Richard Gage

He Charged a Stockade and Saved the Bridge

Richard J. Gage was born in 1842 in Grafton County, New Hampshire. By the time of the American Civil War, he had moved west and entered Union service as a private in Company D of the 104th Illinois Infantry.

Gage enlisted on August 27, 1862. His regiment became part of the Union armies operating in the western theater, where control of Tennessee was strategically important to both sides. Railroads, rivers, roads, and bridges were essential to moving soldiers and supplies, making even relatively small defensive positions important military objectives.

By the summer of 1863, Union forces were conducting operations through Middle Tennessee designed to force Confederate troops from important positions and disrupt their communications. It was during these movements that Gage performed the action for which he would eventually receive the Medal of Honor.

On July 2, 1863, Union troops reached Elk River, Tennessee.

A Confederate stockade protected a strategically important bridge in the area. Taking the position meant approaching an enemy defensive work while exposed to hostile fire. Rather than waiting for a larger assault, a small group of Union soldiers volunteered to move against the stockade.

Private Richard J. Gage was among them.

He voluntarily joined the small assaulting party and advanced under heavy enemy fire. The soldiers pressed toward the Confederate position despite the danger and succeeded in capturing the stockade.

Their success also saved the bridge.

In Civil War campaigning, bridges were critical military assets. An intact crossing could determine whether troops, artillery, supply wagons, and reinforcements could continue moving without costly delays. Destroying or preserving a bridge could therefore influence operations far beyond the immediate firefight surrounding it.

Gage’s Medal of Honor citation focused on exactly this combination of voluntary action and battlefield consequence. He had chosen to accompany a small party into heavy fire, helped capture the Confederate stockade, and contributed to saving the bridge at Elk River.

The action was not a massive engagement involving thousands of men. Instead, it was a concentrated episode in which a handful of soldiers accepted considerable risk to seize a position that mattered to the larger movement of the Union army.

Gage survived the fighting and continued serving with the 104th Illinois Infantry. His verified military rank remained private throughout his recorded service.

The war, however, eventually left a lasting physical mark on him. His service record shows that he was discharged on February 6, 1865, because of wounds. He left the Army only months before the Civil War came to an end.

For decades afterward, the action at Elk River remained part of his military record without the nation’s highest decoration attached to it. Like many Civil War veterans whose acts of bravery were recognized long after the conflict, Gage waited more than thirty years for formal acknowledgment.

On October 30, 1897, Richard J. Gage was awarded the Medal of Honor.

The award recognized his conduct as a private on July 2, 1863. The citation preserved a concise account of what he had done: he voluntarily joined a small party that advanced under heavy fire, captured a Confederate stockade, and saved an important bridge.

By the time he received the Medal of Honor, the Civil War belonged to an earlier generation. Yet the decoration ensured that the courage demonstrated at Elk River would not disappear into the countless smaller actions that accompanied the great campaigns of the conflict.

Gage lived for several more years after receiving the Medal of Honor. He died on April 28, 1903, in Seneca, Illinois.

He was buried in Woodside Cemetery in Seneca.

Richard J. Gage’s legacy rests on a moment when success depended on a small number of soldiers volunteering to move forward under direct enemy fire. As a private in the 104th Illinois Infantry, he stepped forward, helped seize a defended stockade, and preserved a bridge that mattered to Union operations.

For his voluntary participation in that dangerous assault at Elk River on July 2, 1863, Richard J. Gage received the Medal of Honor and earned a lasting place among the decorated soldiers of the American Civil War.