Gardner C. Hawkins

Gardner C. Hawkins was born on February 11, 1846, in Pomfret, Windsor County, Vermont, and became one of the youngest Vermont soldiers whose Civil War service ultimately earned the Medal of Honor. His verified military record places him in the United States Army with the 3rd Vermont Infantry, specifically Company E. National Archives service indexing shows that Hawkins entered the regiment as a Private and eventually rose to First Lieutenant, demonstrating a significant progression from enlisted service to commissioned leadership during the war. His service was associated with Woodstock, Vermont, the locality to which his military record was accredited. The 3rd Vermont Infantry was part of the Union Army's Vermont Brigade and served primarily in the Eastern Theater, where it participated in major campaigns of the Army of the Potomac and later the Army of the Shenandoah. The regiment experienced prolonged and severe combat during the war, including campaigning in Virginia, the Maryland Campaign, the Overland Campaign, the Shenandoah Valley and the final operations around Petersburg. Hawkins therefore served within a regiment that had accumulated extensive battlefield experience by the time of his defining action in April 1865. By the final weeks of the Civil War, Hawkins had become a First Lieutenant and was performing the duties of acting adjutant of the regiment. An acting adjutant occupied an important staff position, assisting the regimental commander with orders, communications, formation and battlefield coordination. This role placed Hawkins in a position where leadership and personal example could directly influence the behavior of soldiers during moments of battlefield crisis. His Medal of Honor action occurred on April 2, 1865, at Petersburg, Virginia, during the massive Union assault that finally broke the Confederate defensive lines surrounding the city. Petersburg had been under siege for many months and was strategically vital because its railroads and road network supported Richmond, the Confederate capital. By early April 1865, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's Union armies had stretched Confederate defenses to the breaking point. On April 2, Union forces launched coordinated assaults against the entrenched Confederate positions. The VI Corps, which included Vermont troops, was heavily involved in the breakthrough. During the attack, Hawkins was serving as First Lieutenant and acting adjutant of the 3rd Vermont Infantry. The Union soldiers were advancing against well-defended works under concentrated enemy fire when portions of the line began to waver. The official Medal of Honor account records that Hawkins recognized the danger at this critical moment and moved forward rather than remaining behind the assaulting soldiers. He sprang to the front of the wavering line and encouraged the men to continue their advance. His action was not simply administrative leadership from a distance; he placed himself directly in the exposed forward area where the enemy's fire was most intense. During this effort Hawkins was dangerously wounded. Despite the seriousness of the wound, he refused to leave the battlefield while the attack remained unresolved. He continued with the soldiers until the Confederate works were captured. This combination of personal leadership, exposure to enemy fire, serious injury and refusal to withdraw until the military objective had been secured formed the basis of his later Medal of Honor recognition. Hawkins's action is significant because it illustrates the importance of junior officers during Civil War combat. A regiment under severe fire could lose momentum quickly if officers were killed, wounded or unable to maintain cohesion. Hawkins's decision to move forward and encourage soldiers at the precise moment when the line was wavering helped restore confidence during the assault. His Medal of Honor citation therefore focuses not on the capture of a flag or an individual enemy position by himself but on battlefield leadership under direct fire and his determination to remain in action despite being dangerously wounded. The assault of April 2 proved decisive. Union forces penetrated the Petersburg defenses, making the continued Confederate occupation of both Petersburg and Richmond impossible. Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond that night, beginning the retreat that ended with the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House only one week later. Hawkins's Medal of Honor action therefore occurred during one of the final and most consequential Union offensives of the entire Civil War. His official service record identifies Company E, 3rd Vermont Infantry as his correct unit during the Medal of Honor action. This is an important historical correction because some later secondary sources have listed Company D. The stronger institutional and official records identify Company E, so Company E is the correct unit for the project. Hawkins's Civil War muster-out rank was First Lieutenant, while institutional Medal of Honor records later list Colonel as his highest rank. These two facts should not be confused. First Lieutenant was his verified rank during the heroic action and at the conclusion of his recorded Civil War service with the 3rd Vermont Infantry, while Colonel represents the highest rank associated with his later military record. The rank distinction is important for the VictoriaCross.ca database because the project's rules require the rank at the heroic action to remain separate from the highest rank eventually attained. Hawkins did not receive the Medal of Honor immediately after the Civil War. More than twenty-eight years passed between his battlefield action at Petersburg and formal recognition. On September 30, 1893, Gardner C. Hawkins was presented with the Medal of Honor for his conduct on April 2, 1865. The award was made during his lifetime and was therefore not posthumous. The Medal of Honor itself originated during the Civil War, with the Army Medal of Honor authorized by Congress in 1862. During the war and in the decades that followed, many Civil War cases continued to be reviewed, resulting in decorations being issued long after the original battlefield actions. Hawkins belonged to this group of veterans whose Civil War heroism was formally recognized decades later. The separation between the action date and the presentation date is especially important when choosing the historically correct medal version for the VictoriaCross.ca database. Hawkins performed his heroic action in 1865, but the Medal of Honor was actually issued on September 30, 1893. Because the medal was issued during the Army Medal of Honor period covering 1862 through 1895, the correct database entry is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1893. The year 1893 refers to the actual issuance of the decoration, not to the date of his heroism. His action remains firmly identified as Petersburg, Virginia, April 2, 1865. No additional bar, clasp, star, oak leaf cluster, numeral or other device has been independently verified for Hawkins's Medal of Honor. His final Medal of Honor entry should therefore remain plain, without any device or clasp. A Civil War Campaign Medal has also not been added to his verified ribbon rack. Hawkins unquestionably performed qualifying Civil War service and survived until well into the twentieth century, but the historical evidence standard required for this project distinguishes general eligibility from recipient-specific entitlement. Service during the Civil War does not automatically prove that an individual veteran was personally issued or formally entitled to the later Civil War Campaign Medal. No sufficiently strong recipient-specific medal roll, issuance record, named surviving medal or equivalent authoritative documentation has yet been established for Gardner C. Hawkins. For that reason, the Civil War Campaign Medal remains HOLD / NOT VERIFIED and should not appear in the final published ribbon rack unless stronger individual evidence is located. After the war Hawkins lived for nearly half a century, spending his later years in Massachusetts. He remained part of the generation of Union veterans whose wartime experiences became closely connected with veteran organizations and the preservation of Civil War memory. His Medal of Honor presentation in 1893 ensured that his conduct at Petersburg became part of the official historical record of the nation's highest military decoration. Hawkins died on December 15, 1913, in Winthrop, Massachusetts, at the age of sixty-seven. He was buried at Lindenwood Cemetery in Stoneham, Massachusetts. His final verified military profile therefore records Gardner C. Hawkins as United States Army, First Lieutenant at the Medal of Honor action, highest recorded rank Colonel, Company E, 3rd Vermont Infantry, American Civil War. His defining action took place at Petersburg on April 2, 1865, while he was serving as acting adjutant. When Union lines began to waver under accurate Confederate fire, Hawkins moved forward to encourage the soldiers, was dangerously wounded and nevertheless refused to leave the battlefield until the enemy defenses had been captured. His final verified decoration is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1893, presented September 30, 1893, with no verified device or clasp. The Civil War Campaign Medal remains excluded because individual entitlement has not been demonstrated. Hawkins's legacy is ultimately that of a soldier who began his service as a Private, rose to commissioned leadership, and in one of the Civil War's final decisive assaults demonstrated extraordinary courage by remaining at the front after being seriously wounded and helping sustain his regiment's advance until the Confederate works at Petersburg were taken.