John Wesley Conaway

He Joined the Forlorn Hope at Vicksburg

John Wesley Conaway was born on September 19, 1843, in Dearborn County, Indiana. During the American Civil War, he entered Union service at Rising Sun, Indiana, and became a soldier in Company C of the 83rd Indiana Infantry. He would eventually rise to the rank of corporal, but the action that defined his military legacy came while he was still serving as a private.

By the spring of 1863, Conaway and the 83rd Indiana were involved in Ulysses S. Grant's campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Confederate stronghold commanded the Mississippi River and had become one of the Union's most important strategic objectives. After weeks of maneuvering and fighting, Grant's forces closed in on the city's defenses.

On May 22, 1863, Union commanders prepared a major assault against the fortified Confederate lines. Before the main attacking force could advance, volunteers were needed for an exceptionally dangerous mission. A storming party would move ahead of the assault, carrying materials intended to help troops cross defensive obstacles and reach the enemy works.

The soldiers who volunteered understood the extreme danger. Their position at the front of the attack meant they would be among the first exposed to Confederate fire. The mission became remembered as the work of the "volunteer storming party," sometimes described as a forlorn hope because of the extraordinary risk faced by the men who stepped forward.

Conaway volunteered.

As the storming party advanced toward the Confederate defenses at Vicksburg, the men encountered intense enemy fire. Conaway continued forward with the volunteers during the charge and was wounded by gunfire during the engagement. The injury had lasting consequences, but he survived the assault.

Although the Union attack of May 22 failed to break through Vicksburg's defenses, the determination of the storming party became one of the most remembered episodes of the siege. The city eventually surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and marking a major turning point in the war.

Conaway continued his military service and later attained the rank of corporal. Decades passed before the courage he had displayed at Vicksburg received formal national recognition.

On August 11, 1894, John Wesley Conaway received the Medal of Honor for his gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863. More than thirty years separated the battlefield action from the award, but the decoration permanently linked his name to one of the most hazardous volunteer missions of the Vicksburg Campaign.

In his later years, Conaway lived in Idaho. He died on November 21, 1913, in Post Falls and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery there.

John Wesley Conaway's Medal of Honor legacy began with a choice made before the assault even started. When volunteers were called for a mission expected to expose them to some of the heaviest fire of the attack, he stepped forward. He advanced with the storming party, was wounded in the charge, and survived to see his courage recognized more than three decades later with the Medal of Honor.