The Maryland National Guard’s Forgotten Medal of Honor Recipient
The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest military award for valor during wartime. Since its establishment in 1863, 67 Maryland-born Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines have earned that honor. While many Marylanders have heard the story of y Pvt. Henry Costin, the only Maryland Guardsman to earn the Medal of Honor in World War One, there is another former member of the Maryland National Guard to earn the nation’s highest honor.
Maryland has had a proud militia tradition dating back to its founding as a colony, and the roots of the modern National Guard are traced to these early formations. By the mid 1800s, several militia units drilled across the state carrying on this legacy. Among these formations was the 53rd Regiment, headquartered in Baltimore. Formed from the uniting of several independent militia units like the Lafayette Guards, the Independent Grays, and four companies of the Maryland Guards, 53rd Regiment provided the bulk of the city’s militia forces. Among the active members of the 53rd Regiment was Baltimore native Capt. Charles E Phelps.
Phelps was a prominent lawyer in the city, having graduated from both Princeton University and Harvard Law School, and was a respected member of the Baltimore City Council and Maryland State Bar Association. In 1858, Phelps commissioned as a captain in the Maryland Militia and later in 1860 helped raise Company D of the Maryland Guards, numbering 46 men.[i] Phelps’ peacetime duties were limited with Company D. He primarily headed the unit in parades and training marches through Baltimore, but his abilities as a leader were apparent. In December of 1860, he was promoted to the rank of major of the 53rd Regiment. In April of 1861 secession gripped the country, on the eve of the Civil War, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Militia en route to Washington marched through Baltimore. Crowds of angry Baltimore residents who supported Southern secession attacked the militia troops, and many in Maryland’s 53rd Regiment sided with the attackers. Maj. Phelps, unwilling to support secession, resigned from his position in the unit along with Adjutant Louis B DeWitt.[ii]
As early fighting in the Civil War broke out Charles Phelps returned to uniform, helping to recruit and raise the 7th Maryland Volunteer Infantry, where he was elected lieutenant colonel. Initially assigned to the defenses of the Maryland border from rebel incursion, Phelps and the 7th were soon pushed into active campaigning. Assigned to the Army of the Potomac following the Gettysburg campaign, Phelps was promoted to colonel and made commander of the regiment in November of 1863. At the Battle of the Wilderness in May of 1864, Phelps had his first chance to lead his men in fierce combat. During the fighting, he was so far forward and exposed that his horse was shot and killed from under him, but Phelps remained with his men in the thick of the fight, earning their respect.[iii]
Phelps’s men were ordered back into action again just days later at the Battle of Spotsylvania. With his Brigade commander out of action, Phelps took charge during an attack on May 8, 1864. Assigned to storm the Confederate positions at Laurel Hill, Phelps “rode to the head of the assaulting column, then much broken by severe losses and faltering under the close fire of artillery, placed himself conspicuously in front of the troops, and gallantly rallied and led them to within a few feet of the enemy’s works.” During this charge, Phelps was wounded and fell prisoner to the enemy.[iv]
Phelps was released from captivity during a cavalry raid by Union forces and spent the next several months recuperating in Baltimore. Resigning his commission due to wounds received in battle, Phelps was later meritoriously promoted to Brigadier General for his service on the battlefield. In military retirement he would become active in Maryland politics, earning a seat in the House of Representatives from 1865-1869 as a member of the Unconditional Unionist and later Conservative parties.[v] Returning home to Baltimore from Washington D.C., Phelps resumed his law practice and became an active member of the University of Maryland Law School.
However, Phelps’s time in uniform was not completely over. In 1877 when protests and strikes exploded across the country in response to railroad working conditions, the Maryland National Guard was severely understrength. Governor John Carroll was in desperate need of seasoned leaders to help organize the Guard and respond to the strikes. At the Governor’s request, Phelps was again commissioned as a colonel in the Maryland National Guard and recruited and trained the 8th Regiment, which served for several weeks until the emergency had passed. Taking his uniform off for the final time, Phelps returned to civilian life and his prosperous law career.[vi]
Phelps eventually became the commissioner of the public schools and was elected to the Supreme Bench of the City of Baltimore. A few years later in March of 1898, in recognition for his acts of bravery during the Civil War at Spotsylvania, Phelps was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by Secretary of War Russell Alger in Washington D.C.[vii] Phelps would reside in Baltimore until his death in 1908, providing a continued influence in legal, educational, political, and military circles. His influence in the Maryland National Guard would continue even after his death, with the service of his son, Charles Phelps Jr, who commissioned as an officer in the Maryland National Guard’s Engineer Corps from 1910-1914.[viii]