Ohio Private at Gettysburg Receives Medal of Honor

By Joan Wenner, J.D. · Originally published July 2020 · p. 5

Ohio Private at Gettysburg Receives Medal of Honor by Joan Wenner, J.D. Ohio soldiers were said to have fought well at Gettysburg. Included with monuments to the 25th and 75th Ohio Infantry are 16 others for cavalry regiments and artillery batteries. While most of the 300,000+ Ohioans were in the Western theatre, some 4,400 fought at Gettysburg. There were many acts of bravery on that battlefield, both recorded and unrecorded. For example, during Pickett’s Charge, when Henry Hunt, artillery chief for the Army of the Potomac, gave the order to hold their fire, the gunners waited. When they at last opened fire, one Ohio letter writer recalled, “It was like an earthquake for a couple of hours.” Then there was a single Ohio sniper; Private Charles Stacey, who voluntarily snuck into Confederate territory on July 2, 1863, for the purpose of attacking a band of Southern sharpshooters. Alone, he remained hunkered down in a wheat field on the wrong side of the skirmish line over four hours, firing 23 shots, and taking out sharpshooters so completely it was said that not a single man in his company was harmed. Stacey wrote in a 1918 letter to his grandson, “that I don’t believe any man ever had a line of battle fire at him as many times as I was fired at and live to tell of it.” He earned the Medal of Honor for his actions. Charles Stacey died peacefully in his hometown of Norwalk, Ohio, in 1924 at age 82. His citation reads “Voluntarily took an advanced position on the skirmish line for the purpose of ascertaining the location of Confederate sharpshooters and under heavy fire held the position thus taken until the company of which he was a member went back to the main line.” His headstone photo can be found at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8363542/ charles-stacey.

Private Charles Stacey. Photo Courtesy Dept. Veteran Services State of Ohio (www. dvs.oh.gov).

The 55th Ohio Volunteer Infantry monument is in the National Cemetery, Gettysburg.