John H. Havron

They Turned Captured Guns Against the Enemy

John H. Havron was born in Ireland on December 23, 1843. By the time the American Civil War was underway, he had entered United States service at Providence, Rhode Island, and became a soldier in Company G of the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery. His wartime career eventually carried him to the trenches surrounding Petersburg, Virginia, where he took part in one of the final decisive assaults against Robert E. Lee's defensive lines.

Havron served in the Union Army as an artilleryman and ultimately held the rank of Sergeant. Artillery service demanded technical skill as well as physical endurance. Gun crews had to position heavy pieces, handle ammunition, judge ranges, maintain weapons, and continue operating under enemy fire. By the spring of 1865, Havron and his comrades were serving during the closing phase of a war that had already lasted four years.

Petersburg had become the center of a prolonged struggle between the Union armies commanded by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee. For months, Union troops extended their lines around the city, seeking to cut the railroads and roads that supplied both Petersburg and Richmond. Confederate soldiers defended an elaborate network of trenches, forts, batteries, and earthworks.

By early April 1865, the Confederate position was increasingly fragile. Union forces had gained important advantages along the lines south and west of Petersburg, and Grant prepared for a major assault intended to break through Lee's defenses.

The decisive attack came on April 2, 1865.

Sergeant John H. Havron was selected as one of a detachment of twenty artillerymen who volunteered to accompany an infantry assaulting party. Their assignment placed artillery specialists directly alongside troops advancing against the Confederate works rather than behind the main battle line where gun crews normally operated.

The decision exposed Havron and the other artillerymen to the same immediate dangers facing the assaulting infantry. They moved forward as Union troops attacked fortified Confederate positions during the struggle that would finally force Lee to abandon Petersburg and Richmond.

When the attacking Union soldiers captured enemy artillery pieces, Havron and the other selected artillerymen put their specialized training to immediate use.

They turned the captured Confederate guns against the enemy.

That act formed the basis of Havron's Medal of Honor citation. The official record recognized him as one of the twenty picked artillerymen who voluntarily accompanied the assault and then operated the guns captured during the attack.

The achievement required more than simply occupying an abandoned position. Captured artillery had to be made operational under battlefield conditions. The men needed to understand the guns, orient them toward new targets, and employ them while the fighting continued around the captured works. Havron's artillery experience made him particularly valuable at precisely the moment the Union assault achieved its breakthrough.

The events of April 2 transformed the Petersburg Campaign. Union forces penetrated major sections of the Confederate defensive system, making Lee's position untenable. That night, Confederate troops began abandoning Petersburg and Richmond. Lee's army moved west, beginning the retreat that would end with the surrender at Appomattox Court House one week later.

For Havron, the assault at Petersburg became the defining event of his military career.

His gallantry was not formally recognized immediately after the battle. More than a year later, on June 16, 1866, Sergeant John H. Havron received the Medal of Honor for his conduct during the assault.

The Medal of Honor had been created during the Civil War as the United States' principal military decoration for exceptional conduct. Havron's award reflected a particularly unusual type of battlefield achievement. He was not recognized for capturing a flag or carrying colors under fire, as were many Civil War recipients. Instead, his citation commemorated his voluntary participation in the infantry assault and the rapid use of captured enemy artillery against Confederate forces.

No additional clasp, bar, star, or other device accompanied his Medal of Honor.

Havron's wartime service also placed him within the qualifying service represented by the Army Civil War Campaign Medal. Created decades after the conflict, the campaign medal recognized qualifying United States Army service during the Civil War. Havron survived into the twentieth century and was still living when the Army established the decoration for Civil War veterans.

The Medal of Honor and the Civil War Campaign Medal represented two different aspects of his record. The campaign medal recognized his broader Union Army service during the conflict, while the Medal of Honor preserved the extraordinary action that occurred during the final breakthrough at Petersburg.

After the Civil War, Havron lived for more than four decades beyond the battlefield that had brought him national recognition. Much less detail survives about his civilian life than about his military service, and his historical identity remains most closely connected with the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery and the events of April 2, 1865.

John H. Havron died in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 28, 1910. He was sixty-six years old.

His Medal of Honor story captures a distinctive moment in the final days of the Civil War. As Union infantry surged into the Petersburg defenses, Havron and nineteen other artillerymen deliberately accompanied the assault. Once enemy guns fell into Union hands, they did not allow those weapons to remain silent. They turned them around and used them against the forces that had occupied the works only moments before.

That combination of volunteer courage, technical skill, and battlefield initiative earned Sergeant John H. Havron the Medal of Honor and permanently connected his name with the Union breakthrough that helped bring the long siege of Petersburg—and soon the Civil War itself—to its end.