James Smith Cunningham

James Smith Cunningham was born on December 31, 1840, in Washington County, Pennsylvania. He grew up during a period of profound political and social tension in the United States, and by the time the American Civil War began in 1861 he was a young man entering adulthood. Cunningham eventually made his way west to Illinois, and his military service was credited to Bloomington in McLean County. When the war created an enormous demand for Union volunteers, Cunningham entered the United States Army and became a Private in Company D of the 8th Missouri Infantry. Although designated a Missouri regiment, the 8th Missouri drew soldiers from several areas, including neighboring Illinois, and became an important Union infantry formation in the Western Theater. Cunningham remained a Private throughout his verified military career. His rank was modest, but enlisted soldiers such as Cunningham formed the foundation of Civil War armies. They endured long marches, disease, exposure, inadequate food and shelter, and the continuous possibility of being sent directly against prepared enemy positions. The 8th Missouri Infantry became an experienced combat regiment through campaigns in the Mississippi Valley. By 1863, the regiment was operating as part of the Union forces under Major General Ulysses S. Grant, whose central objective was the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg was one of the Confederacy’s most strategically important strongholds. Situated high above the Mississippi River, its artillery positions and defensive works allowed Confederate forces to control a critical section of the river. Capturing the city would help restore Union control of the Mississippi and divide the Confederacy geographically. Grant’s campaign against Vicksburg involved months of difficult operations. Union forces maneuvered through Mississippi, fought a series of battles, and eventually drove Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton’s army back into the fortified city. By May 1863, Union forces had reached Vicksburg’s outer defenses. The Confederates occupied a powerful network of forts, trenches, earthworks, rifle pits, and artillery positions built across difficult terrain of ridges and ravines. Grant initially hoped to capture the city through direct assault rather than undertake a prolonged siege. An attack on May 19 failed to break the Confederate defenses. A second, much larger assault was ordered for May 22. The May 22 operation became the defining event of James Cunningham’s military career. One of the principal Union objectives was the Stockade Redan, a formidable Confederate earthwork guarding the Graveyard Road approach into Vicksburg. The position was protected by a deep ditch and high parapets, creating a serious obstacle for advancing infantry. Before the main Union assault could begin, a specially selected group of volunteers was required to move ahead of the attacking columns. Their mission was to carry materials that would allow the infantry behind them to overcome the obstacles surrounding the Confederate fortification. Approximately 150 men were selected for this storming party. The assignment was extraordinarily dangerous. The volunteers were expected to move ahead of thousands of Union soldiers, cross ground completely exposed to Confederate fire, carry planks or timbers to bridge the defensive ditch, bring scaling ladders forward, and help establish a route over the enemy works. The soldiers understood the danger. The mission was remembered as a “forlorn hope,” a traditional military expression for an operation in which the likelihood of severe casualties was exceptionally high. James Smith Cunningham volunteered. His decision was itself significant. He was not ordered individually into the storming party as part of an ordinary company movement. He joined a specially selected force whose purpose was to lead one of the most hazardous portions of the entire Union assault. Early on May 22, Union artillery bombarded the Confederate defenses. The storming party then moved forward along the Graveyard Road toward the Stockade Redan. As the volunteers approached the Confederate position, enemy soldiers opened a devastating fire. Musketry and artillery swept the road and the surrounding ground. The attacking soldiers carrying planks and ladders were particularly exposed because their equipment restricted their movement and made them obvious targets. Cunningham continued forward with the storming party. The volunteers attempted to reach the defensive ditch and establish a crossing while Confederate soldiers fired from protected positions above them. Men fell throughout the approach. The attacking formation quickly became disorganized as casualties increased. Some members of the storming party succeeded in reaching the ditch immediately below the Confederate parapet. The position offered only limited protection. They were now extremely close to the defenders but still unable to break into the fortification. Cunningham survived the charge and remained with the volunteers during this extraordinarily dangerous action. Later accounts of the assault describe the colors repeatedly falling as men carrying them were struck. Survivors continued trying to advance while the Confederate defenders concentrated fire on the exposed Union soldiers. The supporting infantry assault also failed to break the Confederate line. Throughout the battlefield, Union formations attacked strongly fortified positions but could not achieve the decisive breakthrough Grant had hoped for. For many members of the storming party, retreat during daylight was almost impossible. The open ground between the Union and Confederate positions remained under enemy observation and fire. Survivors were forced to remain close to the Confederate works or seek whatever limited protection the terrain provided until darkness made withdrawal possible. The May 22 assault failed tactically, but the courage of the storming party became one of the best remembered individual episodes of the Vicksburg Campaign. Cunningham’s official recognition eventually summarized his achievement in direct language: gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party. Those few words represented an extraordinary sequence of events. He voluntarily joined a small group tasked with leading a frontal assault against one of the strongest parts of the Vicksburg defenses, advanced while exposed to concentrated enemy fire, and survived an attack in which the danger was known in advance to be extreme. After the failed May 22 assault, Grant abandoned attempts to take Vicksburg through another immediate frontal attack. Instead, Union forces settled into siege operations. The Union army tightened its grip around the city while Federal naval forces controlled the river. Confederate soldiers and civilians inside Vicksburg endured steadily worsening shortages as the siege continued. On July 4, 1863, Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Grant. The victory was one of the most important strategic achievements of the Civil War. Union control of the Mississippi River was effectively secured, and the Confederacy was divided between its eastern and western regions. Cunningham’s contribution to that campaign remained tied particularly to the terrible assault of May 22. He continued his military service after Vicksburg. Postwar accounts record that Cunningham served approximately three years in Company D of the 8th Missouri Infantry, enduring the difficult conditions associated with Union campaigning in the Western Theater. When his military service ended, Cunningham returned to civilian life. Like millions of veterans, he faced the challenge of building a new future after years shaped by war. After the conflict, Cunningham moved from Illinois to Kansas, becoming part of the large westward movement of Civil War veterans who established homes and families in developing communities across the Great Plains. In May 1869, he married Elizabeth Ann Clark. The couple built their life in Kansas and had four children. Their family included sons and a daughter, although one son, Alvin, died in childhood. Cunningham remained in Kansas for the rest of his life and became part of the veteran community around Burlington in Coffey County. For many years, his extraordinary action at Vicksburg had not yet resulted in formal presentation of the nation’s highest military decoration. The Medal of Honor itself had been created during the Civil War. Congress authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862 as a means of recognizing soldiers who demonstrated exceptional military conduct. The United States did not yet possess the extensive hierarchy of battlefield decorations familiar from later conflicts. For Civil War soldiers, the Medal of Honor therefore became the principal national award for extraordinary acts of gallantry. During the decades after the war, many Civil War actions were investigated and reviewed. Recommendations were supported by military records, eyewitness testimony, and surviving documentation, meaning that some veterans received the Medal of Honor decades after the event for which they were recognized. James Smith Cunningham belonged to this later group. His act of gallantry occurred at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863. His Medal of Honor was formally presented on July 30, 1894. More than thirty-one years therefore separated the storming-party charge from the national recognition of his courage. For the historical database, his verified decoration is represented as Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1894. The 1862–1895 designation identifies the applicable historical Army Medal of Honor period, while 1894 records the year in which his decoration was formally presented. The difference between the action date and the presentation date is important. Cunningham did not perform his heroic act in 1894. He performed it as Private James Smith Cunningham of Company D, 8th Missouri Infantry, on May 22, 1863, during the Union assault on Vicksburg. The 1894 date records the formal national recognition of that wartime action. Cunningham received one Medal of Honor. No additional star, clasp, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified with the decoration. His final verified award therefore remains Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1894 — no device or clasp. Cunningham valued the decoration throughout his later life. It represented an event from his youth when he had voluntarily stepped forward for an assignment that offered little expectation of safety. The medal also linked him permanently to the men of the Vicksburg volunteer storming party. Their collective experience became an enduring example of the extreme dangers accepted by Civil War infantrymen during attacks against prepared fortifications. Cunningham lived for nearly six decades after the Vicksburg Campaign. His later years were spent in Kansas, surrounded by family and fellow veterans. As he aged, the Civil War increasingly became the subject of reunions, veterans’ organizations, monuments, battlefield preservation, and public remembrance. Men who had once been young soldiers charging Confederate fortifications became representatives of a rapidly disappearing generation. Late in life, Cunningham’s health remained relatively strong for many years, although he eventually lost his eyesight. By 1921 he was one of the aging survivors of a conflict that had ended more than half a century earlier. James Smith Cunningham died on April 1, 1921, in Burlington, Kansas, at the age of eighty. His funeral reflected the respect he had earned within the local community and among fellow veterans. Former soldiers participated in the ceremonies honoring a man who had carried the memory of Vicksburg through almost sixty years of civilian life. Cunningham was buried in Big Creek Cemetery near Burlington, Kansas. His life had carried him from Pennsylvania to Illinois, from military service in the 8th Missouri Infantry to the Confederate defenses at Vicksburg, and finally to a long postwar life in Kansas. Yet the central moment of his military legacy remained May 22, 1863. On that morning, Private James Smith Cunningham voluntarily joined approximately 150 soldiers assigned to lead the Union attack against the Stockade Redan. Carrying the materials necessary to overcome the Confederate defenses, the storming party advanced ahead of the main assault and entered a deadly zone of artillery and musket fire. Cunningham survived that charge and continued his service. More than three decades later, the United States formally recognized his courage with his single verified decoration: Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1894 — no device or clasp. James Smith Cunningham’s story represents the courage of an ordinary enlisted soldier who voluntarily accepted an extraordinary battlefield responsibility. His Medal of Honor preserves the memory of his gallantry during one of the most dangerous and famous assaults of the Vicksburg Campaign and ensures his lasting place in the military history of the United States.