moved west and became a resident of Washington State. By the early twentieth century, Bois was part of Washington’s community of aging Union veterans. He lived in the Seattle region and was connected with the network of Civil War veterans represented by the Grand Army of the Republic and the state’s veterans’ institutions. His surviving pension and veterans’ records demonstrate that his Civil War service continued to shape his later life many decades after the conflict had ended. Bois lived long enough to witness enormous changes in both the United States and the Navy. When he had fought aboard Cincinnati in 1863, river warfare was dominated by steam-powered wooden vessels and ironclad gunboats fighting at comparatively short range against shore artillery. By the time he reached old age, the United States possessed steel battleships, modern naval artillery, submarines, and an increasingly global naval presence. Yet his reputation remained permanently linked to the Mississippi River and the sinking of USS Cincinnati. Frank Bois died on January 25, 1920, at the age of seventy-eight. Surviving historical records differ on whether his exact place of death should be recorded as Seattle or Orting, Washington, so the secure conclusion is that he died in Washington State. He was buried in the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in Seattle, Washington. His grave is located among hundreds of Union veterans buried there, permanently connecting the Canadian-born sailor with the American Civil War generation in the Pacific Northwest. Frank Bois’s life followed an unusual historical path. He was born in Canada. He entered the American Civil War as a Union infantryman. He transferred from the United States Army to the United States Navy. He became a Quartermaster aboard an ironclad gunboat. And on May 27, 1863, while USS Cincinnati was being destroyed by Confederate artillery at Vicksburg, he continued calmly performing his signaling duties. When the ship’s flag staffs were shot away, Bois refused to allow Cincinnati’s colors to disappear. Under heavy fire, he secured the flag to the shattered stump of the forestaff. The gunboat sank with its colors still displayed. Only weeks afterward, the United States Navy recognized his courage through General Order No. 17 and awarded him the Medal of Honor. Frank Bois is therefore remembered as a Union Army veteran, United States Navy Quartermaster, combat sailor of USS Cincinnati, survivor of the Vicksburg operations, and Medal of Honor recipient whose action became one of the most memorable examples of devotion to a ship’s colors during the American Civil War. His single verified decoration, Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1863, remains the official recognition of his extraordinary coolness, professional discipline, and courage aboard USS Cincinnati during the attack on the Vicksburg batteries on May 27, 1863.