George E. Read

George E. Read was born in Rhode Island in 1838 and became a sailor in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. His name is permanently associated with one of the most celebrated single-ship naval engagements of the conflict: the battle between USS Kearsarge and the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France, on June 19, 1864. Serving as a Seaman and first loader of Kearsarge's No. 2 gun, Read performed his duties with such steadiness and courage under enemy fire that he was later awarded the Medal of Honor.

Read entered naval service during a period when the Union Navy was expanding rapidly to blockade Confederate ports, pursue enemy commerce raiders, protect Union shipping, and support military operations along the coast and inland waterways. His documented Civil War service eventually placed him aboard USS Kearsarge, a steam-powered sloop of war that became one of the best-known Union warships of the conflict.

USS Kearsarge had been commissioned in January 1862 and was deployed to European waters. One of her principal missions became the pursuit of Confederate commerce raiders operating against United States merchant shipping. These Confederate vessels could remain at sea for extended periods, attacking commercial shipping far beyond the American coastline and forcing the Union Navy to conduct a truly international search for them.

Among the most successful of these Confederate raiders was CSS Alabama, commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes. During her career Alabama cruised across vast areas of the Atlantic and other seas, capturing or destroying numerous Union merchant vessels. Her activities caused considerable disruption to American commerce and made her one of the most important targets of the Union Navy.

By June 1864 Alabama had entered the French port of Cherbourg. USS Kearsarge, commanded by Captain John A. Winslow, arrived off the French coast and waited outside territorial waters. The confrontation that followed would become one of the most famous naval duels of the Civil War.

On June 19, 1864, Alabama left Cherbourg and steamed into international waters to meet Kearsarge. Crowds gathered along the French coast to watch the approaching engagement. The two steam-powered warships maneuvered offshore and soon opened fire on one another.

George E. Read was serving aboard Kearsarge as a Seaman. During the battle his station was at the ship's No. 2 gun, where he served as first loader. This was a demanding position within a naval gun crew. Effective operation of a large naval gun required coordinated teamwork, physical strength, discipline, and strict attention to procedure. Each man in the gun division had a specific responsibility, and any breakdown in that sequence could slow the rate of fire or place the entire crew in danger.

As first loader, Read's task placed him directly within the demanding cycle of preparing the gun for repeated firing. The engagement was not a distant or abstract naval operation. Confederate shells were striking and passing around Kearsarge while her gun crews continued serving their weapons. Maintaining discipline at a gun station under those conditions required exceptional steadiness.

The battle lasted approximately an hour and ten minutes. Both vessels maneuvered in broad circles while firing into one another, but Kearsarge's gunnery gradually inflicted devastating damage on Alabama. The Confederate ship eventually became incapable of continuing the fight and began to sink.

Throughout this bitter engagement, George Read remained at his station. His conduct attracted the attention of his divisional officer, who specifically recommended him for gallantry. The official Medal of Honor citation later emphasized Read's “marked coolness and good conduct” while serving as first loader of the No. 2 gun under fire.

The wording of the citation is important because Read's award did not depend on a single dramatic movement such as capturing a flag or boarding an enemy ship. His heroism was demonstrated through the disciplined performance of his combat duty during a sustained naval engagement. He continued carrying out the demanding work of the gun crew while his ship was under enemy fire, helping Kearsarge maintain the effective gunnery that ultimately defeated Alabama.

CSS Alabama sank following the engagement. Kearsarge immediately participated in the rescue of survivors from the Confederate ship, while other survivors were picked up by nearby vessels. The destruction of Alabama ended the career of the Confederacy's most famous commerce raider and gave the Union Navy a major victory in European waters.

The victory also made USS Kearsarge internationally famous. The battle demonstrated the importance of disciplined naval gunnery and the ability of Union naval forces to pursue Confederate raiders far beyond American waters. George Read was one of a group of Kearsarge sailors later awarded the Medal of Honor for their conduct during the battle.

Read's service details for the action are firmly established. His branch was the United States Navy, his rank was Seaman, his ship was USS Kearsarge, and his Medal of Honor action occurred off Cherbourg, France, on June 19, 1864. Seaman is also his highest verified naval rank; no reliably documented later promotion has been established for his final profile.

The Medal of Honor itself was still a relatively new decoration when Read earned it. Congress had authorized the Navy Medal of Honor in 1861, shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War. During the conflict it served as the principal federal decoration for recognizing extraordinary conduct by enlisted sailors and Marines.

Read's award belongs directly to this earliest period in the history of the Medal of Honor. He and other Civil War naval recipients were formally recognized through Navy General Order No. 45, dated December 31, 1864. His decoration therefore belongs to the project's historical database category Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1864.

No separate star, clasp, bar, or other device has been verified for George E. Read's Medal of Honor. His final verified award is therefore one Medal of Honor without an additional device or clasp.

The distinction between Read's Medal of Honor and a possible Navy Civil War Campaign Medal is important. His service aboard USS Kearsarge unquestionably placed him in qualifying Civil War naval service, and his participation in the battle with Alabama is fully established. However, the Navy Civil War Campaign Medal was created decades after the conflict itself.

Historical service eligibility alone does not demonstrate that Read personally received or was specifically issued that later campaign medal. Under the evidence standard applied to his profile, recipient-specific documentation would be required before such a medal could be added to his published ribbon rack. In the absence of sufficiently strong individual issuance evidence, the Navy Civil War Campaign Medal remains excluded.

His verified medal history is therefore intentionally limited to the Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1864, with no device or clasp. This does not minimize his Civil War service. Rather, it ensures that every decoration shown in his record is independently supported by evidence.

The surviving historical record is considerably more detailed regarding Read's Medal of Honor service than his later civilian life. After the Civil War he survived for many decades, living long enough to see the United States Navy transform dramatically from the wooden and steam warships of the Civil War era into the steel fleet of the early twentieth century.

Read remained associated with Rhode Island, the state to which his Medal of Honor service was accredited. Reliable institutional records identify him as having died in 1910. He was buried at Little Neck Cemetery in Riverside, Rhode Island.

By the time of his death, almost half a century had passed since the battle off Cherbourg. Yet the action of June 19, 1864, remained the defining event of his military legacy. USS Kearsarge's victory over CSS Alabama had become one of the most famous episodes in United States naval history, and the enlisted sailors who served her guns were an essential part of that success.

George E. Read represented the disciplined gun crews on which nineteenth-century naval warfare depended. He was not the commanding officer who planned the engagement or the officer who maneuvered the ship. He was an enlisted Seaman whose responsibility was to help keep a naval gun operating efficiently under enemy fire.

His Medal of Honor citation captured precisely that form of courage. As first loader of the No. 2 gun, Read displayed marked coolness and good conduct during the engagement and earned the recommendation of his divisional officer for gallantry under fire.

George E. Read is therefore remembered as a United States Navy Seaman, a combat sailor of USS Kearsarge, a participant in the destruction of CSS Alabama, and a recipient of the Medal of Honor. His single verified decoration, Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1864, preserves the official recognition of the courage and discipline he displayed at his gun station off Cherbourg on June 19, 1864.