Jacob Trautman

Jacob Trautman was born in 1840 in Hamburg, Germany. He later immigrated to the United States and settled in Pennsylvania, where the outbreak of the American Civil War brought him into military service. His Army career would eventually span two very different periods of American military history: the Civil War and the western campaigns of the postwar Regular Army.

On August 9, 1861, Trautman entered Union service as a Private in Company L of the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry, officially designated the 65th Pennsylvania Volunteers. The regiment served principally in Virginia and became involved in scouting, patrols, raids, security operations, and conventional cavalry fighting.

Civil War cavalry service required considerable endurance. Cavalrymen were expected to cover long distances on horseback, gather information about enemy forces, guard roads and supply routes, carry messages, screen troop movements, and fight either mounted or dismounted when circumstances demanded.

Trautman began at the lowest enlisted rank but gradually advanced through the regiment. He was promoted from Private to Corporal and later to Sergeant, reflecting increasing experience and responsibility.

His Civil War record eventually included service in both Companies L and E of the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry. On June 5, 1865, near the end of the regiment's service, he was transferred to Company E while holding the rank of Sergeant.

The Civil War had effectively ended by this point, but Union cavalry units remained in service for a period while military authorities completed occupation, administrative, and demobilization duties.

Trautman was mustered out with Company E on August 7, 1865. He left his first major period of military service as a Sergeant after approximately four years in the Union cavalry.

Civilian life did not permanently separate Trautman from the Army.

He later entered the Regular Army and became associated with one of the most famous cavalry regiments in American military history, the 7th U.S. Cavalry.

On January 4, 1876, Trautman enlisted in Company I of the 7th Cavalry at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His previous years of cavalry experience made him a seasoned soldier when he returned to military life.

The Regular Army of the 1870s was far smaller than the enormous volunteer forces raised during the Civil War. Much of its work was concentrated in the western territories, where soldiers occupied isolated posts, escorted transportation, protected military communications, patrolled large areas, and participated in campaigns arising from the federal government's expansion onto Native American lands.

Trautman's return to service came during a particularly significant year for the 7th Cavalry. The regiment was heavily involved in operations on the northern plains during the Great Sioux War era.

Although Company I was part of the same regiment whose other elements suffered devastating losses at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876, Trautman's later career continued through many additional years of frontier duty rather than being defined by that single event.

He rose to First Sergeant of Company I.

First Sergeant was the senior enlisted position within a cavalry company and carried substantial responsibility. The First Sergeant helped maintain discipline, supervised enlisted personnel, handled administrative matters, transmitted orders, and served as one of the company commander's most important enlisted leaders.

Trautman repeatedly reenlisted and continued serving with Company I through the 1880s. By the end of that decade, he had become one of the veteran enlisted soldiers of the 7th Cavalry.

His years of service meant that he had already completed a long military career by 1890. He was approaching the point at which retirement was available to him, yet his service continued as a new crisis developed in South Dakota.

During 1890, tension increased on Lakota reservations as the Ghost Dance religious movement spread among Native communities facing severe economic hardship, loss of land, restrictions on traditional life, and increasing federal pressure.

The United States government deployed military forces into the region as officials feared that the movement might lead to armed resistance.

In December 1890, events escalated rapidly. Lakota leader Sitting Bull was killed during an attempt by Indian agency police to arrest him. A Miniconjou Lakota group led by Spotted Elk, also widely known as Big Foot, subsequently moved toward the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The 7th U.S. Cavalry intercepted Spotted Elk's group and escorted them to an encampment near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota.

On the morning of December 29, 1890, Army troops surrounded the Lakota camp and attempted to disarm the people gathered there.

First Sergeant Jacob Trautman was present with Company I of the 7th Cavalry.

During the disarmament process, a gun discharged and intense firing erupted. What followed became one of the most tragic and controversial episodes in the history of the American West.

Army troops fired into the Lakota camp, and large numbers of Lakota men, women, and children were killed. Soldiers were also killed and wounded, some in the confusion and crossfire. The event, once commonly described in military records as the Battle of Wounded Knee, is now widely remembered as the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Trautman's individual Medal of Honor citation concerns his own conduct during the fighting.

According to the official citation, First Sergeant Jacob Trautman killed an armed Native combatant at close quarters. The citation also specifically recognized that although Trautman had become entitled to retirement from military service, he remained on duty until the campaign was concluded.

His Medal of Honor recommendation therefore combined two elements: his conduct during close-range fighting on December 29 and his decision to remain with his command despite being eligible to leave active service.

Trautman's position as First Sergeant placed him near the enlisted leadership of Company I. During a chaotic engagement filled with smoke, close-range firing, confusion, and rapidly shifting danger, maintaining control among soldiers was particularly difficult.

The broader history of Wounded Knee remains fundamentally different from the simple language of nineteenth-century military award records. Modern historical accounts emphasize the deaths of many Lakota noncombatants and the devastating consequences for the families present at the encampment.

Trautman's individual award must therefore be understood within both contexts: the specific action for which the Army recognized him and the larger historical tragedy in which that action occurred.

The military operations in the region did not end immediately on December 29. Army units remained active as authorities attempted to stabilize the situation around Pine Ridge.

Trautman stayed with his unit through the end of the campaign rather than taking the retirement for which his lengthy service had made him eligible.

The United States formally recognized his conduct soon afterward.

On March 27, 1891, First Sergeant Jacob Trautman was presented with the Medal of Honor.

The Medal of Honor had originated during the American Civil War. Congress authorized the Army version in 1862 as a national decoration for exceptional military conduct.

By the time of Trautman's Wounded Knee action in 1890, the Medal of Honor remained the principal military decoration through which the United States recognized individual gallantry in Army service.

For the project database, Trautman's award belongs to the Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army period. His action occurred on December 29, 1890, and the decoration was issued on March 27, 1891.

No clasp, star, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified with Trautman's Medal of Honor. His verified decoration therefore consists of one Medal of Honor without additional devices.

First Sergeant also remains the highest verified rank of his military career.

This represented a substantial progression from the young immigrant who had entered Civil War service as a Private in 1861. Over the course of his Army career, Trautman had advanced from Private through Corporal and Sergeant before ultimately becoming First Sergeant in the Regular Army.

His career spanned approximately three decades when his Civil War and later Regular Army service are considered together.

After leaving military life, Trautman returned to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The transition brought to an end a career that had carried him from Union cavalry service during the Civil War to the isolated western posts and campaigns of the Regular Army.

Surviving official records preserve considerably more information about his military service than about the details of his civilian occupation after retirement. Those uncertain aspects of his later life should therefore not be expanded without reliable evidence.

What is firmly established is that Trautman spent his final years in Pittsburgh.

Jacob Trautman died at his home in Pittsburgh on November 7, 1898, at approximately fifty-eight years of age. His death was attributed to a cerebral hemorrhage.

He was buried at South Side Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

His grave preserves the memory of a German-born immigrant whose military service encompassed two major eras of nineteenth-century United States Army history.

Trautman's first period of service began during the national emergency of the Civil War. He entered the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry as a Private in 1861, advanced through the enlisted ranks, and completed that conflict as a Sergeant.

His later career was spent in the professional Regular Army. With the 7th U.S. Cavalry, he eventually became First Sergeant of Company I and remained in uniform through years of frontier service.

The defining official recognition of his career came from the events at Wounded Knee Creek on December 29, 1890.

The historical meaning of Wounded Knee has changed considerably since the nineteenth century. The event is now widely remembered as a massacre in which large numbers of Lakota men, women, and children were killed, making it one of the darkest episodes in the history of relations between the United States government and Native American peoples.

Within that broader and tragic event, the Army's official record credited Trautman with killing an armed opponent at close quarters and remaining with his command through the conclusion of the campaign even though his length of service entitled him to retirement.

For that conduct, the United States presented First Sergeant Jacob Trautman with the Medal of Honor on March 27, 1891.

Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1891 remains Jacob Trautman's verified military decoration and the official recognition of the action for which he was honored during his long career in the United States Army.