In 1862, two Civil War soldiers from Ohio were part of a raid that infiltrated 200 miles into Confederate territory. They stole a locomotive and drove it north while destroying the bridges, railroad tracks and telegraph wires behind it.
The mission was to disable Confederate supply lines and communications.
Before the soldiers could make it back to Union territory, the train ran out of fuel. They had to flee as confederate soldiers closed in.
Some hid in the woods for weeks. But eventually all but eight of the 22 men from the 2nd Ohio Infantry were captured and killed.
That was the history President Joe Biden shared on Wednesday before he posthumously awarded Medals of Honor to Pvt. Philip (Perry) G. Shadrach and Pvt. George D. Wilson at the White House.
“Every soldier who joined that mission was awarded the medal of honor, except for two soldiers, who died because of that operation, but never received this recognition. Today we right that wrong," Biden said.
Descendants of Shadrach and Wilson accepted the medals from the president.
A bipartisan effort to fix what was essentially a clerical error has been underway for more than a decade.
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Hobson of Springfield took up the cause as early as 2008. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown also has pressured several administrations to issue the Medals of Honor since 2015.
