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promote the efficiency of the Navy” and thereby authorizing with his name and organization. He returned the medal to
the production and distribution of “medals of honor”. The bill the War Department, with the request to describe the action.
was passed authorizing 200 medals to be made. The intent was He was given a new medal, inscribed: “The Congress to Sergt
to honor petty officers, seamen, landsmen and Marines who Frank E. Brownell, 11th N.Y. Vol Inf’y for gallantry in shooting
distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action and other the murderer of Col. Ellsworth at Alexandria, VA, May 24, 1861.” 3
seamanlike qualities during the Civil War. President Lincoln
signed the bill authorizing the Navy version of the Medal THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE
of Honor. Two months later, Senator Henry Wilson, R-MA It was March 25, 1863 when Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
introduced a similar bill. It was passed and signed into law looked in amazement at the six young soldiers before him.
by President Lincoln authorizing the awarding of medals to The sight of ragged remnants that had once been brave young
privates in the United States Army who distinguished commandos moved his heart. They had just been released
themselves in battle. 2
from a Confederate P.O.W. camp in a prisoner exchange, and
On May 24, 1861 in the first action of the Civil War to merit the their story was incredible. Their mission was to purchase
Medal of Honor, Army Private Francis Edwin Brownell received tickets as passengers on a Confederate train, then take
the decoration for killing James W. Jackson, after he shot control of that train and travel north 100 miles to
Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth of the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Chattanooga wreaking havoc and burning bridges along
Regiment. Brownell received his decoration in 1877, inscribed the way to disrupt Confederate troop movements and

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