James Edward Flynn

He Charged with Vicksburg’s Forlorn Hope

James Edward Flynn was born in Pittsfield, Illinois, and entered United States military service at St. Louis, Missouri, during the American Civil War. By the spring of 1863, he was serving as a sergeant in Company G of the 6th Missouri Infantry, a Union regiment engaged in the campaign to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi. Control of Vicksburg was of enormous strategic importance because the fortified city dominated a critical stretch of the Mississippi River and stood as one of the Confederacy’s most important remaining strongholds on that waterway.

The Vicksburg Campaign brought Union forces into a series of hard-fought operations designed to isolate and overcome the Confederate defenses. Flynn’s regiment served with the Union forces closing in on the city. After an unsuccessful assault against the Vicksburg defenses on May 19, 1863, another major attack was prepared for May 22. Among the most dangerous assignments of the coming assault was given to a body of volunteers who would advance ahead of the larger attacking force against the formidable defenses around the Stockade Redan.

Flynn volunteered for this advance force, remembered as the “Forlorn Hope.” The name reflected the extreme danger of the mission. The volunteers were expected to lead the way toward the Confederate works as the Union assault moved against the fortified position guarding the Graveyard Road approach to Vicksburg. Preparations for the attack included planks and scaling ladders intended to help the attacking soldiers overcome the physical obstacles protecting the Confederate earthworks.

On May 22, 1863, Sergeant Flynn went forward with the volunteer storming party. The attack placed the volunteers at the front of one of the most difficult Union assaults of the Vicksburg operations. The Stockade Redan and the surrounding Confederate fortifications presented a formidable defensive barrier, and the advance force moved directly toward a position prepared to resist a frontal attack. The effort failed to break the Confederate defenses, and the broader Union assault of May 22 was also repulsed.

Flynn’s individual Medal of Honor citation is concise and does not attempt to add details beyond what was officially recognized. It credits him with “gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party” at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863. That brief wording places his courage within the collective action of the volunteers who led the assault. Rather than recognizing a single isolated act, the citation honors his willingness and conduct while taking part in the dangerous advance against the Confederate position.

The failure of the May 22 assault did not end the campaign for Vicksburg. Union forces shifted increasingly toward siege operations, tightening their hold around the city until the Confederate garrison surrendered on July 4, 1863. The fall of Vicksburg became one of the most important Union victories of the Civil War and strengthened Federal control of the Mississippi River. Flynn’s Medal of Honor action therefore occurred at a critical stage in the struggle for one of the war’s most strategically significant objectives.

Recognition of Flynn’s gallantry came many years after the battle. On June 19, 1894, more than three decades after the charge at Vicksburg, he received the Medal of Honor for his actions as a sergeant of Company G, 6th Missouri Infantry. The decoration formally preserved his place among the Union soldiers whose courage during the Vicksburg operations received the nation’s highest military recognition.

Flynn lived for many years after the Civil War and remained connected with the community of Union veterans. An 1897 portrait identifies him in association with Ransom Post No. 131 of the Grand Army of the Republic, the prominent veterans’ organization formed by men who had served in the Union armed forces. By that time, the young sergeant who had gone forward with the storming party at Vicksburg had become part of the generation responsible for preserving the memory of the conflict and of those who had served in it.

James Edward Flynn died on January 1, 1913. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, the city where he had entered military service decades earlier. His enduring historical distinction rests on the events of May 22, 1863, when, as a sergeant in the 6th Missouri Infantry, he joined the volunteer storming party and advanced against the defenses of Vicksburg. The Medal of Honor he later received ensured that his gallantry during that hazardous charge would remain part of the documented history of the American Civil War and the long struggle for Vicksburg.