James Albert Barber

James Albert Barber was born on July 11, 1841, in Westerly, Rhode Island, to Matthew and Phebe Hall Barber. He grew up in a coastal Rhode Island community where fishing, farming, boats, and maritime work formed an important part of everyday life. When the American Civil War began, Barber was still a young man. At the age of twenty, he entered military service and began a wartime career that would carry him through years of campaigning with the Army of the Potomac and ultimately earn him the Medal of Honor. Barber enlisted on November 11, 1861, in the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery. He served with Battery G, an artillery organization formed in Providence and sent to the Washington area as the Union Army expanded its defenses and prepared for offensive operations. Barber initially served as a Private and learned the demanding work of a field artilleryman. Artillery service required far more than simply firing a cannon. Crews had to move guns and ammunition with teams of horses, establish firing positions, calculate ranges, load and serve their pieces rapidly, maintain equipment, and sometimes withdraw under direct enemy fire. Barber’s own surviving field diary provides an unusually personal record of his early wartime experience. During 1862 he recorded the hardships of marching, camp life, artillery drills, changing weather, movements through Virginia and Maryland, and the constant uncertainty of campaigning. His entries show the transformation of a young Rhode Island volunteer into an experienced soldier serving in a major Union field army. One of Barber’s most significant early combat experiences came during the Maryland Campaign of 1862. On September 17, he was present at the Battle of Antietam, one of the bloodiest single days of the Civil War. His artillery unit moved onto exposed ground as the battle developed around Sharpsburg, Maryland. Barber later recorded the tremendous noise of artillery and musketry, the casualties among men and horses, and the danger experienced by his battery as Confederate troops approached its position. His account of Antietam shows that artillerymen could face the same immediate battlefield danger as infantrymen. Batteries frequently had to move forward to support attacking troops, yet their guns, horses, ammunition chests, and crews made conspicuous targets. Barber’s battery lost horses and suffered wounded men during the fighting and at one stage had to withdraw under Confederate musket fire. The experience gave Barber firsthand knowledge of large-scale combat very early in his military career. Only a few months later, Barber was again involved in major fighting at Fredericksburg, Virginia. His diary describes the preparations for the December 1862 battle, including the establishment of artillery positions overlooking the city and the tense expectation of combat. On December 11, Union artillery opened a massive bombardment after Confederate sharpshooters interfered with engineers attempting to construct pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock River. Barber recorded his battery firing toward Fredericksburg as Union forces struggled to cross the river. During the following days, the artillery continued engaging Confederate positions while Union infantry launched repeated assaults against strongly defended heights beyond the city. His diary gives a vivid soldier’s perspective on the heavy gunfire, battlefield smoke, shattered buildings, dead and wounded soldiers, and the difficult conditions in which artillery crews continued operating their weapons. Barber remained in military service as the war continued. In December 1863, rather than leave after completing his original obligation, he reenlisted as a Veteran Volunteer. His decision committed him to continued service at a time when the Army of the Potomac was entering another exceptionally demanding period of campaigning. During the remainder of the war he continued serving with Rhode Island artillery forces and eventually rose to the rank of Corporal. By 1864 and early 1865, Union armies were concentrating enormous pressure against Confederate forces around Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. Petersburg had become strategically vital because its railroads and roads supplied the Confederate capital at Richmond and General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Months of trench warfare developed around the city as Union forces gradually extended their lines and weakened Confederate defenses. The decisive breakthrough finally came on April 2, 1865. Union forces launched a major assault against the Petersburg defenses, and Barber was selected for an exceptionally dangerous assignment. He was one of twenty picked artillerymen who volunteered to accompany an infantry assaulting party during the attack. This was not the normal role of an artilleryman operating from an established battery position. Barber and the other selected artillerymen advanced with infantry troops attacking Confederate fortifications at close range. Their purpose was directly connected to the artillery pieces they expected to encounter inside the enemy position. If Confederate guns could be captured, trained artillerymen would be needed immediately to operate them. The assault succeeded in penetrating Confederate defenses and capturing enemy artillery. Barber and the other artillerymen then performed the remarkable action that became the basis of his Medal of Honor recognition: they turned the captured Confederate guns around and used them against the forces that had previously operated them. Barber’s official Medal of Honor citation specifically recognized that he “was one of a detachment of 20 picked artillerymen who voluntarily accompanied an infantry assaulting party, and who turned upon the enemy the guns captured in the assault.” His decoration therefore recognized both the voluntary nature of the mission and the active use of captured artillery during the breakthrough at Petersburg. The timing of the action gave Barber’s achievement additional historical significance. April 2, 1865, marked the collapse of the Confederate position at Petersburg. The breakthrough forced the evacuation of both Petersburg and Richmond and began the final pursuit of Lee’s army westward. Only a week later, on April 9, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. Barber survived the final operations of the war and completed his military service in June 1865. He had entered the Army as a twenty-year-old artilleryman in 1861 and emerged almost four years later as an experienced Corporal who had served through some of the Army of the Potomac’s most difficult campaigns. His wartime record included direct exposure to major battles, reenlistment as a veteran, and ultimately a voluntary assault mission during the final breakthrough at Petersburg. Formal national recognition followed after the war. On June 20, 1866, James Albert Barber received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Petersburg on April 2, 1865. His verified decoration is therefore represented as Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1866, with no additional device or clasp. The Medal of Honor itself had originated during the Civil War. Congress authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862, providing the United States Army with a formal national decoration for distinguished military conduct. Because Barber’s award was presented in 1866, it belongs to the original 1862–1895 Army Medal of Honor period. The 1866 date represents the year of his formal award, while his heroic action remained the April 2, 1865 assault at Petersburg. Barber’s Medal of Honor was a single individual decoration. No additional star, clasp, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified with the award. Its importance lies not in a complicated collection of devices but in the specific action it commemorated: an artilleryman voluntarily joining an infantry assault, entering captured Confederate defenses, and helping turn enemy guns against their former owners. Barber had another important event in his personal life shortly before his Medal of Honor action. On March 14, 1865, he married Hannah J. Tourgee. Their marriage began only weeks before the Petersburg breakthrough. They eventually had seven sons, four of whom survived to adulthood. After returning to Rhode Island, Barber resumed civilian life in the coastal environment where he had grown up. He worked for much of his life as a fisherman and boatman and was also described as a mariner. His work reflected the maritime character of Westerly and the nearby Watch Hill area. Barber later served as Captain of the Watch Hill Life Saving Station. This responsibility placed him in another demanding form of public service, one centered not on battlefield artillery but on the dangers of the Atlantic coast. Life-saving stations existed to assist vessels and people threatened by shipwrecks and severe coastal conditions, making experienced local seamen particularly valuable. He also engaged in harvesting seaweed, which was used as fertilizer. His postwar life therefore combined maritime employment, local coastal knowledge, and practical work closely connected to the economy of southern Rhode Island. Unlike the extraordinary circumstances of his wartime Medal of Honor action, much of his later life was spent in the ordinary responsibilities of family, employment, and community. Barber lived long enough to see the Civil War become part of national history rather than living memory for most Americans. His field diary remained an especially valuable legacy because it preserved his own contemporary observations of military life and battle in 1862. Combined with his Medal of Honor record, the diary provides a fuller picture of Barber than the final Petersburg citation alone: he was not simply a soldier who performed one celebrated act, but a veteran who had experienced years of artillery service before that decisive moment. James Albert Barber died on June 26, 1925, in Westerly, Rhode Island, at the age of eighty-three. He was buried in River Bend Cemetery in his hometown. Nearly sixty years had passed since the United States formally recognized his Petersburg action with the Medal of Honor. Barber’s military legacy remains firmly connected to his service as a Corporal of the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery and to the final breakthrough at Petersburg. His career began as that of an ordinary young artillery volunteer and included the hard campaigning of Antietam and Fredericksburg, reenlistment during a prolonged war, promotion to Corporal, and continued service until the conflict’s final weeks. On April 2, 1865, he volunteered for a mission outside the normal protection of his artillery battery, accompanied an infantry assault into Confederate defenses, and helped turn captured guns against the enemy. That action earned his single verified decoration: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1866 — no device or clasp.