Knox Pages today celebrates Independence Day on July 4 with a look at Brig. Gen. Henry Freeman, the only Knox County native to ever earn the Congressional Medal of Honor.
MOUNT VERNON — Henry Blanchard Freeman served his country for nearly half a century in the U.S. Army, enlisting as a private and retiring as a brigadier general.
The Mount Vernon native fought in the Civil War, the Indian Campaigns and in Cuba and the Philippines during insurrections.
But it was his actions on New Year’s Eve at Stones River, Tenn., in 1862 — risking his life under enemy fire to save a fallen comrade — that earned Freeman the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award for military valor the United States can bestow.
Freeman, born in 1837 in Mount Vernon, is the only Medal of Honor recipient born in Knox County.
Cpl. Abner Peeler Allen, buried in Centerburg Cemetery in Knox County, received the Medal of Honor for his efforts during the Civil War. But he was born and raised in Illinois and fought with the 39th Illinois Infantry during the war.
Freeman joined the Army in 1855 at the age of 19, initially assigned as a private in the newly formed 10th Infantry Regiment at Carlisle Barracks, Penn.
He rose the rank of 1st Sergeant and ultimately commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1861 with the 18th Infantry.
According to the Congressional Medal of Honor’s website, he received his Medal of Honor on Dec. 31, 1862.
He was serving as an officer with the 18th U.S. Infantry during the Battle of Stone River, Tenn., a brutal affair which had the highest percentage of casualties on both sides.
Three months before the battle, President Lincoln had issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on Sept. 22. This coincided with Lincoln’s hope of securing several victories by Jan. 1, 1863, when he would officially sign the act freeing slaves.
The battle in central Tennessee followed a lull after the Battle of Perryville in Kentucky during the fall of 1862.
A dissatisfied Lincoln, who was often unhappy with his army’s generals, relieved Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell of command, replaced by Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans.
Rosecrans assumed command of the Army of the Ohio and reconstituted it as the Army of the Cumberland
On the day after Christmas, the Army of the Cumberland left Nashville with 44,000 men, marching toward Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee at Murfreesboro, 30 miles to the south.
However, the cautious and deliberate Rosecrans left about 40,000 men in and around the Tennessee capital to guard his communication and supply routes, an advantage for Bragg, as the three-day Stones River battle began.
At 6 a.m. on a bitterly cold day, a Confederate corps surprises the Federals and smashes into the Union right flank. The Federals are sent reeling backward some two and a half miles to the Nashville turnpike and railroad. .
The most intense combat of the day occurs in a dense forested area, later dubbed “Hell’s Half Acre” by the men who fought there.
During that first day of battle, Freeman, serving as an adjutant, earned his Medal of Honor, who was also honored for
According to the medal’s citation, Freeman “voluntarily went to the front and picked up and carried to a place of safety, under a heavy fire from the enemy, an acting field officer who had been wounded, and was about to fall into enemy hands.”
Ultimately, the Union lines held over the next two days, earning Lincoln one of the victories he craved.
Bragg gave up the field on Jan. 3 and withdrew his forces south to Tullahoma. The North held control of central Tennessee, and the Union victory provided a much-needed morale boost, especially after the recent loss at Fredericksburg in December 1862.
But the Battle of Stones River resulted in some of the highest casualty rates of the war.
With only about 76,400 men engaged, it has the greatest percentage of casualties (3.8 percent killed, 19.8 percent wounded, and 7.9 percent missing/captured) of any major battle in the Civil War, even more than at Shiloh and Antietam earlier that year.
Lincoln later wrote to Rosecrans, “…you gave us a hard victory which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over.”
It was just the beginning of a long and illustrious military career for Freeman, who also fought at Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Chickamauga, Ga. Freeman was taken prisoner at Chickamauga and transported to Libby Prison in Richmond, Va., later escaping.
As a promoted major at the time, Freeman was later captured again — again escaped — rejoining the Union forces each time.
After the war, Freeman married Sarah Darlington of Zanesville, Ohio, in 1866.
Freeman continued his military service during the Indian Campaigns, taking part in several battles on the western frontier, including service with Gen. George Custer.
His last active service was in Cuba and the Philippine Islands during the Spanish-American War.
Freeman was promoted to brigadier general on Jan. 16, 1901, and retired the following day upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 64. He died at age of 78 on Oct. 16, 1915, in Douglas, Wyo., and is buried in Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery.
Freeman’s political and national influence did not end with him. His daughter, Julia, married Robert D. Carey, who served as Wyoming’s governor and a U.S. senator.
A U.S. Navy transport ship, the USS General HB Freeman, was named in his honor, launched in 1944, and sailing in the Pacific Ocean during World War II.
