Thomas Davis

Wounded at Cold Harbor, He Returned to Capture a Flag

Thomas Davis was born in Wales on December 11, 1837. During the American Civil War, he entered the United States Army and served with Company C of the 2nd New York Heavy Artillery. Although designated as a heavy artillery regiment, the unit spent much of its wartime service fighting in an infantry role, placing Davis in some of the most severe combat of the final years of the conflict.

Davis enlisted in New York City on December 14, 1863, at the age of twenty-six. Official New York military records initially recorded his surname as Davies, but he later mustered out under the name Thomas Davis, the form also used in his Medal of Honor record. He entered Company C as a private and remained at that rank throughout his verified service.

By the spring of 1864, the 2nd New York Heavy Artillery was serving with the Army of the Potomac during the Overland Campaign. The fighting brought the regiment into a succession of brutal engagements as Union forces pressed southward against the Army of Northern Virginia.

One of the most costly battles came at Cold Harbor, Virginia.

On June 3, 1864, Union forces launched a major assault against strongly fortified Confederate positions. The attack resulted in devastating casualties within a short period of time. Davis was among the soldiers wounded in the fighting. His official service record confirms that he was wounded in action at Cold Harbor.

He survived and returned to duty.

The war continued through the long siege operations around Petersburg and into the spring of 1865, when Confederate defenses finally began to collapse. As General Robert E. Lee’s army withdrew westward from Richmond and Petersburg, Union forces pursued aggressively in what became the Appomattox Campaign.

On April 6, 1865, Davis fought at Sailor’s Creek, Virginia, one of the final major battles before Lee’s surrender.

Confederate forces attempting to escape westward were intercepted by Union troops, and the resulting battle shattered significant portions of Lee’s retreating army. Thousands of Confederate soldiers were captured, along with artillery, equipment, and battle flags.

During the engagement, Davis captured an enemy flag.

His official Medal of Honor citation states the achievement in only a few words: the capture of a flag. It does not identify the Confederate regiment involved or provide additional details about the exact circumstances of the seizure. For that reason, the documented act itself remains the strongest account of his heroism.

In Civil War combat, regimental colors held both practical and symbolic importance. They helped soldiers maintain their position in the confusion of battle and represented the identity and honor of the regiment. Flags were commonly carried near the center of formations and guarded carefully. Capturing an enemy color therefore generally required a soldier to enter a particularly dangerous area of the battlefield.

For Davis, the achievement was even more notable because it came after he had already experienced serious combat and been wounded at Cold Harbor less than a year earlier.

His courage at Sailor’s Creek received unusually rapid recognition.

On May 3, 1865, less than a month after the battle, Thomas Davis was awarded the Medal of Honor for capturing the enemy flag. The decoration belonged to the original Civil War-era Army Medal of Honor period and recognized his individual action during the closing days of the war.

The timing placed his award at a remarkable moment in American history. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, only three days after Davis’s action. By the time the Medal of Honor was awarded, organized Confederate resistance was rapidly collapsing across the country.

Davis remained in military service after the main fighting had ended. His regiment continued its duties until he was mustered out with Company C on September 29, 1865, in Washington, D.C. His verified Army career therefore extended from December 1863 through the conclusion of the Civil War and into the immediate postwar period.

His broader wartime service is represented by the Army Civil War Campaign Medal. Established decades later, the medal recognized qualifying Army and volunteer service performed during the Civil War. While the Medal of Honor commemorated Davis’s specific act of capturing an enemy flag at Sailor’s Creek, the campaign medal represents the wider period of service that carried him through Cold Harbor, the final campaigns in Virginia, and the end of the conflict.

Davis lived for more than half a century after the war. By then, the battles in which he had fought had become part of the national historical record, and the generation of Civil War veterans was steadily disappearing.

He died on March 24, 1919, and was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth, New York.

Thomas Davis’s military record tells a story of endurance as well as courage. He entered the Army as a private, was wounded during one of the war’s most destructive assaults, recovered, returned to duty, and continued fighting until the final campaign against Lee’s army.

At Sailor’s Creek, only days before the surrender at Appomattox, he captured an enemy flag in battle.

That act earned him the Medal of Honor and ensured that his name would remain connected to one of the Civil War’s final decisive engagements.