Carlos H Rich was an infanteer with the 4th Vermont and no doubt participated in many of the regiments major battles during his 3 1/2 years in the Civil War. He progressed through the ranks and finished service as a First Sergeant. But while a Sergeant guess what he did?

"He saved the life of an officer." Really!

This happened on the first of the three day Battle of the Wilderness, as shown, and in Harpers Weekly June 1864. from the battle of a month earlier.

The three day Battle of the Wilderness pitted none other than General USS Grant against General Robert E Lee. Lee wanted to secure Richmond and Grant wanted to crush Lee and advance on Richmond. Trouble is that the area for this battle lay in 15 mile long stretch, and 10 miles deep of dense growth of trees vines and shrubbery that made advance on either side most troubling. Hand to hand combat and the firing of muskets at very close range…often into dense clouds of smoke from so many muskets firing. Complete blindness was the order of much of the battle. At one point an oficer actually stumbled back to his HQ and, according to his boss,…" assured me that he found a large chestnut tree on one side of which was lying nine of our men, and seven of the enemy on the other side and no place could he find 12 feet of ground that had not been hit by bullets." During the battle musket sparks lit the forest on fire and …"thousands perished in the dense thickets west of Fredericksburg, among them hundreds of wounded who were burned alive by the raging forest fires." In the midst of all of this Sgt Rich, himself already wounded, managed to crawl out and save one of his officers, a Lt. Edward W Carter, pictured above. Rich would later state that he could not ask the man to stand up becauese his guts were wripped open and he was afraid they will spill onto the ground. The man was ultimately moved at least 11 times before getting to a hospital bed, sewn up and later recovered and being released from further service.

It was for this bravery that Rich was awarded the Medal of Honor, not on 4 Jan 1865 like all the records seem to show, but on 24 December 1864 as evidenced in a news report the following day in a NY paper.