Emergence of a forgotten Civil War hero
Medal of Honor winner with Lockport roots never got award, and county seeks to claim it
LOCKPORT — Niagara County is trying to claim the award that the Navy owes to a Medal of Honor winner from the Civil War who never received his medal.
Michael Huskey of Lockport was approved for the nation’s highest military honor for valor in a battle in Mississippi in 1863.
He died the following year in a Memphis, Tenn., hospital, and never received his award.
County Historian Catherine Emerson said that she is not aware of any precedent for a local government to obtain an unclaimed Medal of Honor but that the county is making the attempt.
Emerson said that as far as she knows, Huskey has no living descendants, nor does his siblings.
“He shouldn’t be allowed to slip into obscurity,” Emerson said last week.
Yet Huskey’s story was obscure enough that Emerson didn’t include it in a chapter on the 13 Medal of Honor winners with some connection to Niagara County, which was published two years ago in her book on veterans monuments in the county.
Huskey’s story brings the total to 14. An old handwritten note about him was found in the historian’s office recently, Emerson said.
“Talk about hearing a pin drop. We were just horrified that we forgot him,” Emerson said.
Emerson said Huskey and his family emigrated from Ireland in 1848 or 1849 and settled in Lockport. He would have been about 6 years old at the time.
Huskey’s family eventually moved to Royalton. The present-day Huskey Cemetery is located on their old farm, but the Huskeys themselves—except for Michael— are buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Lockport.
He volunteered for the Navy early in the Civil War and was assigned to the “brown water navy” that fought on Southern rivers. As a fireman, his job was to feed coal to the boilers on the steamships used in that era.
In March 1863, Huskey was in the crew of the USS Carondelet, a 512-ton gunboat that was part of a flotilla trying to fight its way down the Mississippi River in a coordinated campaign with a Union army commanded by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
The objective of the campaign was to break the last Confederate hold on the river by capturing the fortress city of Vicksburg, Miss.
Grant and Adm. David D. Porter sought to bypass Vicksburg by sending boats such as the Carondelet up Steele’s Bayou, which leads to the Yazoo River, a Mississippi tributary.
Huskey’s boat was what Emerson called a “semi-ironclad,” about 175 feet long, although it drew only 7 feet of water. It carried a crew of 175 to 250.
The push up Steele’s Bayou was a failure, as the gunboats became stuck in the narrow channel, while Confederates on shore chopped down trees that fell across the stream to try to pen the Union ships in, and fired on the crews.
Infantry commanded by Gen. William T. Sherman eventually cleared the enemy from the banks, but the Navy was unable to get through the narrow bayou, Emerson said.
She said that during the fire-fight, the USS. Ivy, the gunboat carrying the flotilla’s commanding admiral, became stuck, and Huskey was one of the men who volunteered as a rescue party to free the Ivy while under Confederate fire.
Emerson said the citation does not give details of what Huskey did on the mission but does say he fought “gallantly.” The rescue was successful, and Huskey was recommended for the Medal of Honor. The medal was approved the next year, but it is unclear whether Huskey ever knew of it.
Huskey fell ill the next year and died in the hospital in October 1864. Emerson believes that officials lost track of many individual bodies and that Huskey is probably one of the unknowns buried in Memphis National Cemetery.
In 1898, the New York Times published an article listing war veterans who had been awarded medals but never received or claimed them, and Huskey’s name was on that list.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the County Legislature, a color guard will be part of a Veterans Day observance, and Emerson will tell Huskey’s story.
Legislature Chairman William L. Ross said, “If we can score on this medal winner and put it in the [Courthouse] rotunda with a light on it, I support that all the way.”
Emerson said that so far she hasn’t reached anyone in the Pentagon who can move such a plan along. Deputy County Clerk Wendy Roberson said requests for help have gone out to Sen. Charles E. Schumer and Rep. Chris Lee, R-Clarence.
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