George W. Corliss

Shot Down—But He Kept the Flag Flying

George W. Corliss was born in Connecticut in 1834. Much of his early civilian life is only lightly documented, but by the outbreak of the American Civil War he had entered military service from Connecticut and became an officer in the 5th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. His military career would ultimately include front-line combat, serious wounds, Confederate captivity, continued wartime service despite permanent disability, and recognition with the Medal of Honor more than three decades after the battle that defined his legacy.

Corliss served as Captain of Company C, 5th Connecticut Infantry. The regiment was organized in 1861 and soon joined Union operations in the Eastern Theater. Its soldiers served in the Shenandoah Valley and took part in a succession of difficult campaigns at a time when the Union Army was still developing its battlefield organization and learning how to confront experienced Confederate forces.

By the summer of 1862, the 5th Connecticut was operating under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks during the campaign in northern Virginia. Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was moving against Union forces in the region, and the opposing armies eventually met near Cedar Mountain, Virginia.

On August 9, 1862, the Battle of Cedar Mountain erupted into intense fighting. Union infantry advanced against Confederate positions while artillery and musket fire swept across the battlefield. The 5th Connecticut Infantry became heavily engaged, and Captain Corliss found himself in the middle of the regiment’s struggle to maintain its formation under severe enemy fire.

In Civil War combat, a regiment’s colors were far more than ceremonial symbols. Amid smoke, noise, broken formations, and limited battlefield communication, the flag helped soldiers identify where their regiment stood and where they were expected to rally. Color bearers consequently occupied one of the most dangerous positions in an infantry regiment because enemy fire frequently concentrated on the visible flag.

During the fighting at Cedar Mountain, the color bearer of the 5th Connecticut was killed and the regimental flag fell. Corliss immediately seized the fallen colors and carried them forward.

He advanced with the flag despite the severe Confederate fire directed against the Union line. The act placed him in an exceptionally exposed position, but he continued forward rather than allowing the regiment’s colors to remain on the ground.

Then Corliss himself was shot down.

Although seriously wounded and permanently disabled, he refused to allow the flag to fall with him. From the ground, he planted the flagstaff into the earth and kept the colors standing and visible while the battle continued around him.

That single image became the defining moment of his military career: an officer wounded so severely that his active fighting service would never be the same, yet still ensuring that his regiment’s colors remained flying.

Corliss suffered a serious wound to his leg during the action. His condition prevented him from withdrawing with the Union forces, and surviving accounts record that he fell into Confederate hands after the battle. He subsequently endured a period as a prisoner of war and was held at Libby Prison in Richmond.

He remained in Confederate captivity until he was exchanged, after which he returned to Union control. The injury sustained at Cedar Mountain left lasting physical effects, and he eventually resigned from his original front-line commission because he was no longer physically capable of the same kind of active field duty.

His military service, however, was not finished.

Rather than abandoning the Army entirely, Corliss later accepted a commission as a First Lieutenant in the Veteran Reserve Corps. The organization provided an important means for officers and enlisted soldiers who had been disabled through wounds or illness to continue serving the Union in duties compatible with their physical condition.

Corliss served in the Veteran Reserve Corps and performed administrative responsibilities, including service as an adjutant. His continued duty demonstrated that the wound which had permanently altered his physical condition did not end his contribution to the Union war effort.

By the end of the Civil War, Corliss had received brevet advancement to Major. This distinction is important when describing his military record. His rank during the Medal of Honor action at Cedar Mountain was Captain, while his highest verified rank was Brevet Major.

After the war, Corliss continued in federal public service during Reconstruction. He served with the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, in Mississippi.

The Freedmen’s Bureau had been created to address the enormous social and administrative challenges left by the Civil War and emancipation. Its responsibilities included assistance to formerly enslaved people and refugees, labor matters, education, legal disputes, relief work, and the administration of abandoned or confiscated property.

Official records place Corliss in Mississippi as a Subassistant Commissioner and record him carrying out Bureau responsibilities during the late 1860s. His postwar service therefore extended his federal career beyond battlefield duty into the difficult Reconstruction period.

After leaving that work, Corliss eventually returned north. He lived for periods in Connecticut and later in New York, where surviving accounts associate him with the insurance business. His life after the war was consequently very different from the battlefield experience that had first placed his name in the military record.

For decades, however, his act at Cedar Mountain remained officially unrewarded by the Medal of Honor.

The Army Medal of Honor had been authorized by Congress in 1862, the same year as the Battle of Cedar Mountain. During the Civil War and the decades that followed, the decoration became the United States Army’s highest recognition for extraordinary military conduct. Many Civil War veterans did not receive the medal immediately; in some cases, their actions were reviewed and formally recognized many years later.

Corliss belonged to that group.

On September 10, 1897, thirty-five years after his heroic action, George W. Corliss received the Medal of Honor for what he had done at Cedar Mountain.

His official recognition centered on an exceptionally clear sequence of events: the regimental color bearer was killed, Corliss seized the fallen flag, carried it forward under severe enemy fire, was himself shot down and permanently disabled, and then planted the staff into the ground so the colors continued to fly.

Because Corliss received his Medal of Honor in 1897, the decoration belongs to the Army Medal of Honor design and ribbon period beginning in 1896. For the VictoriaCross.ca database, the correct historical representation is Medal of Honor 1896–1903 Army — 1897.

The 1896–1903 date range does not describe when Corliss performed his heroic action. His valor occurred on August 9, 1862. The designation identifies the historical Medal of Honor design period applicable when the decoration was actually presented to him in 1897.

No additional bar, clasp, star, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified for his Medal of Honor. His verified decoration therefore remains Medal of Honor 1896–1903 Army — 1897 — No device or clasp.

The fact that more than three decades separated the battlefield action from the medal presentation did not diminish the nature of the original event. The Medal of Honor formally preserved an act that had already shaped the rest of Corliss’s life. The wound he suffered while carrying the colors left him permanently disabled, changed the course of his military career, and led to his later service in roles suited to his condition.

George W. Corliss died in New York on May 15, 1903. He was buried at Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens, New York. His Medal of Honor is preserved in Connecticut, maintaining a physical connection between the decoration and the state from which he entered Civil War service.

Corliss’s legacy is centered on one of the most powerful symbols of Civil War battlefield courage. When the color bearer fell at Cedar Mountain, he did not allow the regimental flag to remain on the ground. He picked it up and carried it forward through severe fire. When enemy fire finally brought him down and permanently disabled him, he still refused to let the colors fall.

Instead, he planted the staff in the earth and kept the flag flying.

That act on August 9, 1862, ultimately earned Brevet Major George W. Corliss the Medal of Honor 1896–1903 Army — 1897 and secured his place among the most distinguished soldiers of the American Civil War.