This series highlighting eight Congressional Medal of Honor recipients from Richland County begins Sunday with an overview of the soldiers.
This series is supported by Mansfield Cemetery Association.
“They said we were soft, that we would not fight, that we could not win. We are not a warlike nation. We do not go to war for gain or for territory; we go to war for principles, and we produce young men like these. I think I told every one of them that I would rather have that medal, the Congressional Medal of Honor, than to be President of the United States.” — President Harry Truman
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It’s the kind of a story request old reporters like me love to hear.
Managing Editor Larry Phillips told me a few weeks ago he had some basic information on eight soldiers from Richland County who had earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.
He asked me if I was interested in fleshing out these barebones reports and doing a story about the eight men who had earned the nation’s highest honor for military valor.
The idea was a story Richland Source could publish on July 4 — Independence Day.
That request was like ladling fresh chum into the ocean in front of a shark.
As in, it was time to eat.
Working on stories about military history is a labor of love for me. I grew up in a military family and spent some time myself in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the Ohio Air National Guard.
The fact I could learn more about local soldiers who made military history just added to that deep personal attraction to the work.
Let’s face it — any good idea is worth overdoing. The boss gave me a great idea for a story. It became a 10-part series that starts on Sunday with an overview.
Five of these soldiers earned their medals during the Civil War. Two were awarded for their heroics during the the Indian Campaigns. One came during the war in Vietnam.
Telling their stories required some digging, the kind of stuff I most like to do. In my 40-year-plus journalism career, I have always enjoyed reporting and gathering information far more than actually writing.
In the past few weeks, I have gone deep down the rabbit hole of local military history, almost exclusively through the internet.
I started with the Congressional Medal of Honor Society website, a treasure trove of information.
(The video above helps set the stage for the 10-part series. It was recorded at Mansfield Cemetery.)
It has basic information on every Medal of Honor recipient, including their name; rank; branch of service; their military unit; the conflict in which they fought; the date the medal was earned; the location of the battle; and the MOH citation.
But it was also just a good jumping off place. Those are all good data points.
But they don’t tell a story. I didn’t want to produce dry, historical recitations. My favorite military history writers are Shelby Foote and Stephen Ambrose, two authors who made war histories to come to life.
These eight local soldiers deserved more.
The MOH citation in some instances was just a sentence fragment. For example, in the case of U.S. Army Cpl. Smith Larimer, all it said was the medal was earned for his “capture of flag of Maj. Gen. Joseph Brezard Kershaw’s headquarters” at Sailor’s Creek, Va., in 1865.
But these data points gave me clues that could be used for further exploration, tidbits, clues and arrows that pointed me in other directions.
Staying with Larimer, a search for Sailor’s Creek sent me to an American Battlefield Trust website with details of the struggle that took place in early April.
Larimer served in the 2nd Ohio Volunteer Cavalry and another search found a Case Western Reserve University website with details on the unit that organized in Cleveland in 1861.
I also did searches for information on Gen. Kershaw and another at OhioCivilWar.com that gave me more information on Larimer’s cavalry unit and the state’s overall participation in the Civil War.
I also learned Larimer is buried in the private Marlow Cemetery near the intersection of Millsboro East Road and Trimble Road in Springfield Township.
I have driven past that well-kept cemetery thousands of times over the past 30-plus years and never had any idea a Medal of Honor recipient was buried there.
I learned that during the horrible Civil War that Ohio provided the federal government with 260 regiments of men, including infantry, artillery, and cavalry units.
Ohioans also served in several other regiments from other states, most notably from Kentucky, West Virginia, and Massachusetts, as well as in federal units.
Almost 330,000 Ohio men, including 5,092 African Americans, served in the Union military during the conflict.
Every website I visited and read offered more clues of other places to look. I just dove deeper and deeper, including YouTube searches that provided great videos that I could publish with the stories.
And the heroism of Larimer, who rose to the rank of sergeant, was just one of the eight I was privileged to research and write about. Each of these soldiers performed heroically in defense of their country.
These men all earned the Medal of Honor.
It was my honor to help tell their stories.
The series starts Sunday. Please join me in saluting Richland County’s own band of heroes.
