Roosevelt's Medal of Honor

From The Boys of '98 by Dale L. Walker. Odd echoes through history.

On December 30, Major General Samuel S. Sumner, in Camp Mackenzie, Georgia and Major General of Volunteers Leonard Wood, commanding the Department of Santiago de Cuba, each wrote to the U.S. Adjutant General, Henry C. Corbin, in Washington. Sumner's letter recommended "Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, late Colonel First United States Volunteer Cavalry, for a Medal of Honor, as a reward for conspicuous gallantry at the battle of San Juan, Cuba, on July 1, 1898." He said that "Colonel Roosevelt by his example and fearlessness inspired his men, and both at Kettle Hill and the ridge known as San Juan he led his command in person. I was an eye-witness of Colonel Roosevelt's action." Wood's letter was similar, recommending Roosevelt for a Medal of Honor and basing his recommendation "upon the fact that Colonel Roosevelt, accompanied only by four or five men, led a very desperate and extremely gallant charge on San Juan Hill, thereby setting a splendid example to the troops . . . ."

Letters by others followed, each from eyewitnesses to Roosevelt's gallantry at San Juan, each asking the Adjutant General to sponsor awarding of the Medal of Honor to Colonel Roosevelt.

Corbin apparently sent the letters to War Secretary Alger but he took no action of them.

Edith Carow Roosevelt said that failure to win the medal was one of the bitterest disappointments of her husband's life.*

In a footnote, Walker adds

Forty-seven years later, Roosevelt's son, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., earned the Medal of Honor for his valorous conduct at Utah Beach, Normandy, on D-day. Theodore Junior died of heart failure on July 11, 1944 age fifty-six. The medal was awarded posthumously

Two Medal of Honor candidates in one family. Wow.

In fact, it is two Medal of Honor recipients. Walker's book was published in 1998. In 2000, President Theodore Roosevelt's nomination for the Medal of Honor was finally approved and the Medal awarded one hundred and two years late by President Clinton.

Roosevelt is the only President to have ever been awarded the Medal of Honor. The Roosevelts are one of only two families where a father and son have both been awarded the Medal of Honor. The other father-son pair were the MacArhturs, Arthur MacArthur who was awarded the Medal for his leadership as a nineteen-year-old brevet Colonel at the Battle of Missionary Ridge during the Civil War and his son, Douglas MacArthur who had twice been nominated for the Medal before being awarded it for his actions at Corregidor, Philippines in 1942.

There are five sets of brothers who have each been awarded the Medal.

The youngest recipient was William Johnston during the Civil War for his actions as a drummer boy during the Peninsula campaign. During a general route at the Seven Days Battle when many soldiers and all the drummer boys had discarded their equipment on the battlefield to more easily flee, Johnston was the only drummer boy to bring his drum off the battlefield. He was twelve years old. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for these actions when he was thirteen.

From Home of Heroes.

The brotherhood of Medal recipients is strong and generates many long-lasting friendships. Pvt. Jacob Parrott, the first person ever to be presented with the Medal of Honor remained such a close friendship with fellow "Raider" Wilson W. Brown (one of the two men who engineered The General in the "Great Locomotive Chase"), that their children became more than friends. Parrott's only son John Marion Parrott married Edith Gertrude Brown, one of Wilson Brown's eight children.