Biden awards Medal of Honor to Union soldiers who helped hijack a train

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday awarded the Medal of Honor for outstanding valor to two Union soldiers who stole a locomotive deep in Confederate territory during Civil war and drove the army 140 kilometers north while destroying railroad tracks and telegraph lines.

US Army Privates Philip G. Shadrach and George D. Wilson were captured by the Confederates and executed by hanging. Biden honored their bravery 162 years later with the highest military awardand described the operation in which they took part as “one of the most dangerous missions of the entire civil war”.

“Every soldier who participated in that mission received the Medal of Honor except for two. Two soldiers who died in that operation and never received that recognition,” Biden said. “Today we right that wrong.”

The posthumous recognition comes at a time when the legacy of the Civil War, in which more than 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died between 1861 and 1865, continues to influence US policy in a controversial election year in which issues of race, constitutional rights and presidential power are at the forefront.

Biden has said that the uprising on January 6, 2021 in the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump was the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War. Meanwhile, Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, railed about the Battle of Gettysburg and Confederate General Robert E. Lee at a rally in Pennsylvania.

The president said Wednesday that Shadrach and Wilson would “fight and even die to preserve the Union and the sacred values ​​upon which it is founded: liberty, justice, fairness, unity.”

“Phillip and George were willing to shed their blood to achieve those ideals,” Biden said.

Theresa Chandler, Wilson’s great-great-granddaughter, recalled to the Associated Press how the Union soldier had the noose around his neck on the gallows and spoke his last words.

She said Wilson essentially said he was here to serve his country and had no ill feelings toward the people of the South, but hoped for the abolition of slavery and a reunification of the nation.

“When I read that, I got goosebumps,” Chandler said. “We can feel that as a family and today we enjoy the freedoms that he tried to promote back then.”

Brian Taylor, a great-great-nephew of Shadrach, said this was an opportunity for his ancestor to be remembered as a “brave soldier who did what he thought was right.”

“I feel like he was a bit adventurous, a bit of a free spirit,” Taylor said.

Shadrach and Wilson are honored for their participation in the so-called Great Locomotive Chase.

A Kentucky-born civilian spy and scout named James J. Andrews assembled a group of volunteers, including Shadrach and Wilson, to destroy the railroad and telegraph lines used by the Confederates in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

On April 12, 1862, 22 men from what would become known as Andrews’ Raiders met in Marietta, Georgia, and hijacked a train called The General. The group tore up tracks and cut telegraph wires as the train traveled north.

Confederate troops pursued them, first on foot and later by train. Confederate troops eventually captured the group. Andrews and seven others were executed, while the others either escaped or remained prisoners of war.

The first medal of honor The highest award ever went to Pvt. Jacob Parrott, who was involved in the locomotive hijacking and was defeated during his captivity by the Confederacy.

The government later awarded the honor to 18 other participants who had taken part in the raid, but Shadrach and Wilson were excluded. They were later authorized to receive the medal as part of the the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2008.

Shadrach, born in Pennsylvania on September 15, 1840, was 21 years old when he volunteered for the mission. Orphaned at a young age, he left home in 1861 to join an infantry regiment in Ohio after the outbreak of the Civil War.

Wilson was born in Belmont County, Ohio in 1830. Before the war, he worked as a journeyman shoemaker and joined an Ohio volunteer infantry in 1861.

The Walt Disney Corp. made a film from 1956 about the kidnapping entitled “The Great Locomotive Chase” starring Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter. The 1926 silent film “The General” starring Buster Keaton was also based on the historical event.

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Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.