Aloysius Joseph Frantz

He Volunteered for the Storming Party at Vicksburg

Aloysius Joseph Frantz was born on March 9, 1837, in France. In military records he was generally identified simply as Joseph Frantz. After coming to the United States, he entered Union service during the American Civil War and joined Company E of the 83rd Indiana Infantry.

Frantz was mustered into service on August 20, 1862. His military records identified him as a private, and before enlistment he had worked as a blacksmith. Within less than a year of joining the regiment, he found himself involved in one of the most important Union campaigns of the war—the drive against Vicksburg, Mississippi.

By May 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces had closed on the Confederate defenses surrounding Vicksburg. On May 22, Union commanders prepared a major assault against the fortified city. Before the main attack could begin, volunteers were called for an exceptionally dangerous assignment.

The men selected for the mission formed what became known as the volunteer storming party. They were expected to advance ahead of the main Union force toward the Confederate defenses, placing themselves directly in the path of concentrated enemy fire.

When volunteers were requested from his company, Frantz stepped forward.

He joined the storming party and took part in the charge against the Confederate works at Vicksburg. The attack exposed the volunteers to intense fire as they moved toward heavily fortified positions. Although the assault failed to break through the defenses that day, the courage of the men who led the advance became one of the most remembered episodes of the Vicksburg Campaign.

Frantz continued serving after Vicksburg as the war moved deeper into the South. He remained with the Union Army through further campaigning, including operations associated with the advance toward Atlanta. His wartime service carried him through some of the hardest fighting of the later Civil War.

More than thirty years after the charge at Vicksburg, his bravery received formal national recognition. On August 13, 1894, Joseph Frantz was awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party on May 22, 1863.

In later life, Frantz settled in Minnesota. He lived long enough to see the Civil War become part of national memory and to receive recognition for the action that had defined his military career.

Aloysius Joseph Frantz died on October 14, 1913, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Northfield.

His Medal of Honor legacy began with a simple decision made before the assault at Vicksburg. When soldiers were asked to volunteer for a mission that would place them at the front of an attack against fortified Confederate positions, Frantz accepted the risk and stepped forward. His gallantry in that charge secured his place among the recognized heroes of the American Civil War.