Charles F. Kauffman

He seized the enemy flag as the retreat broke into disaster.

Charles Felix Kauffman was born at Strasbourg, France, on 10 February 1844. The American army knew him as John Chapman, the name he adopted when he enlisted despite his father's opposition. Both names belong to the same Medal of Honor recipient; the decoration was awarded under his military alias.

He enlisted at Limerick, Maine, on 5 October 1864 and served as a private in Company B of the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery. The regiment's title retained its artillery origins, but its later campaigns were fought as infantry. Kauffman joined during the final year of a war already exacting a heavy cost from the Maine regiment.

On 6 April 1865 he fought near Deatonsville, Virginia, in the engagements usually grouped under Sailor's Creek or Sayler's Creek. Confederate forces were retreating after the loss of Petersburg and Richmond. In the fighting that followed the Union pursuit, Kauffman captured an enemy flag.

His official Medal of Honor citation is unusually brief: “Capture of flag.” His award was dated 10 May 1865, just over a month after the action (Congressional Medal of Honor Society, official citation and identity record: https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/john-chapman).

Kauffman remained in the Union army until September 1865 and was discharged at Fort Baker, near Washington. He then changed services. In October he enlisted in the United States Navy as a second-class fireman and served aboard USS Monongahela until July 1868, when he was discharged in New York harbour.

His later life took him to California. He died in San Francisco on 30 September 1905, aged sixty-one, and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma under his family name. The connection between that grave and the soldier John Chapman preserves the identity behind one of the Civil War's shortest gallantry citations.