DOB/DOD: July 24, 1842 (Sharon, CT) – May 29, 1917 (Winsted, CT); 74 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Mary Flannagan (1847-1910).
CHILDREN: Two sons, Wilber A. (1876-1878) and William H. (1885-?). Four daughters, Bertha E. Gibbs Alling (1871-?), Blanche Gibbs Boorom (1884-1955), Alice Gibbs Brothwell (1881-1962), and Anna Gibbs Eaton (1888-1978).
ENLISTMENT: August 8, 1862
UNIT: 19th Connecticut Infantry, Company B, which was redesignated the 2nd Heavy Artillery
DISCHARGE: Mustered out on July 7, 1865.
FAMILY: Born to Lemuel III (1790-1872) and Beulah Boland Gibbs (1799-1866). Nine brothers, George W. (1818-1900), Homer A. (1822-1885), Myron B. [died in the Civil War and is interred in Andersonville, Georgia] (1825-1864), Francis J. (1828-1861), Goodrich S. (1830-1883), John B. (1832-1873), Eber S. (1833-1907), Henry H. (1836-1838), and Henly L. (1839-1842). One sister, Lydia M. Gibbs Pendleton (1820-1892).
MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION
AWARDED FOR ACTIONS DURING: Civil War
BRANCH OF SERVICE: Army
UNIT: Company B, 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery
DATE OF ISSUE AND PRESENTATION: May 10, 1865
AGE ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT: 22
CITATION:
The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Wesley Gibbs, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 2 April 1865, while serving with Company B, 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, in action at Petersburg, Virginia, for capture of flag.
Excerpts From One Medal of Honor Too Many at the Breakthrough; Edward Alexander
Sergeant Wesley Gibbs, 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, who was a deserved recipient of the Medal of Honor, though not for the battle stated on his citation.
In August 1862, Gibbs enlisted into Company B of the 19th Connecticut Infantry. This unit was sent to the Washington defenses and redesignated the 2nd Heavy Artillery. They remained in the nation’s capital until the middle of May 1864, when the heavy losses of the Overland Campaign necessitated the transition back to infantry and transfer into the field.
For their brave actions, on April 2, 1865, thirty-six members of the corps received the Medal of Honor. Sergeant Wesley Gibbs is counted as among these. His citation stated that he received it for the capture of a flag on April 2, 1865. Thirteen others in Horatio Wright’s VI Corps received the medal for capturing a Confederate flag that day. All of those cases can be properly verified, but a clerical error incorrectly placed Gibbs among that number.
But Wright had forwarded on April 16th a list of flags captured by the VI Corps in the engagements on the 2nd and 6th. This was the first time it was stated: “Battle-flag (regiment unknown), captured by Sergeant Wesley Gibbs, Company B, Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, in the enemy’s works near Petersburg, April 2, 1865.”
Wright’s adjutant must have bungled the dates, which affected Gibbs’ Medal citation and ought to bring the Medal of Honor recipients for the Breakthrough down to a measly thirty-five. The “smoking gun” in this admittedly boring investigation into a clerical error is a September 23, 1906 article in the Springfield Republican – “Medal of Honor Legion Holds Annual Meeting This Week–Story of Modest Man and Lost Medal.”
The correspondent interviewed the veteran Gibbs and reported, “During the memorable attack on Gen. Lee at Sailor’s Creek, VA., April 6, 1865, Gibbs rushed from the Connecticut ranks in front of the 121st New York and captured a rebel flag, carrying half the staff away with him under fire.”
As the title of the article implies, Gibbs didn’t care much for the medal he was issued on May 10, 1865. He had been summoned along with the other recipients in the corps to Washington and received a thirty-day furlough from Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. After his return to the regiment, Adjutant Theodore F. Vaill called the men out and presented Gibbs with his medal. “I didn’t want it, but the adjutant insisted on my accepting it and pinned it on me,” Gibbs recalled.
A friend, Henry Ayres, had received a furlough and would be passing by the Gibbs’ house in Salisbury, Connecticut, on his way home. Wesley asked if Henry could take the medal and give it to his mother. Gibbs was then demoted to private, for reasons unknown, just before his own mustering out of the army.
When he returned home, his mother said she had seen neither Ayres nor the medal. Ayres confessed that he had indeed lost the medal but was unsure where. Gibbs let the matter pass until the turn of the twentieth century when he advertised the loss in the National Tribune. In 1905, he received a response from Pennsylvania veteran John M. Berry, who had found the medal in a knapsack at a Washington train station on his way home from the war. “Though lost to me more than 40 years, I never bothered my head about the medal,” Gibbs admitted.
From The Hartford Courant May 24, 1905
SOLDIER GETS TRACK OF LONG LOST MEDAL
Winsted Veteran Locates His Property in Pennsylvania
(Special to The Courant.)
Winsted, May 23.
Wesley Gibbs of this place, who was a Sergeant in Company B, Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, has succeeded, after a forty years’ search, in getting track of a medal which was presented to him for an act of bravery during the Civil War.
Mr. Gibbs, at the battle of Cedar Creek, shortly before the close of the war, captured a Confederate flag for which Congress awarded him a medal. The medal was pinned to his coat by Adjutant Vaill, who now resides in Litchfield. An item in the “National Tribune” was the first intimation Mr. Gibbs had of the whereabouts of the medal, which he had given to a comrade to care for. The item Mr. Gibbs read was:
“Comrade Jonn M. Berry, Eighteenth Regiment, P. R. C., of Eighty Four, Pennsylvania, has a medal belonging to Sergeant Wesley Gibbs, Company B, Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, which he would return to this soldier or his friends.”
Mr. Gibbs wrote to Comrade Berry and hopes to secure the medal in a few days.
From The Hartford Courant June 3, 1905
Wesley Gibbs of Main Street received a medal yesterday, which had been lost to him for over forty years. The medal was given to Mr. Gibbs, then a sergeant in Company B, Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, for an act of bravery, that of capturing a Confederate flag during the battle of Cedar Creek. Congress awarded him a medal for this act, and he afterward placed it in the hands of a comrade to bring home to his mother. The medal never reached Winsted, and Mr. Gibbs had no intimation of its whereabouts until a few days ago when he noted an item in the “National Tribune” that John M. Berry of Eighty-Four, Pennsylvania, had a medal belonging to Sergeant Wesley Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs wrote to Mr. Berry and received the medal yesterday. He says that it is a great satisfaction to recover the medal, for he prizes it highly.
Buried in Forest View Cemetery, 171 Rowley Street, Winsted, Connecticut; GAR Section. Photos by Jeff DeWitt.
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