Henry D. O'Brien

He Carried the Flag Into Cannon Fire—and Wouldn't Fall

Henry D. O'Brien was born on July 21, 1842, in Calais, Maine. He grew up during the years immediately preceding the American Civil War, a period in which political division over slavery and the future of the Union was becoming increasingly severe. While still a young man, O'Brien moved west and became associated with Minnesota, the state whose most famous Civil War regiment would soon become inseparable from his own military legacy.

When the Civil War erupted in 1861, O'Brien answered the Union call for volunteers. He enlisted in Company E of the 1st Minnesota Infantry, one of the earliest regiments offered to the Federal government after President Abraham Lincoln called for troops. The regiment rapidly moved east and became part of the Union army assembling around Washington, D.C.

O'Brien entered military service as an enlisted soldier and began a wartime career that would take him through some of the most important campaigns fought by the Army of the Potomac. The 1st Minnesota became a veteran infantry regiment through repeated exposure to battle, long marches, disease, poor weather, and the enormous physical demands of campaigning.

The regiment experienced major combat from the opening year of the war. At First Bull Run in July 1861, the 1st Minnesota entered one of the conflict's earliest great battles. The Union defeat demonstrated that the war would be longer and more destructive than many Americans had initially expected.

O'Brien remained with the regiment as it developed from a relatively inexperienced volunteer organization into a hardened combat unit. The following year brought campaigning on the Virginia Peninsula, where the Army of the Potomac attempted to advance against Richmond.

The fighting of 1862 exposed the 1st Minnesota to increasingly severe combat. The regiment participated in the Peninsula Campaign and later fought during the Maryland Campaign. At Antietam on September 17, 1862, Union and Confederate forces collided in what became the bloodiest single day in American military history.

O'Brien and the men of the 1st Minnesota continued serving through this period of relentless campaigning. Later that year they fought at Fredericksburg, where Union assaults against strongly defended Confederate positions resulted in terrible casualties.

By the summer of 1863, O'Brien had become a veteran soldier despite being only in his early twenties. General Robert E. Lee then carried the Army of Northern Virginia north through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, and the Army of the Potomac moved rapidly to meet the invasion.

The two armies converged around Gettysburg.

The Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1, 1863, and quickly expanded into an enormous three-day struggle involving tens of thousands of soldiers. The 1st Minnesota arrived as part of the Union II Corps and would become one of the most celebrated regiments associated with the battle.

On July 2, Confederate forces launched powerful attacks against the Union left and center. A dangerous gap developed when advancing Confederates threatened to break through the Union position on Cemetery Ridge.

The 1st Minnesota received an extraordinary order.

The regiment was directed to charge a Confederate force vastly larger than itself in order to gain the few critical minutes necessary for Union reinforcements to arrive.

The Minnesota soldiers advanced.

The charge became one of the most famous episodes of Gettysburg. The regiment suffered devastating casualties but successfully delayed the Confederate advance long enough to help stabilize the Union line.

O'Brien survived that terrible day.

His own Medal of Honor action came during the renewed fighting on July 3.

That afternoon, Confederate forces launched the massive assault against the Union center traditionally associated with Pickett's Charge. Thousands of Confederate infantrymen crossed open fields toward Cemetery Ridge while Union artillery and infantry poured fire into the advancing formations.

The survivors of the 1st Minnesota were again positioned in the path of the attack.

For Civil War infantrymen, the regimental colors were among the most important objects on the battlefield. A flag provided a visible rallying point through smoke, noise, and confusion. Soldiers could use it to identify the position of their regiment even when verbal commands became impossible to hear.

The colors also represented the identity and honor of the regiment.

Because they had to remain visible, color bearers were exceptionally vulnerable. Enemy soldiers frequently concentrated their fire around the flags, knowing that bringing down the colors could disrupt a formation and damage morale.

During the July 3 fighting, the colors of the 1st Minnesota fell.

Corporal Henry D. O'Brien immediately responded.

He seized the flag.

Instead of carrying it toward safety, he rushed forward with it.

O'Brien moved ahead of his regiment toward the Confederate attackers and carried the colors dangerously close to the enemy's guns. His Medal of Honor citation later emphasized that he advanced near the very muzzles of the enemy artillery during the desperate struggle.

The battlefield around him was filled with artillery blasts, rifle fire, smoke, shouting, wounded men, and collapsing formations. Carrying the colors made O'Brien one of the most visible Union soldiers in the fight.

Then he was wounded.

The injury was serious, but O'Brien refused to surrender the flag.

He continued holding the colors while the battle raged around him.

Then he was wounded again.

Even after suffering a second wound, he remained with the flag until the immediate crisis had passed.

His official Medal of Honor citation preserved the extraordinary sequence: he took up the colors after they had fallen, rushed forward ahead of his regiment, approached close to the enemy guns, participated in the desperate struggle that ended in Confederate defeat, and continued holding the flag despite being severely wounded and then wounded a second time.

The action represented a combination of courage, physical endurance, and commitment to the men fighting around him.

The flag was not merely an object he was trying to save. By carrying it forward, O'Brien gave the surviving soldiers of the regiment a visible point around which to continue fighting.

The Confederate assault on July 3 ultimately failed.

Union troops held Cemetery Ridge, and the shattered Confederate formations withdrew across the fields they had crossed only a short time earlier.

The Battle of Gettysburg ended Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania and became one of the defining turning points of the Civil War.

For the 1st Minnesota, however, victory came at extraordinary cost. The regiment had suffered devastating losses during its July 2 charge and then fought again during the great Confederate assault on July 3.

O'Brien emerged from Gettysburg as one of the regiment's most remarkable survivors.

His wounds required treatment and recovery, but his military career did not end with that battle. Like many veterans who survived serious wounds, O'Brien remained connected to military service and continued building a record that eventually carried him far above the Corporal's rank he held during his Medal of Honor action.

His highest verified rank became Major.

That distinction is important to accurately presenting his career.

Henry D. O'Brien earned the Medal of Honor as a Corporal.

Major was his highest verified rank later in his military life.

The Medal of Honor itself did not come immediately.

Congress had authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862, creating a national decoration for exceptional military conduct. During the Civil War, it became the highest federal recognition available for extraordinary battlefield gallantry.

The United States did not yet possess the broad hierarchy of valor decorations developed in later generations. There was no Distinguished Service Cross or Silver Star in the modern system familiar today.

For Civil War soldiers, the Medal of Honor therefore carried special significance.

Many recipients were recognized during or shortly after the war, but others had to wait decades as military records were examined, witnesses provided statements, and recommendations were formally processed.

O'Brien belonged to this later group.

His heroic action occurred on July 3, 1863.

His Medal of Honor was formally presented on April 9, 1890.

Almost twenty-seven years separated the battlefield action from the national recognition.

The date difference is essential to understanding his award history.

O'Brien did not perform his heroic act in 1890.

He carried the fallen colors through the fire at Gettysburg in 1863.

The year 1890 records when the United States formally presented him with the decoration recognizing that action.

For the historical database, his verified award is therefore represented as Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1890.

O'Brien 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 medal record therefore remains Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1890 — no device or clasp.

Receiving the Medal of Honor placed O'Brien among the most highly honored veterans of the 1st Minnesota Infantry, but the decoration also preserved something larger than individual recognition.

It preserved the memory of the regiment's colors during one of the most violent moments of Gettysburg.

The regiment had already been nearly destroyed by its sacrificial charge on July 2. One day later, its survivors again faced a major Confederate attack.

When the flag fell, O'Brien picked it up.

When he was wounded, he kept carrying it.

When he was wounded again, he still refused to abandon it.

That sequence became the defining image of his military career.

O'Brien's later life remained closely tied to Minnesota and to the veteran generation that had survived the Civil War. Former soldiers became prominent participants in commemorations, reunions, veterans' organizations, and efforts to preserve the history of their regiments.

The veterans of the 1st Minnesota had particular reason to preserve their story. Their regiment's actions at Gettysburg became famous for the extraordinary percentage of men lost while stopping Confederate advances against the Union center.

O'Brien became one of the living representatives of that sacrifice.

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, Gettysburg itself became increasingly transformed from battlefield into memorial landscape. Monuments rose across the fields, veterans returned for reunions, and military historians documented the events of July 1863 in growing detail.

For O'Brien, those events were never simply history.

They were memories of comrades, wounds, smoke, artillery, and a fallen flag.

He lived long enough to see the nation formally recognize the significance of his action and to see the Medal of Honor become an increasingly revered symbol of military heroism.

Henry D. O'Brien died on November 2, 1902, in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was sixty years old.

He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul, bringing to an end the life of a soldier whose name had become permanently linked to the colors of the 1st Minnesota Infantry.

His military career had begun as that of a young volunteer entering a national crisis.

It carried him through the early fighting of the Civil War, the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and ultimately Gettysburg.

At Gettysburg, the moment that defined him came when the colors fell.

Corporal Henry D. O'Brien did not remain behind the line.

He picked up the flag and ran forward.

He carried it toward the Confederate guns while one of the greatest infantry attacks of the Civil War crashed against Cemetery Ridge.

He was wounded.

He kept the colors.

He was wounded again.

And still he held them.

Nearly twenty-seven years later, the United States formally recognized that courage with his single verified decoration: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1890 — no device or clasp.

Henry D. O'Brien's legacy remains one of the most dramatic color-bearing stories of Gettysburg—a young Corporal who saw the flag fall in the middle of battle, seized it, and carried it straight into the fire.