George H. Plowman

George H. Plowman was born on March 10, 1840, in Oxford, England. He later emigrated to the United States and became associated with Washington, District of Columbia, the location to which his military record was accredited. When the American Civil War engulfed the country, Plowman entered Union military service and eventually became a soldier of the 3rd Maryland Infantry in the United States Army.

Plowman's military career demonstrates the importance of distinguishing between the rank a soldier held during his heroic action and the highest rank he later attained. At the time of the action for which he received the Medal of Honor, he was Sergeant Major of the 3rd Maryland Infantry. He later rose to the rank of Captain, which is therefore his highest verified military rank.

The 3rd Maryland Infantry served in the Union Army during some of the most demanding operations of the Civil War. By the summer of 1864, the regiment was serving with the IX Corps of the Army of the Potomac and became involved in the campaign against Petersburg, Virginia. Petersburg was one of the most strategically important transportation centers in the Confederacy because several railroads supplying Richmond and General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia passed through or near the city.

After the costly Overland Campaign of 1864, Union forces crossed the James River and moved rapidly toward Petersburg. Beginning on June 15, Federal troops launched a series of major assaults against the Confederate defenses surrounding the city. The fighting continued through June 18 and marked the beginning of what developed into the long Siege of Petersburg.

The 3rd Maryland Infantry participated in these opening battles. On June 17, 1864, Sergeant Major George H. Plowman became involved in the action that would permanently define his military legacy.

Civil War regimental colors carried enormous practical and symbolic importance. Flags allowed soldiers to locate their units amid smoke, confusion, terrain, and rapidly shifting battle lines. They were also symbols of a regiment's honor. Losing a set of colors to the enemy was considered a serious humiliation, while rescuing or capturing colors under fire was regarded as an act of exceptional courage.

During the fighting at Petersburg, the colors of the 2nd Pennsylvania Provisional Artillery were lost amid the violent combat. The Pennsylvania organization, formally connected with the 2nd Pennsylvania Provisional Heavy Artillery, was also engaged in the Petersburg operations as part of the IX Corps.

Plowman took action and recaptured those colors.

The surviving official Medal of Honor citation is remarkably concise, stating simply that he "recaptured the colors of the 2d Pennsylvania Provisional Artillery." The brevity of the citation should not obscure the danger involved. Regimental colors stood prominently above formations and naturally attracted enemy attention. Recovering lost colors in the middle of an active engagement required a soldier to expose himself in an area where combat had already become confused and dangerous enough for the flag to be lost.

Plowman's action was particularly noteworthy because the colors did not belong to his own 3rd Maryland Infantry. He acted to recover the flag of another Union organization. His conduct therefore represented both individual courage and a broader sense of responsibility toward fellow Union soldiers fighting beside his regiment.

The opening assaults at Petersburg failed to produce the rapid Union victory that commanders had hoped for. Confederate forces strengthened their defensive positions, and the fighting gradually transformed into a prolonged siege characterized by trenches, forts, artillery positions, raids, and repeated attempts to cut Confederate supply lines.

For Plowman, however, June 17, 1864, had already become the defining day of his service. His recovery of the Pennsylvania colors was formally recognized before the end of that same year.

On December 1, 1864, George H. Plowman was presented with the Medal of Honor for his conduct at Petersburg. Unlike many Civil War Medal of Honor recipients whose actions were recognized decades after the war, Plowman's decoration was awarded only months after his heroic action and while the conflict was still underway.

The Medal of Honor itself was still a relatively new decoration. Congress had authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862, only two years before Plowman's action. During the Civil War, the United States possessed no extensive system of military decorations comparable to those developed in later generations. The Medal of Honor therefore became the principal national decoration recognizing exceptional military conduct.

Because Plowman's Medal of Honor was issued in 1864, the historically appropriate representation in the VictoriaCross.ca database is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1864. The date range refers to the applicable historical Medal of Honor period and design convention. His actual heroic action remained the recovery of the colors at Petersburg on June 17, 1864.

Plowman received one Medal of Honor. No additional clasp, star, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified for his decoration. His Medal of Honor should therefore be displayed without any additional device.

His verified medal record must also distinguish the Medal of Honor from the later Army Civil War Campaign Medal. Plowman's service during the Civil War is unquestioned. He served in a Union infantry regiment, participated in the Petersburg operations, and received the Medal of Honor for an action performed during the conflict.

However, Civil War service alone does not prove that an individual personally received or was specifically entitled to the Civil War Campaign Medal established decades later. Under the evidence standard used for his database profile, recipient-specific documentation is required before such a medal can be added.

No sufficiently strong individual issue record, medal roll, named surviving medal, or equivalent documentary evidence has been established showing that George H. Plowman personally received the Army Civil War Campaign Medal. It therefore remains outside his verified ribbon rack rather than being added solely on the basis of apparent eligibility.

Plowman's final verified medal record is consequently concise: one Medal of Honor, issued in 1864, without a device or clasp.

His military career did not end with the rank he held at Petersburg. Although he was Sergeant Major during his Medal of Honor action, he eventually attained the rank of Captain. This later promotion represents the highest verified rank of his military career and must remain distinct from the Sergeant Major rank attached to his Medal of Honor citation.

Plowman survived the Civil War and lived for more than half a century after the conflict. During those decades, the United States changed dramatically, and the Army in which he had served evolved from the mass volunteer forces of the Civil War into a professional force that fought in later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century conflicts.

He eventually lived in Oklahoma. George H. Plowman died on February 27, 1921, in Woodward, Oklahoma, at the age of eighty. His remains were buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, one of the country's most important military cemeteries. His grave is located in Section 3 and is recognized as the burial place of a Medal of Honor recipient.

Plowman's military legacy remains centered on one brief but significant statement in his official citation: he recaptured the colors of the 2nd Pennsylvania Provisional Artillery.

Behind those few words was a battlefield filled with confusion, fire, advancing and retreating soldiers, and the symbolic importance attached to every regiment's flag. Plowman recognized that the colors had been lost and acted to recover them during the fighting at Petersburg.

For that act, Sergeant Major George H. Plowman received the Medal of Honor on December 1, 1864. He later attained the rank of Captain and lived until 1921, carrying the distinction of having been formally recognized for courage during one of the most important campaigns of the final year of the American Civil War.

George H. Plowman is therefore remembered as a United States Army soldier, Sergeant Major of the 3rd Maryland Infantry at the time of his heroic action, later Captain, veteran of the American Civil War, participant in the opening Petersburg operations, and Medal of Honor recipient.

His final verified award record remains Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1864 — No device or clasp.