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Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients from Chicago Mercantile Battery including
Captain Patrick H. White
Early in the Civil War, a medal for individual valor was proposed to General-in-Chief of the Army Winfield Scott and although it was created for the Civil War, Congress made the Medal of Honor a permanent decoration in 1863.
The Chicago Mercantile Battery was one of the most renowned artillery units in the Civil War. These six members of the Battery received the prestigious Medal of Honor for pulling a cannon by hand up to a heavily defended Confederate fort at Vicksburg.
Captain:
Patrick H. White
Corporal:
James Dunne
Privates:
Charles H. Kloth
George Kretsinger
Patrick McGuire
William G. Stephens
Captain Patrick H. White
Background
Patrick H. White was born in Sligo, Ireland and moved with his parents and siblings to Nova Scotia to escape the Irish famines in the mid-1840's. After his parents moved to Chicago, he worked in a meat-packing plant there. One of things that White also did as a young man was to join an artillery militia group in Chicago. This artillery battery became known as the Chicago Artillery, or First Illinois Light Artillery Battery A, when its militiamen volunteered to be one of the intrepid units to join the Union Army at Lincoln's first call for troops. Since Patrick White's parents had both died, he decided to stay in Chicago to help his sister raise his brothers and sisters.
In August 1861, however, White could not hold back any longer. With his militia comrades already gone, he volunteered for another Chicago battery which was being assembled by Ezra Taylor. While its formal name was the First Illinois Light Artillery Battery B, this artillery unit was unofficially known as Taylor's Battery throughout the rest of the Civil War.
Shiloh Campaign
White actively participated in most of the major Western battles beginning with the battles at Belmont and Ft. Donelson, and was highly regarded by Union generals such as U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. White was stationed next to the latter general at Shiloh Church on the morning of the battle when the Confederates surprised the Union army and pushed them back almost into the Tennessee River in their rear. After the bloodbath at Shiloh, Patrick White returned to Chicago in May 1862 in order to recruit additional soldiers.
Back in Chicago, White's sister and neighbors observed that the young soldier had sixteen holes in his coat and pants as a sobering reminder of the Rebel barrage of bullets, shot, and shell at Shiloh. In the midst of those intense two days of fighting in Tennessee, Patrick White also had had his sword, sash, and belt blown away. During his stay in Chicago, he was awarded a new sword in a ceremony held on May 2nd and promised to never surrender it unless to another officer. Vicksburg Campaign
After being promoted to Captain of the Chicago Mercantile Battery on February 28, 1863, Patrick White led his new troops to participate in several Union's successes prior to Vicksburg. The Battery actively contributed to victories at the battles of Port Gibson, Big Black River, and Champion Hill. During the latter battle, the Chicago Mercantile Battery was involved in a fierce artillery duel on the afternoon of May 16th. White's artillerists' successfully attacked the Confederates, led by General Lloyd Tilghman who was killed there by shrapnel from the Mercantile Battery.
On May 22, 1863, General US Grant conducted his first major assault against the Confederate defenses of Vicksburg, Mississippi. In the midst of Grant's en echelon attack, General A. J. Smith sought an artillery commander to take on a particularly dangerous assignment. Smith turned to Patrick H. White who accepted his request to pull a six-pound cannon down a steep hill and then up another to fire point blank into a Rebel stronghold. The Confederate target was the Second Texas Lunette, a fort from which the Confederate soldiers were tenaciously fighting to prevent Smiths men from obtaining access to Hawkins Ferry Road, one of the major entrances into Vicksburg. White and his small band of artillerists were joined by some infantrymen from the 23rd Wisconsin who helped them to pull their cannon through the ravine up to the Confederate fort. Today, the leader of the 23rd Wisconsin (Colonel William F. Vilas) and White both have monuments at the battle site in recognition for their gallant assault. Captain White and five of his men also received the prestigious Medal of Honor in 1896.
Red River Campaign
General Thomas E. Ransom promoted Patrick H. White to Chief of Artillery for his 13th Corps as the Red River Campaign was commencing in the spring of 1864. Unfortunately for General Ransom and Captain White, they were both unable to avoid the debacle created in Louisiana by General Nathaniel Banks. Ransom was seriously wounded in the leg as he stood next to White while they tried unsuccessfully to rally their troops at the battle of Mansfield on the afternoon of April 8, 1864.
Confronted with surrendering his precious sword to Confederate infantrymen in what he regarded as an undignified surrender, Captain White was willing to risk being shot. Just then, Confederate Captain Alex McDow from Walkers Texas Division stepped forward. A week after participating in the Confederates compelling victory at Mansfield, McDow sent a letter to his daughter Kate and described his version of not only the rout but also his encounter with White: "Not only ours beat the Feds also I captured Capt. White, Chief of Ransoms Artillery, 1st Lt. [Lieutenant Pinckney S. Cone] & 5 or 6 privates, the Capt. refused to Surrender to one of my men just ahead of me, said he wouldnt Surrender to anybody but an officer. My man (Cross) told him he would kill him, drew down his gun on him, was going to shoot him, I sprang in, presented my pistol to his breast, told him to surrender to me, I was an officer. He did so, give [sic] me his sword, pistol &c. It was a nice sword. I have sent it home" Camp Ford Prison
Banks' blunder at the Battle of Mansfield led to the loss of 21 cannons, which included all guns from the renowned Chicago Mercantile and Nim's 2nd Massachusetts Batteries. Captain White and his fellow captured soldiers were led on foot by the Rebels from western Louisiana to the eastern part of Texas where Camp Ford had been built as the largest Confederate prison in the Trans-Mississippi area. By the time White, Pinckney S. Cone (his Senior 1st Lieutenant), and 19 other men from the Chicago Mercantile Battery reached the prison, it was overcrowded with Yankee prisoners from the Red River Campaign. The Union soldiers at Camp Ford were barely subsisting under the squalid living conditions there. White and his men remained imprisoned for fourteen months and were not released until May 29, 1865 when they rejoined their artillery comrades in New Orleans.
After the Civil War
At the end of the war, Captain Alex McDow of Walker's 16th Texas Infantry signed his Parole of Honor to be released as a POW at Houston, Texas. He returned home to Victoria in southern Texas and lived there with his daughter. Prior to his death in 1891, Captain McDow had prominently displayed White's sword above the mantle in his living room and wanted his daughter, Mrs. Kate Browning, to return it someday to its rightful owner. Thus, Mrs. Browning ran an advertisement in The National Tribune, a Union veterans' weekly newspaper, at the beginning of 1896 and offered to return the captured sword to Captain White.
In the meantime, Patrick H. White had moved from Chicago immediately after the Civil War to get married and settle in Albany, New York. Surprisingly, White saw the tiny, obscure advertisement placed by McDow's daughter and was able to retrieve his lost sword. He was ecstatic to be reunited with his presentation sword after 35 years. For the rest of his life, Patrick White kept his beloved sword in the hallway of his home along with his other Civil War memorabilia. Upon his death on November 25, 1915, White's daughter gave her fathers belongings to one of his friends, John Boos. Boos gathered much of Captain Whites documents, including his diary, POW parole document, correspondence, wartime and postwar photos, etc. and bound them into a leather book. Additionally, Whites friend John Boos persistently worked with the Illinois State Historical Society to publish some of the artillery commanders memoir in 1922. Most of artillery captain's reminiscences, however, have never been published. Today, Patrick H. White's sword, Medals of Honor, revolver, and canteen are still on display at the New York State Museum in Albany, NY.
This historic marker notes the location where men from the Chicago Mercantile "carried by hand a cannon up to and fired it through an embrasure of" a heavily defended Confederate fort at Vicksburg on May 22, 1863.
CITATION
WHITE, PATRICK H.
Rank and organization: Captain, Chicago Mercantile Battery, Illinois Light Artillery. Place and date: At Vicksburg, Miss., 22 May 1863. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Born: 1833, Ireland. Date of issue: 15 January 1895. Citation: Carried with others by hand a cannon up to and fired it through an embrasure of the enemy's works.
CITATION
DUNNE, JAMES
Rank and organization: Corporal, Chicago Mercantile Battery, Illinois Light Artillery. Place and date: At Vicksburg, Miss., 22 May 1863. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Birth: Detroit, Mich. Date of issue: 15 January 1895. Citation: Carried with others by hand a cannon up to and fired it through an embrasure of the enemy's works.
CITATION
KLOTH, CHARLES H.
Rank and Organization: Private, Chicago Mercantile Battery, Illinois Light Artillery. Place and date: At Vicksburg, Miss., 22 May 1863. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Birth: Europe. Date of issue: 15 January 1895. Citation: Carried with others by hand a cannon up to and fired it through an embrasure of the enemy's works.
CITATION
KRETSINGER, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Private, Chicago Mercantile Battery, Illinois Light Artillery. Place and date: At Vicksburg, Miss., 22 May 1863. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Birth: Herkimer County, N.Y. Date of issue: 20 July 1897. Citation: Carried with others by hand a cannon up to and fired it through an embrasure of the enemy's works.
CITATION
McGUlRE, PATRICK
Rank and organization: Private, Chicago Mercantile Battery, Illinois Light Artillery. Place and date: At Vicksburg, Miss., 22 May 1863. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 15 January 1895. Citation: Carried with others by hand a cannon up to and fired it through an embrasure of the enemy's work.
CITATION
STEPHENS, WILLIAM G.
Rank and organization: Private, Chicago Mercantile Battery, Illinois Light Artillery. Place and date: At Vicksburg, Miss., 22 May 1863. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Birth: New York, N.Y. Date of issue: 21 December 1894. Citation: Carried with others by hand a cannon up to and fired it through an embrasure of the enemy's works.
American Civil War Links:
 The United States Civil War Center - Best comprehensive index to historic and Civil War-related websites.
Civil War Data - The largest, most in-depth, and fully searchable research database of US Civil War history.
Battle Summaries - Site maintained by the American Battlefield Protection Program of the National Park Service.
Illinois in the Civil War - Histories of Illinois companies; general history relating to Illinois' role in the war.
Illinois State Archives - Contains database of Illinois Civil War Veterans and histories.
Library of Congress - The American Memory Collection sponsored by the Library of Congress contains selected Civil War Photographs.
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