Henry Brutsche

He Stormed Ashore to Silence a Loaded Confederate Gun

Henry Brutsche was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1846. Much of his early civilian life is not preserved in reliable military records, but during the American Civil War he entered the United States Navy and became one of the thousands of young sailors whose service helped the Union control rivers, coastal waterways, and strategic ports. His naval career eventually placed him aboard USS Tacony, where an extraordinary landing under enemy fire would earn him the Medal of Honor.

Brutsche served with the rating of Landsman. In the Civil War Navy, Landsman was an enlisted rating commonly assigned to sailors who had less maritime experience than Ordinary Seamen or Seamen. The title did not mean that such men were kept away from danger. Landsmen performed a wide variety of shipboard duties and, when required, could serve guns, join landing parties, and fight ashore alongside more experienced sailors.

USS Tacony was a double-ended side-wheel gunboat constructed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and commissioned in February 1864. Built for operations in relatively confined coastal and river waters, the vessel combined steam propulsion with a substantial battery of heavy guns. Shortly after commissioning, Tacony was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and sent into the dangerous inland waters of North Carolina.

The region had become strategically important because Confederate forces controlled portions of the Roanoke River and the surrounding sounds. Plymouth, North Carolina, had changed hands during the war and became a particularly significant objective because of its position on the Roanoke River.

In April 1864, Confederate forces recaptured Plymouth with crucial support from the powerful ironclad CSS Albemarle. The Confederate warship presented a serious threat to Union vessels operating in the North Carolina sounds and temporarily altered the naval balance in the region.

For months, Union commanders searched for a way to neutralize the ironclad. That breakthrough finally came during the night of October 27–28, 1864, when Lieutenant William B. Cushing led a small steam launch up the Roanoke River and destroyed CSS Albemarle with a spar torpedo.

The destruction of the ironclad dramatically changed the situation around Plymouth. Without Albemarle protecting the Confederate position, Union naval forces could again move aggressively against the town.

Only a few days later, the Navy launched the operation that would define Henry Brutsche’s life.

On October 31, 1864, Union gunboats moved against Plymouth. The approach was difficult because Confederate obstacles and defensive positions protected the waterways. Union vessels maneuvered through alternate channels and brought their guns against Confederate batteries and rifle pits.

USS Tacony participated directly in the operation.

The battle was not limited to ships exchanging fire from the river. Some Confederate artillery positions had to be approached and disabled by sailors sent ashore.

Among the men selected for this dangerous work was Landsman Henry Brutsche.

One of the Confederate weapons threatening the Union force was a loaded 9-inch gun. Leaving it operational would allow Confederate defenders to continue firing upon Union vessels and troops. The only reliable way to prevent its immediate use was to reach the weapon and disable it.

Brutsche joined a landing party that went ashore to accomplish exactly that.

The sailors left the comparative protection of their vessel and advanced onto land while Confederate troops fired upon them with muskets. Once ashore, there was little protection from the incoming fire. The men had to approach the artillery position knowing that the defenders could clearly see their movement.

Brutsche continued forward.

Enemy musketry was described as devastating. Under such conditions, even a short distance across exposed ground could become deadly. The landing party nevertheless reached the Confederate gun.

Their objective was not to capture the cannon for immediate Union use. They needed to prevent the Confederates from firing it again.

The sailors therefore spiked the gun.

Spiking an artillery piece was a traditional method of disabling it. A metal spike or similar object was driven into the cannon’s vent, blocking the passage through which the powder charge was ignited. A properly spiked weapon could not simply be reloaded and fired normally; it required significant repair before returning to service.

For Brutsche and the landing party, performing this task meant remaining at the enemy gun position long enough to disable the weapon while Confederate musket fire continued around them.

Brutsche’s conduct during this operation drew particular attention.

His Medal of Honor citation emphasized not only that he participated in the landing and spiking of the 9-inch gun, but also the “coolness” he displayed while doing so.

That description is important.

Brutsche’s distinction did not depend on an elaborate individual duel or a dramatic command role. He was an enlisted sailor carrying out an extremely dangerous mission and continuing to perform his duties calmly while enemy soldiers were actively firing at him.

In combat, that kind of steadiness could determine whether a mission succeeded or collapsed.

The gun was disabled, and Union naval forces continued pressing the attack. Plymouth was recaptured, returning the important river position to Union control only days after the destruction of CSS Albemarle.

The October 31 operation therefore formed part of a rapid sequence of events that transformed the military situation in northeastern North Carolina. First, Albemarle was destroyed. Then Union naval forces exploited the opening and moved against Plymouth. Brutsche’s landing-party action took place at the critical point where naval warfare became direct combat ashore.

He was not alone in receiving recognition for the dangerous mission. Other sailors from USS Tacony who participated in the landing and disabling of the Confederate gun were also honored for their courage.

For Brutsche, however, the action permanently defined his military record.

His service was formally recognized in Navy General Order No. 45, dated December 31, 1864. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his conduct during the capture of Plymouth.

The Medal of Honor was still a very young decoration at the time.

Congress had authorized the Navy Medal of Honor in December 1861, during the opening months of the Civil War. It was originally intended primarily for enlisted sailors and Marines who distinguished themselves through gallantry and other exceptional conduct.

The American military did not yet possess the broad hierarchy of valor awards that would exist in later wars. There was no Navy Cross or Silver Star in the modern sense. For an enlisted sailor such as Brutsche, the Medal of Honor represented the highest national recognition available for extraordinary conduct.

His verified decoration is therefore represented as Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1864.

The year 1864 records the formal award period, while the action itself occurred at Plymouth on October 31, 1864.

Brutsche received one Medal of Honor.

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

His final verified medal record therefore remains Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1864 — no device or clasp.

One particularly valuable piece of evidence survives from Brutsche himself: his original Medal of Honor.

The reverse of the medal bears an engraved record identifying him as Henry Brutsche, Landsman, USS Tacony, and connecting the decoration directly to the capture of Plymouth on October 31, 1864.

This surviving artifact provides an unusually tangible connection between the sailor and the event.

The medal itself follows the early Navy Medal of Honor design. Its central imagery depicts Minerva, representing wisdom and war, with symbols of the United States and a figure representing discord. The design belongs to the earliest generation of American Medal of Honor history, making Brutsche’s decoration both a personal award and an important surviving artifact from the Civil War Navy.

Today, his original Medal of Honor is preserved by the Naval History and Heritage Command. More than a century and a half after the battle, the medal continues to carry his name, rating, ship, and the place and date of the action that made him a recipient.

Brutsche’s verified military record after the Plymouth action is far less detailed. The surviving historical evidence does not support filling the remainder of his life with speculative assignments, promotions, or occupations. His highest verified naval rating remains Landsman.

USS Tacony itself continued fighting after Plymouth. In December 1864, the gunboat joined the powerful Union naval force assembling against Fort Fisher, North Carolina, the Confederate stronghold protecting Wilmington.

Tacony took part in the unsuccessful first attack against Fort Fisher on December 24–25, 1864. The vessel returned with the fleet in January 1865 for the renewed assault that finally captured the fort and effectively closed Wilmington, the Confederacy’s last major Atlantic blockade-running port.

Tacony subsequently participated in operations against Fort Anderson and continued blockade service until the collapse of the Confederacy. While these actions form part of the ship’s history, Brutsche should not automatically be assigned personal participation in every later engagement without recipient-specific evidence establishing his continued presence aboard.

What remains indisputable is the action for which he received the Medal of Honor.

A Union sailor landed from a gunboat.

A Confederate 9-inch cannon remained loaded and dangerous.

Enemy riflemen were firing heavily.

Brutsche went ashore anyway.

He reached the weapon and helped disable it while bullets were coming from the Confederate position.

The Navy specifically remembered his coolness.

That single quality helps explain why the action mattered. Courage in battle does not always appear as a spectacular charge or dramatic command. Sometimes it is the ability to continue doing a precise job while every instinct is telling a person to seek cover.

Brutsche survived the Civil War and returned to Philadelphia.

The surviving authoritative records preserve little about his postwar profession or family life. Rather than inventing details to create a fuller civilian story, the historically defensible account remains centered on what can actually be established: his Philadelphia origins, his United States Navy service, his time aboard USS Tacony, his Medal of Honor action at Plymouth, and his later death in his home city.

Henry Brutsche died in Philadelphia on December 27, 1880. He was only about thirty-four years old.

He was originally buried in Monument Cemetery in Philadelphia. When that cemetery was later closed and its graves relocated, Brutsche’s remains were reinterred at Lawnview Cemetery in Rockledge, Pennsylvania.

His final resting place preserves the memory of a sailor whose life was relatively short but whose military achievement survived far beyond him.

Brutsche’s story is also a reminder of the scale of Civil War naval warfare. The conflict was not fought solely by famous admirals aboard great ships or by massive armies on well-known battlefields. It was also fought by young enlisted sailors moving through rivers and sounds, manning gunboats, joining landing parties, and carrying out missions where survival depended upon discipline and nerve.

On October 31, 1864, Henry Brutsche became one of those sailors whose individual conduct emerged from the larger battle.

As Union forces moved to recapture Plymouth, Landsman Brutsche left USS Tacony, went ashore under devastating musket fire, reached a loaded Confederate 9-inch gun, and helped spike it so it could no longer threaten the attacking force.

Two months later, the United States formally recorded his heroism through General Order No. 45.

His single verified decoration remains Medal of Honor 1862–1912 Navy — 1864 — no device or clasp.

The strongest surviving symbol of his legacy is his own Medal of Honor, still preserved today and still engraved with the words that connect him permanently to that dangerous morning in North Carolina.

Henry Brutsche did not command the fleet.

He did not hold a high rank.

He was a Landsman.

But when a loaded Confederate cannon had to be silenced and the only way to reach it was through enemy fire, he went ashore.