Connellsville to honor Civil War Medal of Honor recipient
CONNELLSVILLE — Those on the Samuel Johnson Memorial Committee are holding a ceremony Saturday that they feel is long overdue.
The committee is inviting the community to recognize Samuel Johnson, a Civil War veteran who earned a Medal of Honor during the Battle of Antietam.
“I think it’s important because our town has played an important role militarily in the history of our country,” said Connellsville Councilman Greg Ritch. “And when there was a call to arms, Connellsville responded.”
The ceremony will be held at 3 p.m. at Veterans Plaza behind the city’s municipal building, just a few days after the 150th anniversary of the battle, where Johnson captured two of the flags of the 1st Texas Infantry Regiment on Sept. 17, 1862.
Johnson was a member of Co. G of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves. He and his fellow soldiers encountered the Texan soldiers in Miller’s Corn Field near Antietam Creek in Sharpsburg, Md., and during the battle, the Texas state colors fell to the ground, according to historic records.
During the recovery of the flags, Johnson was struck by fragments of an artillery shell to his right leg, but managed to return to his commanding officers and turn over the Texas colors.
He was 17 years old.
“It was a very bloody fight,” said John Brothers of Connellsville, Samuel Johnson Committee chairman. “Back during the Civil War, a unit’s flag was a rallying point. It was a very valuable thing. To lose your flag in battle was not a good thing for a unit to do.”
A Medal of Honor award is the highest honor given for military service for valor above and beyond the call of duty. There have been 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients in U.S. military history, and only 81 recipients are living today.
“We always honor Johnny Lujack and we should, he was a Heisman Trophy recipient,” Ritch said. “We honor Johnny Woodruff, he received the gold medal in the 1936 Olympics, but we also militarily have a young man of impeccable courage that was awarded the Medal of Honor.”
According to Ritch, Johnson is the seventh overall Medal of Honor recipient by Edward Stanton, former U.S. secretary of war.
Johnson’s medal was also the first one of the Battle of Antietam. Following the battle, he was promoted to second lieutenant.
“Connellsville has always, always supported any type of armed conflict from the beginning of our nation,” Ritch said. “So I think it’s important that we recognize this hero. It’s long overdue.”
The ceremony will take place at a memorial that was built by Michael Parlak Jr. for his Eagle Scout project.
The monument honors Johnson for receiving the Medal of Honor.
“Nothing had ever really been done for him, so I wanted to do something that was important, that would be special,” Parlak said. “A lot of people didn’t know we had a Medal of Honor winner from Connellsville — that’s kind of a big deal. That’s why I did it.”
Brothers said he thinks the monument is “perfect.”
“It’s not elaborate, but simple, and to the point,” he said.
Descendants of Johnson will be present at Saturday’s ceremony, along with Ritch, Parlak, Brothers, master of ceremonies Gerald Browell, Mayor Charles Matthews, Civil War re-enactors, the Rev. Ray Hill and the Connellsville Veterans Commission.
Ken Williams, a graduate of Gettysburg College and Civil War historian, will serve as the ceremony’s guest speaker.
The Connellsville Falcon Band will play the national anthem and the Molinaro Band will perform the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
More than 500 red, white and blue balloons provided by the Connellsville Patriots will be released at the end of the ceremony.
“I’m very happy that this has come together,” Brothers said. “Because we’re into the 150th anniversary of the Civil War … I thought it would be very appropriate if we could do something by September 2012.”