John Lafferty

John Lafferty, who later served under the name John Laverty, was one of the rare sailors in United States history to receive the Medal of Honor twice.

Even the basic details of his early life present an archival puzzle. His Civil War Medal of Honor record identifies him as John Lafferty, born in New York City in 1842. Later records associated with his second Medal of Honor identify him as John Laverty and give his birthplace as Ireland, while other accounts variously identify County Tyrone or Dublin and give different years of birth. The surviving evidence does not presently permit these conflicting details to be reconciled with certainty. What is clear is that Lafferty and Laverty were the same sailor, and that he served under both names during a long career in the United States Navy.

During the American Civil War he served as a fireman aboard USS Wyalusing, a side-wheel gunboat operating with Union naval forces in the sounds and rivers of North Carolina.

In 1864 one of the greatest threats to Union naval operations in the region was the Confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle. The powerful ram had already demonstrated that it could challenge Union warships and threaten Federal control of the waterways around Plymouth, North Carolina.

A dangerous plan was devised to destroy Albemarle while she lay in the Roanoke River. Volunteers from Wyalusing would attempt to approach the Confederate vessel covertly and destroy her with explosive torpedoes.

Lafferty volunteered.

On 25 May 1864 he joined the small party sent on the mission. Moving through difficult swamp country, the sailors transported two heavy torpedoes across an island in an effort to reach a position from which the Confederate ironclad could be attacked.

Lafferty helped carry the explosives through the swamp and was then assigned to guard the clothing and weapons left behind by other members of the party as they continued toward their objective.

The operation was discovered before the attack could be completed.

The sailors were forced to abandon their attempt and make their way back through hostile territory. Lafferty remained in the rain and swamp for approximately twenty-four hours before successfully returning to Wyalusing.

For his part in the mission he received the Medal of Honor.

His official citation records:

“Served on board the U.S.S. Wyalusing and participated in a plan to destroy the rebel ram Albemarle in Roanoke River, 25 May 1864. Volunteering for the hazardous mission, Lafferty participated in the transfer of two torpedoes across an island swamp and then served as sentry to keep guard of clothes and arms left by other members of the party. After being rejoined by others of the party who had been discovered before the plan could be completed, Lafferty succeeded in returning to the mother ship after spending 24 hours of discomfort in the rain and swamp.”

The award was authorized in General Order No. 45 of 31 December 1864. The Congressional Medal of Honor Society records its presentation on 14 March 1865.

Lafferty was not alone in being recognized for the hazardous expedition. Other members of Wyalusing’s crew also received the Medal of Honor for their participation in the attempt against Albemarle.

The end of the Civil War did not end his naval career. Lafferty subsequently served under the surname Laverty, the form of his name that appears in later Navy records and on his government-issued grave marker.

By 1881 he was a First Class Fireman aboard USS Alaska, a wooden-hulled steam sloop serving with the Pacific Squadron. A fireman’s workplace was deep inside a steam warship, tending the furnaces and boilers that supplied the vessel’s power. Boiler-room emergencies involving steam, fire and ruptured machinery could become fatal within seconds.

On 14 September 1881 Alaska was anchored in Callao Bay, Peru, when a stop-valve chamber associated with the vessel’s boiler ruptured.

The failure created an immediate emergency around the boilers. With the ship and men in the engineering spaces in danger, Laverty went beneath the boiler and hauled out the fires.

It was a short action to describe but an exceptionally dangerous one to perform. Removing the burning fuel reduced the heat beneath the damaged boiler and helped bring the emergency under control.

For his conduct Laverty received a second Medal of Honor.

His second official citation states:

“Serving on board the U.S.S. Alaska at Callao Bay, Peru, 14 September 1881. Following the rupture of the stop-valve chamber on that vessel, Laverty hauled the fires from under the boiler.”

The second award was announced in General Order No. 326 of 18 October 1884.

The distinction placed Lafferty, or Laverty, among the very small group of Americans who have received the Medal of Honor more than once. His case was particularly unusual because the two medals recognized completely different kinds of courage. The first resulted from a hazardous wartime mission through a North Carolina swamp against a Confederate ironclad. The second came seventeen years later from an engineering emergency aboard a United States warship thousands of miles away in Peru.

Laverty continued his naval career after the second award. By 1889 he was serving aboard USS Yorktown. Records cited in later biographical research show that during that year he was admitted to the New York Naval Hospital and spent approximately a month receiving treatment for vertigo before returning from the hospital.

His long connection with the Navy finally came to an end when he retired on pension on 22 December 1896.

Laverty subsequently lived at the United States Naval Home in Philadelphia, an institution established to care for elderly and disabled sailors who had spent their lives in naval service.

He died in Philadelphia on 13 November 1903. Later biographical records give the cause as an aortic aneurysm.

He was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia in the Naval Asylum Plot, Section 3, Row 3, Grave 17. His government marker bears the surname Laverty, preserving the name under which he served during the later part of his naval career.

His life presents an unusual challenge for historians. The surviving records disagree about where and even precisely when he was born, and his two Medals of Honor were recorded under different spellings of his surname. Yet the central facts of his service are remarkably clear.

As John Lafferty, a Civil War fireman aboard USS Wyalusing, he volunteered for a dangerous attempt to destroy CSS Albemarle and endured a day and night in the North Carolina swamps after the mission failed.

As John Laverty, First Class Fireman aboard USS Alaska seventeen years later, he entered another dangerous situation when a boiler component ruptured and hauled the fires from beneath the damaged machinery.

One sailor, two names, two very different acts of courage, and two Medals of Honor.