John Kiggins

He Raised the Colors and Drew the Enemy’s Fire

John Kiggins was born on February 2, 1837, in Syracuse, New York. When the American Civil War entered its second year, he joined thousands of men who entered Union service as the conflict demanded ever greater numbers of soldiers. On September 2, 1862, Kiggins enlisted at Syracuse for three years of service and was mustered into Company D of the 149th New York Infantry on September 18 as a private.

Kiggins quickly became an experienced member of the regiment. His service brought him through the difficult campaigns of the Army of the Potomac and later into the Western Theater. He was promoted to corporal on May 10, 1863, and continued serving through a year in which the 149th New York participated in some of the Civil War’s hardest campaigning. By November 1, 1863, he had been promoted again, this time to sergeant.

Only a few weeks after becoming a sergeant, Kiggins entered the action that would define his military legacy. Union forces around Chattanooga, Tennessee, were preparing to break Confederate control of the surrounding heights. Lookout Mountain dominated the approaches to the city, and on November 24, 1863, Union troops under Major General Joseph Hooker moved against the Confederate position in the battle later popularly remembered as the “Battle Above the Clouds.”

During the fighting, Kiggins and other Union soldiers found themselves in an extraordinarily dangerous situation. Friendly artillery batteries were firing toward the area occupied by their own troops. With the confusion of battle threatening the lives of the men around him, Kiggins used the regimental colors to make their position unmistakable.

He moved into a position where the flag could be clearly seen and waved the colors in an effort to alert the Union batteries. The signal accomplished its purpose, but it also made Kiggins highly visible to Confederate soldiers. By exposing himself with the colors, he drew concentrated enemy fire onto his own position while attempting to protect his comrades from the fire of their own artillery.

The official description of his deed was later strikingly concise: he waved the colors to save the lives of men being fired upon by their own batteries and, in doing so, drew concentrated enemy fire upon himself. The courage of the act rested in its deliberate nature. Kiggins understood that making himself and the colors visible could attract hostile fire, yet the lives of other soldiers depended on someone identifying their position.

Kiggins survived Lookout Mountain and continued serving with the 149th New York Infantry. His regiment remained active through the remaining campaigns of the war, including operations in Georgia and the Carolinas. Rather than leaving the service after the action that would eventually make him famous, he stayed with Company D until the end of his wartime obligation.

On June 12, 1865, after nearly three years in uniform, Sergeant John Kiggins was mustered out with his company near Bladensburg, Maryland. Sergeant remained his highest verified military rank. His service had carried him from his enlistment in Syracuse through some of the decisive campaigns of the Civil War and ultimately to the end of Union military operations.

Recognition for his extraordinary conduct at Lookout Mountain did not come immediately. Nearly twenty-nine years after the battle, on January 12, 1892, Kiggins was presented with the Medal of Honor. The decoration recognized specifically what he had done on November 24, 1863: deliberately exposing himself and the colors to danger in order to protect fellow Union soldiers.

The long gap between action and recognition was not unusual for Civil War Medal of Honor recipients. Many wartime deeds were formally reviewed and rewarded years or even decades after the fighting ended. In Kiggins’ case, the surviving citation preserved the essential meaning of the event without embellishment. His Medal of Honor was rooted not in the capture of an enemy position or flag, but in a decision to place himself in greater danger so that other men might survive.

His wartime Army service also fell within the qualifying service recognized by the Army Civil War Campaign Medal. Established in 1907, the medal commemorated honorable United States Army service during the Civil War. While the Medal of Honor marked one exceptional act at Lookout Mountain, the Civil War Campaign Medal represented the broader period of military service through which Kiggins had served from 1862 until 1865.

After returning to civilian life, Kiggins settled again in the Syracuse area. In 1890 he married Johanna Christina Larsen, and the couple had four children. His life after the war was far removed from the battlefield where he had once stood beneath the regimental colors, but the memory of his wartime service remained part of his identity.

Kiggins lived long enough to see both his Civil War service and his individual act of courage formally remembered by the nation. He died on September 29, 1914, at Bath, New York, at the age of seventy-seven. He was buried at Bath National Cemetery in New York.

John Kiggins’ place in American military history rests on a moment when battlefield confusion placed his comrades in danger from both sides. Instead of seeking safety, he made himself more visible. By raising and waving the colors, he helped identify the Union position while knowingly attracting hostile fire toward himself.

His Medal of Honor preserves that act as an example of courage defined by responsibility for others. His broader Civil War service reflects nearly three years of duty in the Union Army. Together, those two parts of his record show why his story endured: when the men around him were in danger, Kiggins chose to stand where the fire was most likely to find him.