John Nicholas Coyne

He Took the Flag in a Hand-to-Hand Fight

John Nicholas Coyne was born in New York City on November 14, 1839. As the United States moved toward civil war, he was among the New Yorkers who answered President Abraham Lincoln’s first call for troops. In April 1861, Coyne entered service as a private in Company G of the 7th New York State Militia and served during the opening emergency of the conflict before mustering out with the regiment in June.

His military career soon resumed. On January 20, 1862, Coyne enlisted again in New York City, joining Company B of the 70th New York Infantry, part of the Excelsior Brigade. Within days he was promoted to sergeant.

Only a few months later, he would perform the action that defined his military legacy.

During the Peninsula Campaign, Union forces advanced toward Richmond and encountered Confederate troops near Williamsburg, Virginia. On May 5, 1862, the Battle of Williamsburg developed into a hard-fought engagement in difficult terrain as units from both armies struggled for control of the battlefield.

Sergeant Coyne entered the fighting with the 70th New York Infantry.

At some point during the battle, he closed with the enemy in a severe hand-to-hand contest and captured a Confederate flag. His official Medal of Honor citation later recorded the achievement in direct terms: he captured a flag after a fierce personal struggle and was mentioned in orders for his gallantry.

The significance of the act went far beyond possession of a piece of cloth. During the Civil War, regimental colors were central to battlefield organization. Soldiers used them to identify their units through smoke, confusion, and changing formations, and the colors represented the honor and identity of the regiment carrying them. Capturing an enemy flag normally required reaching the center of an opposing formation and overcoming the soldiers assigned to defend it.

Coyne did exactly that at Williamsburg.

His courage there marked the beginning of a much longer combat career. The 70th New York continued through the Peninsula Campaign, and Coyne remained with the regiment as it fought in subsequent operations of the Army of the Potomac.

He later became a commissioned officer. His service carried him through major campaigns in Virginia and Pennsylvania, including Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. At Gettysburg, Coyne was wounded during the fighting on July 2, 1863.

Only weeks later, he was promoted to captain and placed in command of Company D of the 70th New York Infantry.

As a company commander, Coyne continued serving through the remaining months of 1863 and into Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign of 1864. His regiment fought through the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, Totopotomoy Creek, and Cold Harbor before participating in the opening operations around Petersburg.

Coyne was honorably mustered out in New York City on July 1, 1864, after more than two years of sustained service with the 70th New York. His substantive wartime rank had risen from private and sergeant to captain. He also later received brevet recognition for gallantry, including advancement to the honorary grade of lieutenant colonel.

The war had taken him from the ranks of an enlisted volunteer to command responsibility as an officer.

After returning to civilian life, Coyne settled in New Jersey. He worked in customs administration and eventually rose to become chief clerk of the disbursing department at the New York Custom House. He also remained involved with veterans’ organizations and with preserving the history of the units in which he had served.

More than two decades passed before the United States formally recognized his actions at Williamsburg.

On April 18, 1888, John Nicholas Coyne received the Medal of Honor for his conduct on May 5, 1862. The decoration recognized the moment when, as a sergeant in Company B of the 70th New York Infantry, he fought at close quarters and captured an enemy flag.

The award linked his name permanently with one of the earliest major battles of the Peninsula Campaign.

Coyne’s broader Union Army service also fell within the qualifying period later recognized by the Army Civil War Campaign Medal. That decoration was established decades after the conflict to represent qualifying Army service during the Civil War. Coyne was still living when the medal was authorized in 1907, although no surviving recipient-specific issue record has been confirmed for his personal medal.

His Civil War record therefore reflected two different forms of recognition: the Medal of Honor preserved one extraordinary act of battlefield gallantry, while the Civil War Campaign Medal represented qualifying service across the wider conflict.

Coyne also devoted part of his later life to recording Civil War history. He became associated with veterans’ organizations, including the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and wrote historical works connected with the Third Army Corps and the Excelsior Brigade.

Those efforts reflected a broader pattern among Civil War veterans who spent their later years ensuring that the experiences of their units and comrades were not forgotten.

John Nicholas Coyne died in East Orange, New Jersey, on March 4, 1907, at the age of sixty-seven. He was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

His career had taken him from private to sergeant, from sergeant to commissioned officer, and eventually to the brevet grade of lieutenant colonel. He fought in some of the Army of the Potomac’s most important campaigns and survived wounds, battlefield confusion, and years of hard service.

Yet the moment remembered above all others came early.

At Williamsburg on May 5, 1862, Sergeant John Nicholas Coyne entered a hand-to-hand struggle and emerged with the enemy’s flag. More than twenty-five years later, the Medal of Honor formally recognized the courage he had shown in that fight.