John G.B. Adams |
John Gregory Bishop Adams (1841-1900), born in Groveland,
Massachusetts, enlisted as a private when the Civil War started in
the 19th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. When the unit
departed he obtained the rank of corporal in Company A. He served
with the 19th in the Peninsula Campaign and the Battle of Antietam. He was given a field commission as Second Lieutenant
in Company I and one of 18 soldiers who received the Medal of Honor
for valor at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Adams recovered the regimental and national
colors as a corporal and a lieutenant carrying them fell, mortally
wounded. With a flag in each hand, he advanced and the regiment was
reformed on him. He was one of seven soldiers of the 19th
Regiment to receive the Medal of Honor during the war.
After the war, Adams was a foreman for
ten years at B.F. Doak & Company shoe factory in Lynn,
Massachusetts. He left that job to become an inspector in the Boston
Custom House and later served as the Postmaster of Lynn and Deputy
Warden of the State Reformatory at Concord. He served as an elector
for the state in the 1868 presidential election. In 1885, he was
elected Sergeant At Arms for the Massachusetts legislature,
overseeing a staff of forty and earning a salary of $3,000 per year.
Adams was a Freemason and member of the
Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). In 1899 he published a memoir of his
war service entitled Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment.
He died on October 19, 1900 and buried
in Pine Grove Cemetery, Lynn, Massachusetts.
His Medal of Honor Citation reads:
Reeanactment video of the Battle of Fredericksburg ...Seized the 2 colors from the hands of a corporal and a lieutenant as they fell mortally wounded, and with a color in each hand advanced across the field to a point where the regiment was reformed on those colors.
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