James Edgar Engle

He Carried Ammunition Through a Storm of Fire

James Edgar Engle was born in 1844 in Chester, Pennsylvania. During the American Civil War, he entered Union service and became a member of Company I, 97th Pennsylvania Infantry. By the spring of 1864, he held the rank of Sergeant and was serving with a regiment that had already accumulated extensive campaigning experience before being transferred to Virginia for operations against Richmond and Petersburg.

The 97th Pennsylvania Infantry had originally been organized in West Chester in 1861. During the early years of the war, the regiment served along the Atlantic coast and in operations in South Carolina and Florida. In April 1864, it moved north to Virginia and joined Major General Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James for the Bermuda Hundred Campaign.

The Bermuda Hundred operation formed part of the wider Union strategy of 1864. While Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac fought Robert E. Lee’s forces farther north, Butler’s army moved up the James River and established itself between Richmond and Petersburg. The objective was to threaten the railroads and communications linking the two Confederate cities and, if possible, force Confederate troops away from Lee’s main army.

The 97th Pennsylvania participated in the early stages of the campaign, including operations near Swift Creek and Drewry’s Bluff. After severe fighting around Drewry’s Bluff on May 16, Union troops withdrew toward their fortified position at Bermuda Hundred. The campaign entered another difficult phase as the two sides contested advanced positions and picket lines.

Two days later, on May 18, 1864, Sergeant Engle performed the action that would eventually earn him the Medal of Honor.

Men of the 97th Pennsylvania were occupying the picket line under heavy enemy fire when ammunition became urgently needed at the front. A call was made for volunteers willing to carry additional ammunition forward. Reaching the pickets meant crossing ground exposed to Confederate fire while transporting a heavy box of cartridges to soldiers who were already engaged.

Engle responded to the call.

Together with another soldier, he helped carry a box of ammunition toward the threatened line while enemy fire swept the area. Reaching the front did not end his involvement. Rather than immediately returning to relative safety, Engle remained with the soldiers on the picket line and helped distribute the ammunition they needed to continue fighting.

His later Medal of Honor citation preserved the action in direct language. He had answered a call for volunteers, carried ammunition forward under heavy fire, reached the exposed picket line, and remained there to distribute it.

There was no captured flag, dramatic mounted charge, or single combat with an opposing officer. Engle’s courage took a different form. Soldiers at the front were running short of the ammunition necessary to defend their position, and someone had to cross dangerous ground to reach them. Engle volunteered to do it and stayed long enough to make sure the ammunition reached the men who needed it.

The action occurred during one of the most unsettled periods of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign. Only days earlier, Confederate forces had struck Butler’s army at Drewry’s Bluff, disrupting the Union advance toward Richmond. The Union troops were falling back into defensive positions, while pickets and advanced lines remained vulnerable to pressure from Confederate forces. Maintaining those lines depended not only on the soldiers firing their weapons but also on the men willing to keep them supplied.

Engle survived the campaign and continued his military service. His wartime career ultimately brought him the brevet rank of Captain, although his Medal of Honor action had been performed while serving as a Sergeant. The distinction is important: the honor recognized what he did as an enlisted noncommissioned officer on the Bermuda Hundred front, while the brevet rank represented a later level of military recognition.

For more than three decades after the action, Engle lived without the nation’s highest military decoration formally marking what he had done that day. Then, on December 17, 1896, he received the Medal of Honor for his courage at Bermuda Hundred.

The Medal of Honor had been created during the Civil War, but many Civil War soldiers did not receive their awards until years or even decades after the actions for which they were recognized. In Engle’s case, approximately thirty-two years separated the dangerous ammunition run of May 1864 from the presentation of his medal.

His award focused entirely on the practical courage of supplying men already under fire. Ammunition was the lifeline of a Civil War infantry position. Without it, even determined soldiers could not continue defending an exposed line. Engle’s decision to volunteer, carry the ammunition forward, and remain to distribute it directly supported the fighting ability of his comrades at a moment when reaching them involved substantial personal danger.

Engle did not live long after receiving the honor. He died on November 19, 1897, less than a year after the Medal of Honor was presented to him. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, in Section 1, Grave 569.

James Edgar Engle’s story demonstrates that battlefield heroism did not always involve a spectacular charge or the capture of an enemy position. Sometimes courage meant recognizing an urgent need and voluntarily entering danger to meet it.

On May 18, 1864, with Union soldiers exposed on the picket line at Bermuda Hundred and ammunition needed at the front, Engle answered the call. He carried the ammunition through enemy fire, reached his comrades, and stayed to distribute it. More than three decades later, the Medal of Honor ensured that this simple but dangerous act of duty would remain part of the history of the 97th Pennsylvania Infantry and the United States Army.