William H. Longshore

William Henry Longshore was born on February 18, 1841, in Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio. He grew up during a period of mounting sectional tension in the United States and was only twenty years old when the American Civil War began. Like thousands of other young men from Ohio, Longshore answered the Union call for troops and entered the United States Army, beginning a military career that would eventually place him among the Medal of Honor recipients of the Civil War. Longshore enlisted in Company D of the 30th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The regiment was organized in 1861 and became part of the Union forces operating in several major campaigns of the western theater. As an enlisted soldier, Longshore served with the rank of Private, the rank he held during the action that later brought him the nation’s highest military decoration. No reliably documented higher Army rank has been established for his record, so Private remains both his action-time rank and his highest verified military rank. The 30th Ohio Infantry experienced demanding wartime service and eventually became associated with the forces operating under Major General William T. Sherman. By the spring of 1863, the regiment was participating in Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi. The capture of Vicksburg had become one of the Union’s most important strategic objectives because the city occupied commanding ground above the Mississippi River and formed a major link in Confederate control of that vital waterway. Grant’s campaign eventually forced Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton and his army back into the fortified defenses surrounding Vicksburg. The city was protected by a complex network of earthworks, artillery positions, trenches, forts, redans, and natural obstacles. Union commanders initially attempted to seize the defenses by direct assault before settling into the prolonged siege that ultimately forced Vicksburg to surrender. On May 19, 1863, Union troops launched an initial assault that failed to break the Confederate defenses. Grant ordered another, larger attack for May 22. One of the most difficult objectives was the Confederate position known as the Stockade Redan, a powerful fortification controlling an important approach to the defenses. Before the main assault, volunteers were requested for an exceptionally dangerous mission. The men selected for the task became known as the “volunteer storming party,” or historically as the “Forlorn Hope.” Their assignment was to move ahead of the main Union assault force, carrying materials needed to cross the defensive ditch and create a passage into the Confederate works. William Henry Longshore volunteered for this mission. The storming party had to advance across exposed ground directly toward the Confederate defenses. Their mission placed them ahead of the main attacking columns and within concentrated Confederate rifle and artillery fire. The task required the volunteers to carry materials forward while approaching one of the strongest parts of the Vicksburg defensive line. On May 22, 1863, Longshore advanced with this volunteer storming party toward the Stockade Redan. The Confederates opened intense fire on the advancing Union soldiers. The ground in front of the defenses offered little protection, and the volunteers suffered heavily as they attempted to complete their assigned task. Despite the extraordinary danger, Longshore continued forward with the attacking party. The Union assault ultimately failed to capture the Confederate position that day, but the courage shown by the storming-party volunteers became one of the most celebrated episodes of the Vicksburg Campaign. Longshore’s official Medal of Honor citation later summarized his conduct simply as “Gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party.” The brevity of the citation does not convey the full danger of the mission. The volunteers had deliberately placed themselves at the leading edge of an assault against a fortified enemy position, fully exposed while carrying equipment needed by the troops following behind them. Longshore survived the attack and remained part of the Union war effort. The failed assaults of May 19 and May 22 convinced Grant that storming the Vicksburg defenses directly would be extremely costly. Union forces therefore began a formal siege. Trenches and artillery positions moved progressively closer to the Confederate works while Union naval forces maintained pressure from the Mississippi River. After weeks of siege conditions, shortages inside Vicksburg became increasingly severe. On July 4, 1863, Pemberton surrendered the city and his army to Grant. The victory gave the Union effective control of the Mississippi River and divided the Confederacy geographically. It became one of the most strategically important Union successes of the entire Civil War. Longshore continued serving with the 30th Ohio Infantry after Vicksburg. The regiment remained active through later operations as the Union armies advanced deeper into Confederate territory. His military service continued until the closing phase of the war, and he was eventually mustered out with his regiment in 1865. Although the action that made Longshore famous occurred in 1863, he did not immediately receive the Medal of Honor. Like many Civil War soldiers whose gallantry was formally recognized decades later, he had to wait more than thirty years for the official award. The Medal of Honor had been authorized for the Army by Congress in 1862. During the Civil War and the decades afterward, it became the principal federal decoration for acts of extraordinary military courage and distinguished conduct. Numerous soldiers who had performed heroic actions during the war received their medals years later after their cases were reviewed and documented. William Henry Longshore received his Medal of Honor on August 10, 1894, for his gallantry at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863. Because his decoration was issued in 1894, the correct historical database designation is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1894. The action year and award year must remain separate: Longshore performed the heroic action in 1863, while the Medal of Honor was formally presented in 1894. No clasp, bar, star, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified for Longshore’s Medal of Honor. His final verified decoration is therefore one Medal of Honor with no additional device. A separate Civil War Campaign Medal has not been included in his verified medal rack. Longshore unquestionably served during the Civil War and lived until 1909, but qualifying wartime service alone does not establish recipient-specific issuance or entitlement to the later-created campaign medal. Without sufficient individual documentation proving that Longshore personally received or was officially entitled to that medal, it remains excluded from his final verified awards. Following the Civil War, Longshore returned to civilian life. In 1866, he married Emaline Rodgers. Their family eventually included four children. Longshore remained in Ohio for several years after the war. In 1872, he moved west to Kansas and settled in Bourbon County, joining the thousands of Civil War veterans who built new lives in the developing communities of the western states. He initially lived near Mapleton, Kansas. After approximately a year and a half there, he moved to a farm near Pawnee in Bourbon County. He remained in that area for many years and became a long-established resident of the county. His postwar life was closely connected with the community and with fellow Union veterans. Longshore became a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the prominent veterans’ organization formed by former Union soldiers and sailors. The organization provided fellowship among veterans, preserved memories of Union military service, supported veterans and their families, and participated in patriotic and memorial activities. Longshore was associated for many years with a local Grand Army of the Republic post. After eventually moving into Fort Scott, Kansas, he transferred his membership to the William H. Lytle Post. During the later years of his life, he also became active in the Baptist church. His surviving contemporary obituary described him as a longtime resident of Bourbon County who was well known within his community. About two years before his death, Longshore left his farm near Pawnee and moved into Fort Scott, where he established a home near that of his son Thomas. By this time, more than four decades had passed since the charge at Vicksburg. Longshore had witnessed enormous changes in the United States since his days as a young Union Private. The country had survived the Civil War, reconstructed the former Confederate states, expanded westward, industrialized rapidly, and entered the twentieth century as an increasingly powerful nation. Yet his identity as a Civil War veteran and Medal of Honor recipient remained an important part of his life. William Henry Longshore died in Fort Scott, Kansas, on December 20, 1909, at the age of sixty-eight. Contemporary reports noted that his final illness had become serious only shortly before his death. His funeral was conducted with the participation of his fellow members of the Grand Army of the Republic, reflecting the continuing bond between Civil War veterans more than forty years after the conflict ended. Longshore was ultimately buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Scott, Kansas, where his grave preserves his connection with both the community in which he spent much of his postwar life and the military distinction he earned as a young soldier. William Henry Longshore’s legacy is inseparably connected with the assault on Vicksburg on May 22, 1863. He was not a general directing armies or an officer commanding a regiment. He was a Private who volunteered for one of the most dangerous assignments available to an infantryman during the Vicksburg Campaign. By joining the volunteer storming party and advancing against the Confederate defenses at the Stockade Redan, Longshore knowingly placed himself at the front of an assault exposed to concentrated enemy fire. His courage during that mission was eventually preserved in the official Medal of Honor citation recognizing his “Gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party.” Thirty-one years after the action, the United States formally recognized that gallantry by presenting him with the Medal of Honor on August 10, 1894. William Henry Longshore is therefore remembered as a Private of Company D, 30th Ohio Infantry, a Union veteran of the American Civil War, a participant in the Vicksburg Campaign, a volunteer in the famous storming party of May 22, 1863, and a recipient of the Medal of Honor. His single verified decoration, Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1894, remains the official symbol of the courage he displayed in one of the most dangerous assaults of the Siege of Vicksburg.