President Joe Biden is set to posthumously award the Medal of Honor to two Civil War soldiers for their part in one of the earliest special operations in United States Army history.
A White House official shared the news with The Hill, noting that the president will award the nation’s highest military honor to Pvt. Philip G. Shadrach and Pvt. George D. Wilson “for their gallantry and intrepidity while participating in a covert military operation 200 miles behind Confederate lines on April 12, 1862.”
The operation was eventually dubbed the Great Locomotive Chase and saw the Union Army soldiers infiltrate the Confederacy disguised as civilians. They then stole a train in Georgia and drove it north for 87 miles, destroying Confederate infrastructure by tearing up railroad tracks and cutting telegraph wires, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
The mission included 22 men, and the society shared that six became the Army’s first recipients of the then-newly created Medal of Honor.
After the operation, both Shadrach and Wilson were captured and killed. While they weren’t initially recommended for the award, a bill passed by the House in 2008 retroactively awarded them the honor, though it was not acted upon until Wednesday.
The Great Locomotive Chase went down on April 12, 1862, and was conceived by James J. Andrews, a Kentucky-born civilian spy and scout. The purpose of the mission was to degrade the Confederate railway and disrupt their communication with Chattanooga, Tennessee, the head of the Confederacy.
However, 18 miles from Chattanooga, the men ran out of fuel and were forced to abandon the train. Within two weeks, they are all caught.
Andrews was executed on June 7, 1862, in Atlanta, Georgia. Shadrach and Wilson were among seven others convicted as spies and killed by hanging on June 18. The men were initially buried in an unmarked grave but were later buried in Chattanooga National Cemetery.
Shadrach, an orphan, was 21 at the time of his death and a native of Pennsylvania. He volunteered to be a part of the operation.
Wilson was 32 years old and a native of Ohio. He enlisted in the Union Army’s Company B, 2nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.