The Delano Morey Medal of Honor Story

Quietly sitting in the collections of the Hardin County Historical Museum in Kenton, Ohio is a collection of medals that belonged to local resident Delano Morey. Among them is the Medal of Honor Morey was awarded in 1893 for his courage at the Battle of McDowell when he was just a 16-year-old private in the ranks of Co. B of the 82nd Ohio. Private Morey described the circumstances under which he was later awarded the medal to the editors of Deeds of Valor in the late 1890s.

Private Delano James Morey of Co. B, 82nd Ohio posed for this photo shortly before his death in 1911. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1893 for courageous actions taken during the Battle of McDowell in May 1862 when he was just a 16 year old boy. During the war, Private Morey was wounded twice at Second Bull Run and captured at Chancellorsville. As shown in the image above, he is missing his right hand but it is unclear whether he lost that hand during the war (his pension was granted for his wound to the left hip) or in an accident after the war. 

 

          We had been encamped all winter at Moorefield, Virginia, and when we were ordered to reinforce General Robert Milroy, a detail of 50 men of which I was a member were sent out to look for bushwhackers who infested the woods.

          After traveling over 50 miles over the roughest roads, we rejoined our regiment at McDowell on May 8, 1862, hungry as wolves, but supplied with a few choice specimens of poultry which we had incidentally taken as prisoners of war. Some of us were eating these with all the ardor of hungry men when the report of the pickets’ guns aroused us, and as this was to be our first battle, our chickens were left behind in our anxiety to have a brush with the enemy.

          But had we known the strength and numbers of the enemy, we should have been reluctant to attack them. But, eager for a fight, we advanced on Bull Pasture Mountain. We engaged them at this point and in the midst of the roar of battle came the erroneous order to fix bayonets and charge them.

          About 150 of us on the extreme right of the line from which the order emanated, fixed our bayonets, and charged the enemy down in the valley. Down the mountainside we went to within a hundred yards of them, when they opened fire on us. They fired too high and not a man was touched. We in turn emptied a volley into them when we found to our surprise that our 150 men were charging 4,000 of the enemy!

          No sooner were we aware of this fact than a hasty retreat was made up the mountainside. But I, noting two of the enemy some little distance from me, left the retreating men and made for the two sharpshooters with the intention of capturing them. When they saw me coming on the full run, they hastened to load their guns, but I was a little too quick for them. I leveled my empty gun at them and ordered them to surrender, which they promptly did, and I led the captives to my captain. I was 16 years old and each of my prisoners was old enough to be my father.

 

The Hardin County Historical Museum features several medals that belonged to Delano Morey in their military relic room. On the top row, the medal on the right was the original Medal of Honor presented to Morey, featuring the 1890s ribbon design. The medal on the left was the replacement medal he received when the MoH design was changed in 1904. The medal on the bottom row right is Morey's Ohio Veteran's Medal (missing the ribbon) while the medal on the left is his Grand Army of the Republic medal. The ribbon with three stars is a WW1 Victory ribbon that likely belonged to one of Morey's descendants. 

Delano Morey was awarded the Medal of Honor on August 14, 1893, the citation of which reads “After the charge of the command had been repulsed, he rushed forward alone with an empty gun and captured two of the enemy's sharpshooters.”

Delano James Morey was born July 14, 1845, in Licking County, Ohio, and enlisted in Co. B of the 82nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry on December 2, 1861. During the course of the war, Delano was wounded twice in the left hip on August 29, 1862, during the 82nd Ohio’s charge at Second Bull Run (see "Butchered at Bull Run") and laid upon the field for ten days before his wounds were attended. Morey was also captured the following year during the Battle of Chancellorsville (see "All That a Soldier Can Give") and spent 18 days in Libby Prison before he was exchanged. Despite his wounds, Morey re-enlisted with the regiment in early 1864 and served to the end of the war, mustering out July 24, 1865.

After the war, he returned home to Pleasant Twp., Hardin Co., Ohio and became a lumber dealer and farmer. He was issued a pension starting June 4, 1869, for that wound in his left hip and was awarded the Medal of Honor on August 14, 1893. Later that fall, the National Tribune did a small feature story on Morey and said of the captures that the Confederates “both had full beards and were old enough to be the boy’s father. It was quite comical to see them marching ahead of the smooth-faced youth.”

Dilno or Delano? A bit of confusion with the markers for our hero at Grove Cemetery in Kenton, Ohio. 

Delano Morey died April 24, 1911, in Kenton, Ohio and is buried at Grove Cemetery. His Medal of Honor is currently on display in the Hardin County Historical Museum in Kenton.

Sources:

Beyer, Walter F., and Oscar F. Keydel. Deeds of Valor: How America’s Heroes Won the Medal of Honor. Detroit: The Perrien-Keydel Co., 1901, pg. 32

“Comrade Delano J. Morey,” National Tribune, November 23, 1893, pg. 4

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on their way to
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of how Confederate jacke
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true warrior, for then comes the harvest of gain.
Read more

The Cannons are Now Silent: The Field of Death of Tupelo

Image
       The smoke of battle had drifted away from the battlefield at Tupelo, Mississippi on the hot afternoon of July 14, 1864, but the carnage of war lay spread across the open fields. “Scattered at intervals over the field of a few yards are dull gray blotches half shaded by grass,” an officer from the 7 th Minnesota Infantry recorded. “These are the Rebel dead. They have fought their last battle and lie generally in attitudes of rest; some of them look as if they had welcomed death. On the faces of two is imprinted a smile. One is a boy of 16 with delicate features, almost girlish in their beauty. His last gaze seems to have been directed toward his hand on the forefinger of which was a ring. A circle of purer white indicates its place; the ring was carried off as a trophy of the field.” The following account of the Battles of Tupelo and Old Town Creek was written by an unknown officer of the 7 th Minnesota Infantry, his account appearing in the August 5 th 1864 edition of the
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on securing all the Enfi
Read more

Straw Already Threshed: Sherman on Shiloh

Image
  W illiam Tecumseh Sherman was enjoying retired life in New York City when just before Christmas in 1889 he was presented with an article written by John Cockerill, a former drummer boy in the 24 th Ohio who was visiting his father Colonel Joseph Cockerill of the 70 th Ohio of Sherman’s division when the Battle of Shiloh began. Cockerill’s article, originally published in the New York Journalist and later featured in the January 1893 issue of Blue & Gray Magazine, Sherman later pronounced as “the best war story ever written” and the truest account of Shiloh.           On New Year’s Day 1890, General Sherman composed the following letter to his friend Marshall P. Wilder thanking him for sending along Cockerill’s article and giving his own explanation of Shiloh. “This to me is straw already threshed for we have fought this battle on paper several times, a much more agreeable task than to fight with bullets,” he concluded. “When in England some years ago I was gratified to liste
Read more

Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign

Image
  T he following list, constructed after many years of research, lists unit by unit which type of weapons were carried by the Army of the Cumberland during the Stones River campaign. A number of sources were consulted including state ordnance reports, Federal quarterly ordnance reports (thank you Research Arsenal ), Ken Baumann’s Arming the Suckers, regimental histories and memoirs, captured ordnance reports, and consultation with knowledgeable experts in the field of firearms. Some of this information has been shared on the blog before in “ Rosy’s Heavy Metal: Artillery of the Army of the Cumberland ” or “ Shoulder Arms: How Sheridan’s and Davis’s Divisions Were Armed at Stones River ” but this is the first time the army as a whole has been presented. The overall conclusion I drew from looking at this data is that the Army of the Cumberland in December 1862 was an organization in the midst of transformation as far as arms. Many of the regiments still retained their original issue
Read more

Federal Arms in the Chickamauga Campaign

Image
T he ordnance returns of the Army of the Cumberland at the end of September 1863 show the results of a transformational year in weaponry. Since taking command of the army at the end of October 1862, General William S. Rosecrans had repeatedly pestered the War Department to supply his regiments with better firearms both to improve the command’s efficiency as well as expand its striking power. The results speak for themselves: for the infantrymen at the end of September 1863, 90% of them now carried Class I long arms (36,058 out of 39,959), 8.3% carried Class II arms, and a mere 1.5% carried Class III weapons. Most of the foreign-made weapons (except Enfields) were gone, and by and large the army had settled on a single common .58 caliber ammunition, although a few .54 caliber and .69 caliber weapons remained within the ranks. The English-made Enfield rifle musket was by far the most common arm, carried by 56% of the men while the second-most common arm was the .58 caliber M1861 Spring
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Sergeant Major John H. Wilson of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers

Image
A long the northern bank of the Maumee River in a quiet cemetery rests the remains of one of the heroes of the Civil War, Sergeant Major John H. Wilson of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Sergeant Major John H. Wilson had this photo made in June 1864, proudly displaying both his newly won sergeant major stripes upon his shoulders and the brass regimental number "54" on his kepi.      John H. Wilson was born a free man February 1, 1840 in Cincinnati, Ohio. By the time of the Civil War, he was working aboard Ohio River steamboats as a painter. No doubt he witnessed the arrival of dozens of vessels carrying wounded back from the Southern battlefields of Shiloh and Stones River during his time on the river. Learning in the spring of 1863 that Massachusetts was raising a regiment of Negro soldiers, Wilson traveled east and enlisted in Company G, 54 th Massachusetts on April 16, 1863 at Readville, Massachusetts. The company descriptive book lists him as 5' 8”
Read more