William Edman Leonard

One Battle Flag Made Him a Medal of Honor Hero

William Edman Leonard was born in 1836 in Greene County, Pennsylvania. He came of age in the years immediately before the American Civil War, and when the conflict divided the nation, he entered the United States Army from Jacksonville, Pennsylvania. His wartime service would eventually carry him from the enlisted ranks to commissioned status, but the action that defined his military legacy took place while he was still serving as a Private.

Leonard served in Company F of the 85th Pennsylvania Infantry, a Union regiment that campaigned in several major theaters of the Civil War. By the summer of 1864, the regiment was operating in Virginia as part of the forces confronting Confederate defenses around Richmond and Petersburg. These operations formed part of the long struggle to break the Confederate position protecting its capital and the vital transportation network that sustained the Army of Northern Virginia.

In August 1864, Union forces launched another movement north of the James River in what became known as the Second Battle of Deep Bottom. The operation was intended to pressure Confederate positions, threaten communications around Richmond and force troops away from other parts of the Petersburg front. The 85th Pennsylvania Infantry took part in the fighting around Deep Bottom and Strawberry Plains during this period.

On August 16, 1864, Leonard entered the action as a Private in Company F.

The surviving official citation for his Medal of Honor is exceptionally brief: “Capture of battle flag.” Those few words record the achievement that placed him among the most highly decorated soldiers of the Civil War. In the confusion of battle, Leonard succeeded in taking an enemy battle flag.

During the nineteenth century, a regiment’s colors had importance far beyond ceremony. Soldiers used them as visual guides in the smoke and disorder of combat, and they symbolized the identity, honor and cohesion of the unit carrying them. Because colors were normally protected closely, capturing an enemy flag was regarded as an extraordinary battlefield accomplishment. A soldier attempting it had to reach a dangerous part of the enemy formation and survive long enough to secure the colors.

Leonard’s action therefore carried both tactical and symbolic importance. The official record does not embellish the event with dramatic detail, and no such additions are necessary. His documented achievement was already exceptional: in active combat at Deep Bottom, he captured an enemy battle flag.

The fighting on August 16 occurred during a difficult phase of the campaign north of the James. The 85th Pennsylvania was part of the Union infantry engaged in the Deep Bottom operations, where soldiers faced fortified Confederate positions and repeated clashes across difficult Virginia terrain. Leonard’s act took place within this wider effort to keep pressure on Richmond and Petersburg during the final year of the war.

His military career did not remain frozen at the rank he held that day. Leonard later attained the rank of Second Lieutenant, the highest verified rank associated with his Army service. His advancement from Private to commissioned officer reflected a significant progression during his wartime career, even though his Medal of Honor would always be tied specifically to the rank and unit he held on August 16, 1864.

The Medal of Honor had only recently been created when Leonard performed his action. Congress authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862, during the Civil War, at a time when the United States did not yet possess the extensive system of military decorations that would exist in later generations. For Union soldiers, the Medal of Honor became the nation’s principal formal recognition for extraordinary battlefield conduct.

Leonard’s bravery was recognized before the Civil War had fully ended. On April 6, 1865, he was presented the Medal of Honor for capturing the battle flag at Deep Bottom. The timing was significant. His decoration came only days before General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, bringing the principal fighting in Virginia to a close.

Leonard received the Medal during his lifetime. His decoration belonged to the original Civil War-era Army Medal of Honor tradition, and no additional device or clasp accompanied the award. The Medal of Honor remained the defining decoration of his military career.

The 85th Pennsylvania Infantry had endured years of demanding service before the final campaigns of 1864. The regiment had fought in operations ranging from the Atlantic coast to Virginia, and its later service included actions associated with Bermuda Hundred, Petersburg, Deep Bottom, New Market Heights and Fair Oaks. Leonard’s Medal of Honor action came during this difficult final period of the regiment’s service.

When the war ended, Leonard returned to a country profoundly changed by four years of conflict. Like many Civil War veterans, much of his later civilian life is less extensively documented than his wartime record. His historical identity remained closely connected with Greene County, Pennsylvania, the community from which he entered military service and the region to which he remained linked after the war.

His rise to Second Lieutenant ensured that his military record reflected more than the single rank he held on the day of his heroic action. Nevertheless, the Medal of Honor was awarded specifically for what he did as a Private. That distinction is important because it preserves the exact circumstances under which his valor was recognized.

Leonard lived for more than twenty-five years after the Civil War. During those decades, the generation that had fought the conflict became increasingly involved in preserving the memory of the war through veterans’ organizations, reunions, monuments and commemorations. His own place in that history had already been secured by the Medal of Honor he received in 1865.

William Edman Leonard died on February 8, 1891, in Pennsylvania. He was buried at Jacksonville Cemetery in Wind Ridge, Greene County, Pennsylvania, returning in death to the region most closely associated with his early life and military entry.

His story survives because of one clearly documented battlefield achievement. He was not a general directing thousands of troops, nor was his Medal of Honor based on a long list of separate actions. He was a Private in Company F of the 85th Pennsylvania Infantry who, during the fighting at Deep Bottom on August 16, 1864, captured an enemy battle flag.

From that moment came the highest military recognition the United States could bestow. Leonard later rose to Second Lieutenant, but his Medal of Honor forever recorded the rank he held when he performed the act: Private. His life stands as a reminder that some of the most enduring military legacies of the Civil War were created not by senior commanders, but by ordinary soldiers whose courage in a single critical moment carried their names into history.