This memorial to the men of the Tennessee who have been awarded the Medal of Honor stands in a place of deep honor at Memorial Circle in the Chattanooga National Cemetery in Chattanooga TN.
The memorial reads as follows:
"[Army MOH] [Air Force MOH] [Navy and Marine Corps MOH]
National Medal of Honor Military History Museum honors the Tennessee Medal of Honor Recipients
[list:name - rank - service - year awarded]
Adkison, Joseph B. – Sgt – USA – 1918
Bonney, Robert Earl – CWT – USA – 1910
Cantrell, Charles P. – Pvt – USA – 1898
Cecil Josephus S. – 1Lt – USA – 1906
Collins, Harrison – Cpl – USA – 1864
Cooley, Raymond H. – S/Sgt – USA – 1945
Duke, Ray E. – SFC – USA – 1951
Gardner, James A. – 1Lt – USA – 1966
Grant, George – Sgt – USA – 1877
Greer, Alan J. – 2Lt – USA – 1901
Harrison, Bolden Reush – SN – USN – 1911
Huff, Paul B. – Cpl – USA – 1944
Jenkins, Doan J. – S/Sgt – USA – 1969
Jordan, George – Sgt – USA – 1880
Karnes, James E. – Sgt – USA – 1918
* Kinser, Elbert Luther – Sgt – USMC – 1945
Lawson, Gaines – 1Sgt – USA – 1863
* Limert, Milo – 1Sgt – USA – 1918
* Lyell, William F. – Cpl – USA – 1951
McGaha, Charles L. – M/Sgt – USA – 1945
McGarity, Vernon – T/Sgt – USA – 1944
* McGill, Troy A. – Sgt – USA – 1944
Morris, William W. – Cpl – USA – 1874
* Ray, David Robert – HC2C – USN – 1969
* Singleton, Walter K. – Sgt – USMC – 1967
* Stout, Mitchell W. – Sgt – USA – 1970
Strivson, Benoni – Pvt – USA – 1918
Talley, Edward – Sgt – USA – 1918
Ward, Calvin John – Pvt – USA – 1918
Weld, Seth L. – Cpl – USA – 1906
* Willis, John Harland – PHM 1C – USN – 1945
York, Alvin C. – Cpl – USA – 1918
* POSTHUMOUS
This marker is given by the staff
of the Chattanooga Funeral Home"
A very good news article about the TN Medal of Honor recipients can be found here, from the Knoxville News-Sentinel: (
visit link)
"Tennessee's Medal of Honor recipients include well-known heroes and anonymous ones
By Amy McRary of the Knoxville News Sentinel
Harry Truman once declared he’d rather have a Medal of Honor than be president.
Truman made the statement March 28, 1946, at a Washington, D.C., ceremony that awarded the medals to two World War II heroes. One recipient was Cocke County native Army Master Sgt. Charles L. McGaha.
McGaha earned a Medal of Honor, reads his official citation, for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity” on the Philippine Island of Luzon on Feb. 7, 1945. Five Japanese tanks, 10 machine guns and a platoon of riflemen pinned down American infantry in a roadside ditch that day. When McGaha saw one of his men wounded 40 yards away, the Cosby native, his citation reads, “ unhesitatingly crossed the road under a hail of bullets and moved the man 75 yards to safety.”
Injured in one arm, McGaha returned to his post to find his platoon leader hurt. He took command and went to help a group moving another wounded soldier. An exploding shell wounded him in the shoulder and killed two others. The twice-wounded McGaha carried the remaining man to safety. Then he moved in front to draw enemy fire so other soldiers could get to safety. “When the last man had gained the new position, he rejoined his command and there collapsed from loss of blood and exhaustion,” reads the citation.
A year and a month later, McGaha received the medal. (He’d stay in the military, retiring as a major in 1962 after 24 years of service.) His 86-year-old grandmother Jane McGaha was among the family from East Tennessee who attended the ceremony. She told reporters, “I’m glad more than that medal that our boy got back safe and sound.”
McGaha is one of 32 Tennessee Medal of Honor recipients. Another 13 men have strong Tennessee ties though they’re officially affiliated with other states. Below are brief biographies of a few of these men:
Gaines Lawson
Hawkins County native 1st Sgt. Gaines Lawson fought with the Federal Army’s 4th East Tennessee Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. He received his medal in 1895 for coming to the aid of a wounded comrade during Oct. 3, 1863, fighting in McMinnville. (Some official records relating to Lawson’s medal spell McMinnville as “Minville.”)
As Union soldiers retreated under heavy Confederate fire that day, Lawson, 21, ran to rescue gravely wounded Union Private John M. Edington. Later he was taken prisoner by Confederates, according to Civil War information compiled by the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development.
Lawson remained in the military after the war. He died in 1906 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington.
J. E. “Buck” Karnes
Calvin John Ward
It was Oct. 8, 1918, near Estrees, France. Sgt. James Ernest “Buck” Karnes of Knoxville and 18-year-old Pvt. Calvin John Ward of Morristown were pinned down by German machine guns.
Together the East Tennesseans of Company D, 117th Infantry, 30th Division attacked, killing three German soldiers, capturing seven and eliminating the enemy position. Their actions earned each a Medal of Honor.
Karnes later was a Knoxville police officer. He moved to Sacramento, Calif., where he died in 1966 at age 75.
Ward, who battled postwar depression and alcoholism, died in 1967 in a Morristown hotel room. His death was ruled a suicide. In 2012, a Tennessee House of Representatives resolution remembered Ward, calling him the most decorated American soldier during WWI. Ward earned six American military honors that included the Medal of Honor and the Silver Star as well as six foreign medals for his service.
Alvin C. York
His heroics along France’s Meuse-Argonne Front made Fentress County sharpshooter Alvin C. York an international War World I hero. But York first didn’t want to fight or kill.
When drafted, he registered as a conscientious objector as a member of the pacifist Church of Christ in Christian Union. The government denied that status. Patriotism won out; York decided to fight for his country.
On Oct. 8, 1918, Cpl. York and his platoon were ambushed by Germans near Chatel-Chehery, France. The attack left York in charge of the remaining seven soldiers. York led a counterattack that captured 132 German soldiers and their machine gun nest. York, shooting a rifle and .45-caliber Colt pistol, was credited with killing more than 20 German soldiers; some reports list the total at 25.
His Medal of Honor citation reads, “Fearlessly leading seven men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machine gun nest was taken, together with four officers and 128 men and several guns.”
York was promoted to sergeant and was an instant celebrity. A News Sentinel story about his life noted that the New York Stock Exchange suspended business one day while “members carried the hero about the floor on their shoulders.”
Back in Tennessee, York refused offers to market his celebrity. He did years later agree to a film about his life. The 1941 Gary Cooper movie “Sergeant York” made York a long-lasting household name.
Troy McGill
Army Sgt. Troy McGill was 29 when he died fighting for his country March 4, 1944. The Knoxville native was killed defending his Army squad on Los Negros Island in Papua New Guinea during World War II.
McGill’s body was eventually returned to Knoxville where he is buried in the Knoxville National Cemetery.
His Medal of Honor citation says McGill and a squad of eight men were attacked by some “200 drinkcrazed enemy troops” that killed everyone but McGill and another soldier. Ordering that man to leave the area, McGill, the citation reads, “courageously resolved to hold his position at all cost.” He fired his gun until it ceased to work. “Then, with the enemy only five yards away, he charged from his foxhole in the face of certain death and clubbed the enemy with his rifle in hand-to-hand combat until he was killed.”
At dawn 105 enemy dead were found around McGill’s position.
Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman Jr.
Andrew “Sandy” Bonnyman Jr. enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942. The 32-year-old father of three lived in New Mexico where he had a copper mining business. He grew up in Knoxville, the son of Blue Diamond Coal Co. president and founder Alexander Bonnyman Sr.
Sandy Bonnyman was sent to WWII’s Pacific Theater where, by the fall of 1943, he’d received a battlefield commission to first lieutenant. That November he was executive officer of the 2nd Battalion shore party, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, when troops landed on the Japanese-held Betio Island, part of the Tarawa Atoll. There, he’d lead a Nov. 20-22 assault against the enemy.
The 33-year-old was killed Nov. 22 but his bravery and fearlessness earned him a Medal of Honor. Bonnyman was cited for “acting on his own initiative when assault troops were pinned down” by “overwhelming fire” from the Japanese.
Bonnyman, his citation reads, “repeatedly defied the blasting fury of the enemy bombardment” to lead his men. He volunteered to crawl 40 yards to set demolitions at the Japanese position and led an assault up a fortified bunker filled with Japanese soldiers. He stopped “only to replenish his ammunition” as he led his men while “fearlessly exposing himself to the merciless slash of hostile fire.” Reaching the top of the bunker, he fought and killed three Japanese until he was fatally wounded. But his Marines took the bunker. Bonnyman’s body was never recovered.
Paul D. Huff
Paul Huff was a 23-year-old working in a chair factory when he was drafted into the Army in 1941. Three years later, the Cleveland, Tenn., native earned the Medal of Honor for wiping out a German machine gun nest near Carano, Italy.
Cpl. Huff, a member of the Army’s 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, volunteered to lead a six-man patrol on Feb. 8, 1944, to determine the location and strength of enemy troops firing on his company. He moved ahead of the other soldiers in the patrol to draw the enemy fire, going through a minefield alone and then crawling 75 yards to a German machine gun position. There, he killed the enemy, destroyed the gun and determined where the rest of the enemy was located. Returning to his patrol, Huff led his men to safety. The information he brought back enabled his battalion to rout the rest of the Germans.
Huff would spend 30 years in the Army. He died at age 77 in Clarksville.
Mitchell W. Stout
Lenoir City native Mitchell Stout was 20 when he grabbed the grenade that would kill him but save other Americans during the Vietnam War.
Sgt. Stout was among the soldiers in a searchlight crew who’d taken position in a bunker near the Khe Gio Bridge on March 12, 1970. Suddenly an enemy grenade was tossed into the bunker.
Stout picked up the grenade and headed out of the bunker. But the grenade exploded as he reached the door. Stout was killed. Because he held the grenade close to his body he shielded the blast and so protected the other soldiers.
Medal of Honor Recipients from Tennessee or with Tennessee ties
Civil War
Gaines Lawson, Hawkins County, Army
George Lewis Gillespie Jr., Kingston, Army Corps of Engineers
Oliver Hughes, Fentress County, Army
John Ferrell, born Bedford County, lived in Illinois when hired as civilian pilot for Navy
Harrison Collins, Hawkins County, Army
Daniel Dickenson Stevens, Sagnange, Tenn., Navy
Indian Wars
George Grant, Raleigh, Tenn., Army
Benoni Strivson, Overton, Tenn., Army
John Kyle, born in Ohio, lived in Nashville, Army
James Bell Dozier, Warren County, Tenn., guide for Army
Clay Beauford, lived near Nashville when joined Army
William W. Morris, Stewart County, Tenn., Army
George Jordan, Williamson County, Tenn., Army
William Harding Carter, Nashville, Army
George Hobday, Pulaski County, Army
Spanish-American War
Charles O. Cantrell, Smithville, Tenn., Army
Philippine-American War
Allen James Greer, Memphis, Army
Josephus Samuel Cecil, New River, Tenn., Army
Bolden Reush Harrison, Savannah, Tenn., Navy
Seth Lathrop Weld, born in Maryland, entered Army at Altamont, Tenn.
Peacetime Recipient
Robert Earl Bonney, born in Maryville, Navy
World War I
Jesse Whitfield Covington, born Haywood, Tenn., Navy
Joseph B. Adkinson, born Egypt, Tenn., Army
Milo Lemert, born in Iowa; entered Army at Crossville
Edward R. Talley, Russellville, Tenn., Army
James Ernest “Buck” Karnes, Knoxville, Army
Calvin John Ward, born in Greene County, enlisted at Morristown, Army
Alvin C. York, Fentress County, Army
World War II
Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman Jr., lived in Knoxville, U.S. Marines
Paul Bert Huff, Cleveland, Tenn., Army
Troy McGill, born in Knoxville, Army
Charles Henry Coolidge, Signal Mountain, Army
Vernon McGarity, born Right, Tenn., Army
Charles L. McGaha, Cosby, Army
Raymond Henry Cooley, born Dunlap, Tenn., Army
John Harlan Willis, born Columbia, Tenn., Navy
Elbert Luther Kinser, Greeneville, Marines
Korean War
Ray E. Duke, Whitwell, Tenn., Army
William Franklin Lyell, Hickman County, Army
Charles F. Pendleton, born Camden, Tenn., Army
Vietnam War
James Alton Gardner, born Dyersburg, Tenn., Army
Walter Keith Singleton, Memphis, Marines
Don Jenkins, born in Kentucky; entered Army at Nashville
David Robert Ray, born in McMinnville; entered Navy at Nashville
Mitchell Stout, Lenior City/Knoxville, Army
About Amy McRary
Amy McRary writes about the arts, people, animals, history and more as a features/entertainment/general assignment reporter for The News Sentinel."