Union Navy Medal of Honor Recipients:
Fact Files.
by Terry Foenander.
Click on each fact file link for more additional data about these facts. (Some links are currently under construction)
Fact File 1: Unlike the Union Army, no commissioned officer of the Union Navy (at the time of the action for which the award was recommended) ever received a Medal of Honor.
Fact File 2: Nine additional personnel of the Union Navy were actually awarded the Medal, but these were forfeited, or withheld, due to later miscreant actions by these recipients, and, in one case, an erroneous report.
Fact File 3: The USS Richmond was the vessel from which more personnel received the award, than any other vessel of the Union Navy, and the action at Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864, provided more recipients than any other single action of the war.
Fact File 4: Two personnel of the Union Navy were awarded the Medal twice, at the time of the Civil War.
Fact File 5: A higher proportion of Union Navy personnel received the award, when compared to the Army, in comparison to the numbers who served within each service.
Fact File 6: Seven of the Naval recipients of the Medal were of African American descent (eight, if Clement Dees, whose medal was forfeited due to this desertion from the service, is counted).
November, 2004 (Updated, December, 2004).