Joseph Alton Sladen

Clerk who voluntarily engaged in action to rally the troops.

Joseph Alton Sladen was born in England on April 9, 1841. He later came to the United States, and when the American Civil War engulfed the nation, he entered Union service and began a military career that would eventually extend far beyond the conflict.

Sladen served as a Private in Company A, 33rd Massachusetts Infantry. By the spring of 1864, his regiment was operating with Union forces during Major General William T. Sherman’s campaign into Georgia, an offensive designed to drive Confederate armies south and ultimately threaten Atlanta.

His defining moment came during the Battle of Resaca on May 14, 1864.

At the time, Sladen had been detailed for duty as a clerk at headquarters. His assignment did not require him to stand in the main battle line. As the fighting intensified, however, he voluntarily left the relative security of his headquarters duty and entered the combat.

The situation was critical.

Union and Confederate troops were fighting across difficult ground around Resaca as Sherman’s forces attempted to press the Confederate Army of Tennessee. In the midst of the engagement, Sladen placed himself among the troops and personally helped inspire them to resist the enemy attack.

His courage was not based on holding a command rank—he was still a Private.

Instead, it was his personal example under fire that became the basis of his Medal of Honor recognition. At a moment when he could have remained at his assigned headquarters post, Sladen chose to enter the fighting and help strengthen the men facing the Confederate assault.

The Union troops succeeded in repelling the attack.

The Battle of Resaca continued into the following day, and Confederate forces eventually withdrew southward. The engagement became an important early stage of the Atlanta Campaign, which would continue through months of hard fighting before Union forces captured Atlanta later that year.

Sladen’s act at Resaca did not bring immediate recognition.

More than thirty years passed before the United States formally honored what he had done.

On July 19, 1895, Joseph Alton Sladen was presented with the Medal of Honor for his conduct at Resaca. The award recognized his decision to voluntarily enter the battle and the effect his personal example had in inspiring the troops to repel the enemy.

No additional clasp, star, or device accompanied his Medal of Honor.

His Civil War service also falls within the period later commemorated by the Army Civil War Campaign Medal. That decoration was established decades after the conflict to recognize qualifying United States Army service during the Civil War. Sladen’s Medal of Honor, however, remained tied specifically to his actions at Resaca on May 14, 1864.

The Civil War was only the beginning of his military career.

Sladen later became a commissioned officer and continued serving in the United States Army. Over the following decades he held increasingly responsible assignments and served in the postwar Army during a period when military operations shifted westward.

He became closely associated with Major General Oliver Otis Howard and served with him during later western campaigns. Sladen took part in operations connected with the Nez Perce Campaign of 1877 and the Bannock Campaign of 1878, giving him a military career that stretched from the battlefields of the Civil War into the Indian Wars era.

His advancement reflected that long service.

The young Private who had entered the fighting at Resaca eventually became a commissioned officer and was promoted to Captain during his active Army career. After retirement, he was advanced to Major on the retired list, the highest verified rank associated with his service.

Sladen retired from active military duty in 1889.

By then, more than twenty-five years had passed since the day at Resaca that would ultimately define his place among America’s Medal of Honor recipients. His formal recognition came six years after his retirement, when the Medal of Honor was presented to him in 1895.

He lived for another fifteen years after receiving the decoration.

Joseph Alton Sladen died on January 25, 1911, in Portland, Oregon. He was initially buried in Portland and was later reinterred at the United States Military Academy Cemetery at West Point, New York.

His life traced an unusual military journey.

He began the Civil War as an enlisted Private.

At Resaca, while assigned as a headquarters clerk, he voluntarily entered a dangerous battle and helped rally soldiers under fire.

He later became an Army officer, served in major postwar western campaigns, and completed his career with the rank of Captain before being advanced to Major on the retired list.

Yet the moment for which he received the nation’s highest military decoration came when he held no officer’s commission and no obligation to leave headquarters.

On May 14, 1864, Joseph Alton Sladen saw troops under pressure at Resaca and chose to enter the fight.

His personal example helped inspire them to stand and repel the enemy.

For that act of courage, he received the Medal of Honor and earned a lasting place in the history of the United States Army.