James Jardine

James Jardine was born on April 16, 1837, in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, Scotland. He came to the United States with his family during the 1850s and eventually established himself in Ohio. When the American Civil War divided the country, Jardine entered Union military service and became a soldier in Company F of the 54th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. His service was credited to Hamilton County, Ohio, and his wartime career would eventually take him from the enlisted ranks to a commission as First Lieutenant. The 54th Ohio Infantry was one of the volunteer regiments raised to support the Union war effort. Jardine developed into an experienced noncommissioned officer and held the rank of Sergeant during the action that would later earn him the Medal of Honor. A Civil War sergeant carried significant responsibilities. He helped maintain discipline, transmitted orders, supervised enlisted soldiers, and was expected to provide immediate leadership when a unit came under fire or when officers became unavailable. By the spring of 1863, Jardine and the 54th Ohio were participating in the Union campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg was one of the Confederacy’s most important strongholds because its position above the Mississippi River allowed Confederate forces to control a critical section of that strategic waterway. Major General Ulysses S. Grant was determined to capture the city and thereby strengthen Union control of the Mississippi. After a series of victories in Mississippi, Grant’s army approached the formidable defenses surrounding Vicksburg. Confederate troops had constructed powerful earthworks on commanding terrain, and the natural landscape of steep ridges and ravines made a direct attack extremely difficult. An initial Union assault on May 19, 1863, failed to break the Confederate line. Grant ordered another major assault for May 22. In the sector attacked by troops under Major General William T. Sherman, the principal objective was the Stockade Redan, a large Confederate fortification controlling the Graveyard Road approach into Vicksburg. Before the main infantry force moved forward, a specially selected group of volunteers was required to lead the attack. Approximately 150 soldiers formed this advance storming party. Their mission was extraordinarily dangerous. They were expected to rush toward the Confederate works carrying wooden planks that could be used to cross the defensive ditch and ladders that would allow attacking soldiers to climb the fortifications. These men would have to move ahead of the main Union formation and would therefore receive the first concentrated fire from Confederate defenders. The danger was so obvious that the mission became remembered as a “forlorn hope,” a traditional military expression for an operation in which the chances of survival were extremely poor. Sergeant James Jardine became one of the soldiers who went forward with this volunteer storming party on May 22, 1863. As the Union bombardment ended and the assault began, Jardine and the other volunteers moved along the Graveyard Road toward the Stockade Redan. Confederate soldiers initially remained protected behind their works, waiting until the attacking troops had approached closely enough for their fire to have maximum effect. When the storming party reached the approaches to the fortification, the Confederate defenders opened a devastating fire. Musketry and artillery swept the road and the exposed ground in front of the works. Men carrying planks and ladders were killed or wounded, while surviving soldiers attempted to continue forward despite the intense resistance. Jardine remained in the assault under these conditions. His later Medal of Honor citation summarized his conduct simply as “Gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party.” Although the wording is brief, the circumstances reveal the extraordinary danger represented by those few words. Jardine voluntarily participated in an attack in which the men at the front were exposed to concentrated enemy fire before the main assaulting force could reach the Confederate defenses. Some members of the storming party succeeded in reaching the ditch and the exterior portions of the Confederate works. Wooden planks were used in an effort to overcome the defensive obstacles, and Union color bearers managed to bring their flags close to the fortifications. The Confederate position, however, remained too strong to capture. The main Union attacks also failed to break the defenses. Soldiers who had reached positions close to the Confederate lines were forced to seek whatever protection the terrain provided, and many remained trapped under enemy fire until darkness allowed them to withdraw. The May 22 assault resulted in severe Union casualties and convinced Grant that additional frontal attacks against Vicksburg’s prepared defenses would be too costly. Grant subsequently settled into a siege rather than continuing major direct assaults. Vicksburg finally surrendered on July 4, 1863, giving the Union one of its greatest strategic victories of the war. The fall of the city, combined with Union control elsewhere along the river, effectively opened the Mississippi and divided the Confederacy geographically. Jardine’s participation in the May 22 storming party became the defining action of his military career. The volunteers who had gone forward against the Stockade Redan occupied a special place in the history of the Vicksburg Campaign because they knowingly accepted an assignment of exceptional danger. Dozens of men who survived the storming party were eventually recognized with the Medal of Honor for their gallantry. Jardine continued his military service after Vicksburg. He reenlisted in 1864, demonstrating a willingness to remain in the Army despite already having experienced some of the most dangerous fighting of the war. His continuing service eventually brought advancement beyond the enlisted rank he had held during his Medal of Honor action. He was later promoted to First Lieutenant. This became his highest verified military rank. The distinction between his two ranks is important to his historical record: Jardine was a Sergeant when he performed the heroic action at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863, but he later rose to First Lieutenant during his continuing military career. Nearly thirty-one years passed before the United States formally recognized Jardine’s Vicksburg gallantry with the nation’s highest military decoration. On April 5, 1894, he was presented with the Medal of Honor for his conduct in the volunteer storming party. The Medal of Honor was itself a product of the Civil War. Congress authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862 as a national means of recognizing soldiers who distinguished themselves through exceptional military conduct. During and after the war, many acts of courage were documented only gradually, and numerous Civil War veterans received their decorations years or even decades after the battles in which their heroism occurred. Jardine belonged to this group of later-recognized Civil War recipients. The fact that his award was presented in 1894 did not change the date on which he earned it. His qualifying heroic action remained May 22, 1863, during the Union assault on Vicksburg. The 1894 date represents the formal presentation and recognition of that wartime gallantry. For the historical database, his verified decoration is therefore represented as Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1894. This designation reflects the Army Medal of Honor period applicable at the time of his presentation. Jardine received one Medal of Honor, and no additional star, clasp, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device is verified with the decoration. Jardine’s original Medal of Honor later became separated from him. During his postwar life, while he spent time in the western United States, the original medal was reportedly stolen along with other personal belongings. This loss did not affect his entitlement or create a second award. He remained the recipient of a single Medal of Honor for his Vicksburg action. Later in life, after Jardine became a resident of the Ohio Veterans Home, staff assisted him in obtaining a replacement Medal of Honor. The replacement reflected the design then in use rather than creating a new decoration or changing the historical date of his original award. His official Medal of Honor history therefore remains tied to the 1894 presentation for his 1863 act of gallantry. The surviving historical record documents Jardine’s military life more clearly than many parts of his civilian career. What is firmly established is that he lived for decades after the Civil War and remained connected to the veteran community. By the early twentieth century, he spent part of his later life at the Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky, an institution created to support Ohio veterans who needed residential care and assistance. Jardine’s long life allowed him to witness enormous changes in the United States. He had been born in Scotland before the middle of the nineteenth century, immigrated to America, fought in a war that preserved the Union and destroyed slavery, and lived into an era when the Civil War had become the subject of national memorials, veterans’ organizations, reunions, and historical preservation. For Jardine, the events at Vicksburg remained the central military achievement for which he was nationally remembered. His official citation did not require elaborate description. “Gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party” captured the essential fact: he had advanced toward heavily fortified Confederate works as part of a small body of men who knew they would receive the first and most concentrated enemy fire. His later promotion to First Lieutenant demonstrated that his military career continued beyond that single moment. Yet the Medal of Honor correctly records him as Sergeant James Jardine of Company F, 54th Ohio Infantry, because Sergeant was the rank he held when he entered the Vicksburg storming party. James Jardine died on December 9, 1922, at the Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky, Ohio. He was eighty-five years old. He was buried in the Ohio Veterans' Home Cemetery in Sandusky, where his grave preserves the memory of both his Civil War service and his status as a Medal of Honor recipient. From his birth in Helensburgh, Scotland, to his immigration to the United States, his service as a Sergeant in the 54th Ohio Infantry, his participation in the deadly May 22, 1863 assault on Vicksburg, his later advancement to First Lieutenant, and his final years among fellow veterans in Ohio, James Jardine lived a life permanently connected to the American Civil War. His single verified decoration remains Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1894 — no device or clasp. The medal commemorates the moment when Sergeant James Jardine joined the volunteer storming party at Vicksburg and advanced toward the Confederate defenses despite the extraordinary danger ahead. His courage during that failed but historic assault ensured that his name would remain part of the military history of Vicksburg and of the United States Army’s Medal of Honor tradition.