Harrison Clark

The Flag Fell at Gettysburg—He Carried It Forward

Harrison Clark was born on April 10, 1842, in Chatham, New York. He grew up in Columbia County during the years immediately preceding the American Civil War. When the conflict expanded and the Union called for additional troops, Clark entered military service and became part of Company E, 125th New York Volunteer Infantry.

The 125th New York was organized at Troy and mustered into Federal service in August 1862. The regiment had barely begun its wartime career when it was sent toward Harpers Ferry, Virginia. In September 1862, the Union garrison there was surrounded by Confederate forces during General Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign.

The 125th New York was among the Federal troops surrendered at Harpers Ferry on September 15, 1862. Clark and the rest of the regiment became prisoners of war and were subsequently paroled. The regiment was sent to Camp Douglas in Chicago while awaiting formal exchange.

After the exchange process was completed, the 125th New York returned east. For a period it served in the defenses of Washington before finally joining the Army of the Potomac’s II Corps in June 1863.

That transfer came at a critical moment.

The Army of Northern Virginia was already moving north into Pennsylvania, and the Army of the Potomac was marching rapidly to intercept it. The 125th New York, still relatively inexperienced in major battlefield combat, suddenly found itself heading toward what would become the largest battle of the Civil War.

The two armies collided around Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.

Clark arrived with his regiment as part of the II Corps. By July 2, the 125th New York was positioned in the Union center before being ordered southward to reinforce areas threatened by a massive Confederate attack.

Clark held the rank of Corporal in Company E.

A Civil War Corporal served as a junior noncommissioned officer. He helped maintain order within the ranks, assisted Sergeants and officers, and could be required to assume immediate leadership when casualties disrupted the command structure.

The fighting on July 2 became exceptionally violent.

Confederate forces launched powerful attacks against the Union left and center, including the advance of Brigadier General William Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade. Union formations were pushed back in several areas, creating a dangerous situation as Confederate troops moved toward Cemetery Ridge.

The 125th New York and the other regiments of Colonel George L. Willard’s brigade were ordered forward to help stop the breakthrough.

The regiment advanced into an environment of smoke, artillery fire, musketry, wounded men, and rapidly shifting battle lines.

During this advance, the regiment’s color bearer was shot.

The fall of a color bearer was a serious moment for a Civil War regiment.

Battle flags were far more than ceremonial symbols. In the confusion of nineteenth-century combat, they allowed soldiers to identify the location of their own formation. Officers used them to help direct movement, and the men themselves rallied around the colors when smoke and terrain made verbal commands difficult to hear.

Because the flags had to remain visible, the men carrying them were exposed to extraordinary danger.

When a color bearer fell, another soldier had to take the flag immediately. Allowing the colors to remain on the ground or fall into enemy hands could damage morale and disrupt the regiment at precisely the moment when cohesion mattered most.

At Gettysburg on July 2, Corporal Harrison Clark acted without hesitation.

He seized the fallen colors.

Then he advanced with them.

His Medal of Honor citation would later preserve the event in a single direct sentence: he seized the colors and advanced with them after the color bearer had been shot.

The wording is short, but the circumstances were anything but simple.

Clark had taken responsibility for one of the most visible objects on the battlefield at the moment when Confederate forces were pressing toward the Union line. Carrying the colors made him an obvious target.

Instead of moving toward safety, he moved forward.

The 125th New York joined the counterattack against Barksdale’s advancing Confederates. Willard’s brigade drove forward and helped stop the Confederate penetration, although the action came at severe cost. Colonel Willard himself was killed during the fighting.

The 125th New York suffered heavy casualties at Gettysburg. Out of approximately five hundred men engaged, the regiment lost scores killed, wounded, or missing during the three-day battle.

Clark survived.

His conduct on July 2 did more than preserve the flag. By carrying the colors forward, he provided his comrades with a visible rallying point at a moment when the regiment was advancing into some of the most dangerous fighting of the battle.

His action also reflected one of the most deeply rooted traditions of Civil War infantry service: the expectation that a regiment’s colors would continue forward no matter how many men carrying them were struck down.

Following his Gettysburg action, Clark became closely associated with the regiment’s colors and later served as Color Sergeant.

The responsibility of Color Sergeant was one of the most dangerous enlisted assignments in an infantry regiment. The bearer of the national or regimental flag stood in a position designed to be seen. Enemy soldiers could identify the colors from a considerable distance, and fire frequently concentrated around them.

Clark continued carrying the flag during later campaigns.

The 125th New York returned to active campaigning after Gettysburg. It fought at Auburn and Bristoe Station during the autumn of 1863 and participated in the Mine Run Campaign before entering winter quarters.

By the spring of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant had taken overall command of Union armies and began the Overland Campaign against Robert E. Lee.

The first major collision occurred in the Wilderness in early May.

The Wilderness battlefield was very different from Gettysburg. Dense woods, tangled vegetation, smoke, and limited visibility made coordinated movement extremely difficult. Units frequently lost contact with one another, and fighting could erupt at close range with little warning.

Clark entered the Battle of the Wilderness as an experienced Color Sergeant.

During the fighting, he again carried the regiment’s flag directly toward the enemy.

On May 6, 1864, Clark advanced with the colors until he was reportedly within only a short distance of the Confederate line.

Then a rifle ball shattered his leg.

He fell with the flag.

Lieutenant Colonel Aaron B. Myer, commanding the 125th New York at the time, personally helped bind Clark’s wound. Recognizing the courage Clark had displayed, Myer promoted him to a lieutenancy on the battlefield.

Clark’s highest verified military rank therefore became Second Lieutenant.

This promotion represented an extraordinary progression.

At Gettysburg, he had been a Corporal who picked up the colors after another man fell.

By the Wilderness, he had become the regiment’s Color Sergeant, carrying those colors into another major battle.

After being severely wounded while advancing with the flag, he was elevated into the commissioned officer corps.

The wound effectively ended his active battlefield role. Clark required significant treatment and recovery after his leg was shattered.

His Medal of Honor, however, was not awarded for the Wilderness action.

It specifically recognized what he had done earlier at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863.

The distinction is important.

His highest rank was Second Lieutenant.

His Medal of Honor action-time rank was Corporal.

The Medal of Honor was granted for the moment when Corporal Harrison Clark took up the fallen colors at Gettysburg and carried them forward during the regiment’s advance.

Formal national recognition came many years after the war.

The Medal of Honor itself had been authorized for the United States Army in 1862. During the Civil War it became the principal national decoration for extraordinary military conduct because the wider hierarchy of American valor decorations used in later conflicts did not yet exist.

Many Civil War soldiers received the Medal of Honor years or even decades after their heroic actions. Records had to be reviewed, recommendations submitted, witnesses identified, and supporting documentation gathered.

Clark belonged to this later group of recipients.

His heroic action occurred on July 2, 1863.

His Medal of Honor was formally presented on June 11, 1895.

Almost thirty-two years separated the battlefield action from the official recognition.

For the historical database, his verified decoration is therefore represented as Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1895.

The year 1895 records when the decoration was formally presented.

It does not replace the action date.

The courage recognized by the medal belonged to Gettysburg on July 2, 1863.

Clark received one Medal of Honor.

No additional star, clasp, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified with the decoration.

His final verified award is therefore Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1895 — no device or clasp.

Clark survived the war and returned to civilian life after his military service.

Like many veterans of the Army of the Potomac, he carried the physical and emotional memory of repeated combat into the postwar decades. His wartime experiences had included capture at Harpers Ferry, the violent fighting at Gettysburg, later campaigns with the II Corps, and the devastating wound he suffered while carrying the regiment’s colors in the Wilderness.

His service had also transformed his military status.

He entered the 125th New York in the enlisted ranks.

He became a Corporal.

He advanced to Color Sergeant.

And after being wounded under exceptionally dangerous conditions in the Wilderness, he reached the commissioned rank of Second Lieutenant.

Clark later lived in Albany, New York, and remained connected to the memory of Union military service. The surviving record preserves his military achievements much more clearly than every detail of his civilian career, so the strongest account of his legacy remains centered on the regiment and the flag he carried.

By the time he received the Medal of Honor in 1895, the Civil War had ended three decades earlier.

The battlefield at Gettysburg had become a place of monuments and reunions. Former enemies returned to the fields where they had once fought, and veterans worked to preserve the history of their regiments for future generations.

For the 125th New York, Harrison Clark’s story became inseparable from the colors.

At Gettysburg, the bearer fell.

Clark picked up the flag and carried it forward.

At the Wilderness the following year, he again carried the colors toward the enemy until a rifle shot shattered his leg.

Those two episodes illustrate the extraordinary danger repeatedly accepted by Civil War color bearers.

Harrison Clark died on April 18, 1913, at the age of seventy-one.

He was buried at Albany Rural Cemetery in New York.

By then, fifty years had passed since Gettysburg. The young Corporal who had seized the fallen colors had become one of the surviving veterans whose experiences connected a new generation directly to the Civil War.

His final verified decoration remains Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1895 — no device or clasp.

Harrison Clark’s military legacy can ultimately be understood through one unforgettable image: a battlefield flag falling as its bearer was shot, and a young Corporal stepping forward to seize it rather than allowing the colors to stop.

He did not carry the flag away from the battle.

He carried it toward the enemy.