Recently, I’ve read several articles about the amazing Joshua Chamberlain. War hero (he turned the tide at Little Round Top at Gettysburg), polyglot (ten languages!), college professor (later college president), four-time Governor of Maine, . . . the man was incredible.
As noted in the linked Wiki biography, and confirmed by many other sources, Chamberlain was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroics at Little Round Top . . . 30 years after the battle, in 1893! My question: Why the delay? I can’t understand why he had to wait 30 years to receive his MOH. This is especially puzzling when one learns that other awardees of that era were not only given their MOH without delay, but for the flimsiest of excuses (well illustrated by the scandalous fact that during the Civil War, the MOH was sometimes given essentially as a “signing bonus” for those offering to re-enlist; those and other ‘phony’ MOH awards were rescinded in the Purge of 1917) .
So, why the delay in giving the MOH to the extraordinary Joshua Chamberlain?
My only guess might be it was because he was a commissioned officer. The MOH was created in late 1861/early 1862 (Navy in '61, Army in '62) and was not issued as physical medals until 1863. Not until 1863 were commissioned officers made eligible for the award, so in the early parts of the Civil War at least it was definitely not seen as an officers medal.
That happened in March, 1863, so by July when Chamberlain fought on Little Round Top he would have been eligible for the medal. While they had changed the rules on eligibility to allow the medal to be awarded to commissioned officers, it is possible that it was still primarily seen as a way for officers to award enlisted men and not as a medal for higher ranking commanding officers like Chamberlain who had command of an entire regiment.
Without doing a holistic search, just looking through high ranking officers who won the MOH for actions in the Civil War it seems a lot of them were issued their medals in the 1890s. It’s possible that this was done as changing views on the Medal came about and officers that had done great acts of valor were evaluated after the fact.
In 1896, Theodore Goldin received (after much lobbying on his part) a MoH for his service at the Battle of The Little Big Horn. There are other instances of people campaigning for various medals which they thought they ought to have got, some successfully.
Interesting, thanks. I didn’t know that commissioned officers were originally not eligible. What you said makes a lot of sense and could well account for Chamberlain’s delay. Thanks!
The funny thing about Golden’s MOH is that Col. Graham’s magisterial book, The Custer Myth makes a strong argument that Golden was not even at the Little Big Horn, his underage enlistment having been reported and Golden having been discharged before Custer left Fort Lincoln. What Golden was when the award was made was a heavy hitter in the Wisconsin GOP.
Golden had also engaged in an extensive correspondence with Frederick Benteen, the senior company commander who was the de facto leader at the Reno Hill position. The correspondence is an important primary source not because of what Golden wrote but because of what Benteen wrote.