William Ernest Goodman

The Enemy Had the Flag—He Took It Back

William Ernest Goodman was born on December 10, 1838, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His life would eventually span military service in the American Civil War, recognition with the Medal of Honor, advancement to the rank of Major, and a successful postwar career in Philadelphia. Yet the defining moment of his military life came on a Virginia battlefield in 1863, when the colors of another Union regiment had fallen into enemy hands.

Goodman entered United States military service from Philadelphia during the Civil War. By 1863 he was serving as a First Lieutenant in Company D of the 147th Pennsylvania Infantry. The regiment had been organized in 1862, with several of its companies formed from men previously attached to the 28th Pennsylvania Infantry. It became part of the Army of the Potomac’s XII Corps and was soon drawn into some of the most demanding campaigning of the war.

In the spring of 1863, the 147th Pennsylvania took part in the Chancellorsville Campaign in Virginia. The Battle of Chancellorsville became one of the largest and most complex engagements fought between the Army of the Potomac and General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Fighting spread through dense woodland and broken ground, while units were repeatedly shifted, separated, attacked and reorganized under intense pressure.

May 3, 1863, became one of the fiercest days of the battle.

During the fighting, Goodman encountered the colors of the 107th Ohio Volunteers in enemy possession. Regimental colors held enormous practical and symbolic importance in Civil War armies. They marked a unit’s location in smoke and confusion, provided a point around which soldiers could rally, and represented the identity and honor of the regiment. Because of that importance, the loss of a flag to the enemy could be deeply felt, while recovering one from enemy hands required both opportunity and considerable courage.

Goodman acted.

The surviving Medal of Honor citation describes his achievement with striking simplicity: he rescued the colors of the 107th Ohio Volunteers from the enemy. The official wording offers no exaggerated description of how the moment unfolded, but the significance of the act is unmistakable. A First Lieutenant of the 147th Pennsylvania recovered another Union regiment’s colors during one of the most violent phases of the Battle of Chancellorsville and prevented them from remaining in Confederate hands.

Although Chancellorsville ended as a Confederate victory, Goodman’s individual action endured as an example of battlefield courage. The battle itself imposed heavy losses on both sides, and the Union Army eventually withdrew across the Rappahannock River. For Goodman, however, May 3 became the action for which he would later receive the highest military decoration of the United States.

His wartime service did not end at Chancellorsville. The 147th Pennsylvania remained an active combat regiment. Only weeks later it participated in the Gettysburg Campaign, where the regiment served with the XII Corps during the decisive battle in Pennsylvania. Later in 1863, the regiment was transferred west with other elements of the corps and served in operations connected with Chattanooga, including the campaigns around Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.

The regiment subsequently became part of the XX Corps and continued through the campaigns that carried Union forces deeper into the South. Its service extended through the Atlanta Campaign, operations in Georgia, and the final campaigns of the war. Goodman continued his military career through the Civil War period and ultimately attained the rank of Major, the highest recorded rank of his service.

The recognition for his Chancellorsville action came many years after the battle.

The Army Medal of Honor had been authorized by Congress in 1862, during the early years of the Civil War. At that time the United States possessed no broad system of military decorations comparable to the one that would develop in the twentieth century. The Medal of Honor therefore became the nation’s principal decoration for exceptional military conduct.

More than thirty years after Chancellorsville, Goodman’s act was formally recognized. On January 11, 1894, William Ernest Goodman was presented the Medal of Honor for his conduct as a First Lieutenant at Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863. The award was not posthumous; Goodman lived to receive the decoration personally.

His Medal of Honor belonged to the original nineteenth-century Army tradition of the decoration. The award recognized one specific act: recovering the colors of the 107th Ohio Volunteers from the enemy. No additional device or clasp formed part of his Medal of Honor.

After his military service ended, Goodman returned to Philadelphia and built a substantial civilian career. He became associated with Harrington & Goodman, a wholesale business dealing in tailors’ trimmings. Contemporary Philadelphia records later identified him as Major William Ernest Goodman and recorded his involvement in the city’s commercial community.

His postwar life also remained connected with military remembrance. Goodman was associated with organizations preserving the memory and fellowship of Civil War veterans, including the Military Order of the Loyal Legion and organizations connected with Medal of Honor recipients. His standing in Philadelphia extended beyond veteran circles; surviving contemporary records also identify him with banking and business interests.

The decades between the Civil War and the beginning of the twentieth century transformed the United States dramatically. Goodman lived through that transition as both a former Union officer and a businessman. Unlike the brief official citation attached to his Medal of Honor, his later life stretched across nearly half a century after the battle that made him historically significant.

Goodman died in Philadelphia on March 22, 1912, at the age of seventy-three. He was buried at St. Thomas Church Cemetery in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania.

His legacy remains centered on a single moment at Chancellorsville. In a battle filled with confusion, loss and rapidly shifting lines, the colors of the 107th Ohio Volunteers had fallen into enemy hands. Goodman recovered them.

More than three decades later, the United States formally recognized that act with the Medal of Honor. From a First Lieutenant on the battlefield to a Major and respected Philadelphia businessman in later life, William Ernest Goodman carried the memory of Chancellorsville with him for the rest of his life. His story endures because, in the midst of one of the Civil War’s most violent battles, he saw another regiment’s flag in enemy hands—and brought it back.