William H. H. Crosier

He saved the regimental flag despite being severely wounded.

William Henry Harrison Crosier was born at Skaneateles, New York, on 5 May 1844. He grew up in the village and enlisted in the Union Army there on 20 August 1862, aged eighteen. Mustered as a corporal in Company G of the 149th New York Infantry, he joined a regiment recruited largely from Onondaga County.

The 149th served in the eastern campaigns before moving west with the Twelfth Corps. At Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, on 24 November 1863, Crosier suffered a facial wound but returned to duty. His regiment fought hard in that action and captured several Confederate flags. He became a sergeant on 1 January 1864 and was appointed colour sergeant that spring, taking responsibility for the flag that served as a visible rallying point for his comrades.

During the Atlanta campaign, the 149th formed part of the Twentieth Corps. The fighting brought it to Peachtree Creek, north of Atlanta, where Confederate forces attacked on 20 July 1864. The regiment suffered heavy casualties, including its lieutenant-colonel. Crosier carried its colours through the engagement.

He was severely wounded in the neck and became exposed to Confederate soldiers beyond the Union line. Despite the wound and the danger of capture, he removed the flag from its staff and brought the cloth back to his own troops. Saving the colours preserved a central symbol of the regiment as well as a practical point around which its men could gather.

The Army's official Medal of Honor citation describes him as "severely wounded and ambushed by the enemy" before recounting the removal and recovery of the colours. The award recognized his determination to bring them back rather than abandon them where he had fallen (https://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/citations1.html).

Crosier survived after hospital treatment. His wounds ended his active service, and he mustered out from a Nashville hospital on 15 May 1865, as the war was ending. He had served from the age of eighteen to twenty-one and had been wounded in two major campaigns.

His Medal of Honor was issued on 12 January 1892, almost twenty-eight years after Peachtree Creek. He lived to receive the recognition himself. Crosier died at Ogdensburg, New York, on 14 March 1903, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery at Syracuse, close to the county from which his regiment had been raised.