Patrick DeLacy

He rushed ahead under fire and shot the enemy colour bearer.

Patrick DeLacy was born at Carbondale, Pennsylvania, on 25 November 1835, to Irish immigrant parents. His family moved to the growing settlement of Scranton while he was a child. He learned the leather trade, became a tannery foreman and married Rebecca Wunder before the Civil War. In August 1862 he left his wife and young daughter to enlist in Company A, 143rd Pennsylvania Infantry.

The regiment trained in Pennsylvania and served around Washington before joining the Army of the Potomac. At Gettysburg in July 1863 it fought near the McPherson farm and endured the collapse of the Union line north and west of town. DeLacy helped recover the regimental colours after colour-sergeant Benjamin Crippen was killed. He subsequently served through the campaigns that brought the army back into Virginia.

At the Wilderness on 6 May 1864, his brigade was driven from its works during the confused fighting around the Brock and Orange Plank roads. After helping a wounded comrade to safety, he rejoined his company and took part in an attempt to recover the line. Advancing ahead under concentrated fire, he shot a Confederate colour-bearer on the captured works.

The Medal of Honor citation states that his action contributed "to the success of the attack". His own later account connected the flag capture with the recapture of earthworks recently lost by Hancock's troops. The citation recognized the particular assault, while comrades also remembered his later efforts to protect wounded men from burning brush at Spotsylvania.

DeLacy rose through the enlisted ranks and became a lieutenant before leaving the army in June 1865. He returned to civilian employment and public service, working as a deputy United States marshal, state legislator, deputy sheriff, county auditor and Scranton police chief. He also served as assistant postmaster and alderman.

His Medal of Honor was issued on 24 April 1894. He remained active among his former comrades, leading regimental veterans' organizations and serving as Pennsylvania commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1908–09. His family preserved both his early Medal of Honor and its redesigned replacement, along with award correspondence and photographs.

He died at Scranton on 27 April 1915 and was buried in St Catherine's Cemetery, Moscow, Pennsylvania. His granddaughter secured official recognition of his captaincy in 1987. His new Medal of Honor headstone, bearing the corrected rank, was dedicated in 1989.