William H. Surles

William H. Surles

William H. Surles was born on February 24, 1845, in Steubenville, Ohio. He grew up during the years immediately preceding the American Civil War and entered military service while still only sixteen years old. Over the next three years, he served with the 2nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry through some of the most demanding campaigns of the western theater. His defining act came at the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, on October 8, 1862, when he deliberately placed himself between his commanding officer and enemy fire. Nearly three decades later, that act was recognized with the Medal of Honor.

Surles enlisted at Steubenville on September 5, 1861, as a Private in Company G of the 2nd Ohio Infantry. The regiment had been reorganized for three years of service and soon entered operations in Kentucky and the broader western theater. Surles remained an enlisted infantryman throughout his verified military career, and Private is both his Medal of Honor action-time rank and his highest verified U.S. Army rank.

The 2nd Ohio Infantry became part of the Union Army operating in Kentucky and Tennessee. During 1862, Confederate forces under General Braxton Bragg launched a major offensive into Kentucky, forcing Union forces to concentrate and respond. This campaign eventually produced the Battle of Perryville, one of the largest and most important Civil War engagements fought in Kentucky.

On October 8, 1862, Union and Confederate forces collided near Perryville. The battle developed under difficult conditions after a prolonged regional drought, and fighting became particularly intense as Confederate troops struck portions of the Union line.

Surles was serving as a Private with Company G when his regiment entered the battle.

The 2nd Ohio fought in a heavily contested sector where Union troops came under severe Confederate fire. It was during the most dangerous period of this fighting that Surles performed the action for which he would eventually receive the Medal of Honor.

His commanding officer was exposed to enemy fire. In the midst of the battle, Surles moved directly in front of him, deliberately placing his own body between the officer and the enemy.

The official Medal of Honor citation describes the act with remarkable simplicity: “In the hottest part of the fire he stepped in front of his colonel to shield him from the enemy’s fire.”

Those few words capture the essential nature of his courage. Surles was not ordered to place himself in that position. He acted while the regiment was under intense fire, accepting the possibility that any shot directed toward his colonel might strike him instead.

The incident became the defining episode of his military service, but Surles’s Civil War career extended far beyond Perryville.

He continued serving with the 2nd Ohio Infantry as the regiment participated in further operations in the western theater. His wartime experiences included the campaigns through Tennessee and Georgia that followed the Kentucky fighting.

Surles was present during the period of the Chickamauga Campaign in 1863. One later account connected with his veteran history records another remarkable incident from this period: a Confederate bullet struck the metal belt plate he was wearing, and the plate helped prevent a potentially far more serious wound. The damaged belt plate later became part of the surviving story of his wartime service.

After Chickamauga, Union forces concentrated around Chattanooga. The campaigns there culminated in the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge in November 1863.

During the fighting around Missionary Ridge, Surles again distinguished himself. Surviving historical accounts state that while acting as an orderly he penetrated Confederate lines and captured a Confederate officer, bringing him back into Union lines. The officer’s sword became a wartime souvenir associated with Surles, and many years later he reportedly located the former Confederate officer and returned the sword to him.

His conduct during the war attracted the attention of senior officers.

On January 20, 1864, Colonel Anson G. McCook prepared a recommendation seeking an appointment for Surles to the United States Military Academy at West Point. The recommendation praised the young soldier’s character, battlefield record, bravery, and fidelity to duty. Senior officers endorsed the recommendation as it moved through the chain of command.

The appointment did not ultimately become part of Surles’s military career. The correspondence associated with the recommendation was lost during wartime events and was only recovered much later. Surles therefore remained with his regiment rather than beginning a West Point education.

The 2nd Ohio continued into the Atlanta Campaign of 1864. The regiment participated in operations associated with battles including Resaca, Pickett’s Mill, Kennesaw Mountain, and Peachtree Creek as Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman advanced through Georgia toward Atlanta.

By this stage Surles had spent nearly three years in military service despite having enlisted as a teenager.

His original period of enlistment expired in 1864. On October 10, 1864, he was honorably discharged with the regiment at Camp Chase, Ohio.

Surles returned to civilian life with a military record that included prolonged field service and an extraordinary act of personal courage at Perryville. Yet the nation did not immediately award him the Medal of Honor.

The Medal of Honor had been authorized for the United States Army by Congress in 1862. During the Civil War and for decades afterward, soldiers were recognized for acts that included rescuing comrades, capturing enemy colors, leading assaults, defending positions, and performing extraordinary acts of courage under fire.

Many Civil War veterans received their medals long after their heroic actions. Surles was among them.

On August 19, 1891, almost twenty-nine years after the Battle of Perryville, William H. Surles was formally awarded the Medal of Honor.

Because his decoration was issued in 1891, the correct historical database designation is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1891.

The date distinction is important. His heroic action occurred on October 8, 1862, while the Medal of Honor was issued on August 19, 1891. The 1862–1895 designation identifies the historical Army Medal of Honor period applicable when his decoration was presented.

No clasp, star, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other additional device has been verified for his Medal of Honor. His final verified award therefore remains one Medal of Honor with no device or clasp.

A Civil War Campaign Medal has not been included in Surles’s verified ribbon rack. His extensive Civil War service is beyond dispute, but the campaign medal was established long after the war. Qualifying wartime service alone does not prove that an individual veteran personally received or was specifically issued the later decoration.

Without recipient-specific issuance or entitlement documentation for William H. Surles, the Civil War Campaign Medal remains excluded. His verified medal history is therefore limited to Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1891.

After leaving the Army, Surles returned to Steubenville and began building a civilian life.

On September 9, 1867, he married Sarah J. Allen in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. The couple later had children and eventually established their family in the East Liverpool, Ohio, area.

By the early 1870s, Surles had moved to East Liverpool, a rapidly developing industrial community along the Ohio River. He became involved in the coal business and spent many years as a businessman in the area.

His postwar life also remained strongly connected to his identity as a Union veteran.

Surles became active in the Grand Army of the Republic, the major veterans’ organization of former Union soldiers and sailors. Over the years he held a succession of positions within the organization, reflecting the respect he had earned among fellow veterans.

His GAR service included leadership responsibilities at the local and state levels. In 1916, more than half a century after the Civil War, he was elected commander of the Department of Ohio, one of the highest honors Ohio’s Grand Army of the Republic could give a veteran.

Surles also entered federal public service.

In 1899, President William McKinley nominated William H. Surles to serve as postmaster of East Liverpool. The nomination was recorded in the United States Congressional Record.

He subsequently served as East Liverpool’s postmaster for approximately thirteen years, remaining in the position through the administrations of Presidents McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft.

During his tenure he was associated with efforts to obtain improved postal facilities for East Liverpool, including the development of a new post office building. His federal appointment gave the former teenage Civil War infantryman a prominent civic role in the community where he had established his postwar life.

By the early twentieth century, Surles had become one of East Liverpool’s most prominent surviving Civil War veterans. His Medal of Honor, his leadership in veterans’ organizations, his business activity, and his service as postmaster linked his wartime career with decades of public and civic involvement.

William H. Surles died in East Liverpool, Ohio, on March 19, 1919. He was seventy-four years old.

He was buried in Riverview Cemetery in East Liverpool. The cemetery later became an important memorial location for Civil War veterans of the region, and Surles is specifically remembered there as the Medal of Honor recipient who attempted to protect his commanding officer during the Battle of Perryville.

His military legacy remains centered on the events of October 8, 1862.

At Perryville, Private William H. Surles was serving in the ranks of Company G, 2nd Ohio Infantry, while the regiment faced severe Confederate fire. At the height of the fighting, he saw his colonel exposed to danger and deliberately stepped in front of him.

He placed his own life between his commander and the enemy.

Almost twenty-nine years later, the United States formally recognized that act with the Medal of Honor.

William H. Surles is therefore remembered as a Private of Company G, 2nd Ohio Infantry, a Union veteran of extensive Civil War service, a participant in major western campaigns, a longtime leader among Union veterans, an East Liverpool businessman and postmaster, and a Medal of Honor recipient. His single verified decoration, Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1891, remains the official recognition of the courage he displayed under intense enemy fire at Perryville, Kentucky, on October 8, 1862.