LYNN — The drive to get a late Civil War veteran from Massachusetts the Medal of Honor that many believe he deserves serves as a great opportunity to reflect on similar veterans from Lynn.
After once being declined in 2014, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward J. Markey and Representatives Richard Neal and Niki Tsongas once again wrote to Secretary of the Army Mark Esper to have the Senior Army Decorations Board reconsider their previous denial of a posthumous Medal of Honor for Corporal David D. White.
“To me this sounds very exciting,” curator of Lynn’s Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Civil War Museum, Robert Matthias, said.
Then private in the 37th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, White is regarded by eyewitnesses, the 37th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment Descendants Association and his descendants, as the person responsible for capturing Confederate Major General George Washington Curtis Lee at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek in Virginia on April 6, 1865.
“The Medal of Honor is for those soldiers who went above and beyond the call of duty, if what [White] did is true he is more than deserving,” Matthias said.
Lynn was home to two Civil War veterans who received the Medal of Honor for their service including William B. Poole and John G. B. Adams, according to the GAR museum’s archives.
Poole received his medal for steering the U.S.S. Kearsarge “in a cool and most credible manner” before it sunk the Alabama in a battle in 1864.
Adams was credited with retrieving colors, or flags, from two fallen soldiers and carrying them to a point where regiments could be formed around them again.
“These two men were very deserving, it’s important that we remember their and others’ sacrifice,” Matthias said.
