John Mitchell Vanderslice

He Reached the Enemy Rifle Pits Before Anyone Else

John Mitchell Vanderslice was born in Pennsylvania on August 31, 1846. He came of age during the American Civil War, and while still a teenager his life was drawn into the conflict that was reshaping the nation. Before the war ended, he would serve as a Union cavalryman, survive some of the final campaigns in Virginia, become a prisoner of war, and perform an act of courage at Hatcher’s Run that eventually brought him the Medal of Honor.

Vanderslice first responded to Pennsylvania’s call for emergency troops during the Confederate invasion of 1863. Still only sixteen, he served briefly as a private in Company F of the 49th Pennsylvania Militia during the emergency surrounding the Gettysburg Campaign. When the immediate threat passed, the militia unit was discharged.

His military service was not finished.

On February 17, 1864, Vanderslice enlisted at Philadelphia as a private in Company D of the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry. He was seventeen years old. The regiment was already an experienced Union cavalry organization and would expose the young soldier to a demanding series of mounted operations during the final year of the war.

The 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry served with the Army of the Potomac and participated in the violent campaigning of 1864. Cavalrymen were increasingly being used not simply for reconnaissance and screening but also as aggressive battlefield forces capable of fighting mounted or dismounted. Vanderslice’s regiment operated through the Overland and Petersburg campaigns as Union armies maintained relentless pressure on Confederate forces in Virginia.

By the winter of 1865, the war was moving toward its conclusion, but the fighting around Petersburg remained intense.

On February 6, 1865, Union forces fought Confederate troops at Hatcher’s Run, southwest of Petersburg. The operation formed part of the continuing effort to stretch and break Confederate defensive lines and disrupt the routes supplying General Robert E. Lee’s army.

During the battle, the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry was ordered against Confederate defensive positions protected by rifle pits.

The regiment charged.

Private John Mitchell Vanderslice surged forward with the attacking cavalrymen and became the first man to reach the enemy rifle pits. The Confederate position was subsequently taken in the charge.

His official Medal of Honor citation preserved the achievement in simple terms: he was the first man to reach the enemy’s rifle pits, which were captured during the assault.

The brevity of the citation does not diminish the danger involved. Rifle pits were defensive positions constructed specifically to give soldiers protection while they fired on troops approaching across exposed ground. Reaching them first during an assault meant moving at the leading edge of the attacking force toward men who were prepared to fire from cover.

Vanderslice was still only eighteen years old.

His war continued after Hatcher’s Run. The 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry joined the operations that finally broke the Confederate position around Petersburg and began the Appomattox Campaign. Union cavalry pushed aggressively westward as Lee’s army attempted to escape.

Vanderslice participated in the closing campaign, including the fighting around Five Forks and Sailor’s Creek. On April 7, 1865, near Farmville, Virginia, his horse was killed during a cavalry action and he was captured by Confederate forces.

His captivity was brief.

Two days later, on April 9, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. Vanderslice was released and survived to see the end of the campaign in which he had fought.

He was honorably discharged from military service in July 1865. He returned to civilian life still a young man, but with experiences extending from emergency militia duty to some of the most demanding cavalry operations of the war’s final campaigns.

Vanderslice then pursued a legal career. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1869, beginning a long practice in Philadelphia. Over the following decades he became active not only in law and civic affairs but also in the organizations formed by Union veterans after the war.

The preservation of Civil War memory became one of the most important parts of his later life.

Vanderslice became deeply involved with the Grand Army of the Republic, the influential organization of Union veterans. He held senior positions within the Pennsylvania organization and remained closely connected with efforts to preserve the history and experiences of Civil War soldiers.

Gettysburg became a particular focus of his work.

Although his Medal of Honor action had taken place at Hatcher’s Run, Vanderslice devoted considerable energy to preserving the Gettysburg battlefield and commemorating the units that fought there. He became associated with the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, an organization that acquired battlefield land, created avenues, and encouraged the erection of monuments marking the positions of Union and Confederate formations.

Vanderslice later wrote about Gettysburg and the preservation of the battlefield. His historical work helped document both the battle and the movement to transform the ground where thousands had fought and died into a permanent place of remembrance.

The nation eventually returned to the courage he had displayed as a teenager.

On September 1, 1893, John Mitchell Vanderslice received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Hatcher’s Run on February 6, 1865. Nearly twenty-nine years had passed since the young private had raced toward the Confederate rifle pits at the front of his regiment’s charge.

The Medal of Honor formally recognized that single extraordinary battlefield act. His broader Union Army service was later represented by the Army Civil War Campaign Medal, established to commemorate qualifying military service during the conflict. Vanderslice lived well beyond the creation of that campaign decoration and into the period associated with its later ribbon design.

Together, the decorations represented two different aspects of his wartime record. The Civil War Campaign Medal reflected his service in the Union Army, while the Medal of Honor preserved the moment at Hatcher’s Run when he reached the enemy position before the rest of the attacking force.

Vanderslice continued his legal, veterans’ and historical work into the twentieth century. Through his involvement in battlefield preservation and his writing on Gettysburg, he helped ensure that the experiences of Civil War soldiers would remain visible to later generations.

John Mitchell Vanderslice died in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, on March 12, 1915, at the age of sixty-eight. He was buried in St. James Perkiomen Cemetery.

His life connected two very different forms of service. As a teenager, he rode with Union cavalry into some of the final battles of the Civil War. Decades later, he worked to preserve the places and memories left behind by that conflict.

But his Medal of Honor legacy rests on one moment at Hatcher’s Run.

When the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry charged the Confederate defenses on February 6, 1865, Private John Mitchell Vanderslice went forward at the head of the assault and became the first man to reach the enemy rifle pits. The position fell, and nearly three decades later the Medal of Honor ensured that his courage at the front of that charge would be remembered.