27. Orion Howe Earns His Medal of Honor (Part 2)
As Orion Howe’s comrades held their breaths and watched, the boy made his way through a storm of enemy fire, with bullets, shot, and shell kicking up puffs of dust all around him. Stumbling, falling, but always rising again and moving on, Howe was severely wounded in the leg, but he gamely limped on until the crested the summit’s rise and disappeared from sight. Bleeding heavily and groggy from loss of blood, Orion managed to locate General William Tecumseh Sherman, and informed him of his regiment’s dire need of ammunition. Impressed by the boy’s demeanor and determination, Sherman ordered him to seek medical care, promising to see to it that the 55th Illinois would get the necessary resupply.
Sherman was so impressed by Orion, that he wrote Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, stating “I’ll warrant the boy has the elements of a man, and I commend him to the government as one worthy of the fostering care of one of its national institutions“. It took Orion several months to recover from his severe injury and rejoin his regiment. He re-enlisted, and was finally discharged in late 1864 as a corporal. After the war, he went to New York University, where he graduated from its dental school, before settling in Springfield, Missouri. Due to snafus at the War Department, he was not awarded his Medal of Honor until 1896, more than three decades after his exploits before Vicksburg. He lived to the age of 81, and died in 1930.
Also Read: 10 American Child Soldiers of the Civil War.
