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and paddled out into the river, hoping to either catch up with the gunboats, which had headed downstream, or cross to the other side of the river and rejoin the Union forces by foot. As he paddled, he looked back and noticed a Union man struggling in the water along the
Confederate-held shoreline. The soldier, Captain A.W. Becket of Company B, had attempted to cross the bayou but part-way through found himself too weak to continue; Becket had been ill and had left his sickbed to participate in the mission. Despite the risk, Darrough turned his canoe around and headed back towards the Confederates and the struggling man. He succeeded in getting Becket into the canoe, and then safely reached the opposite shore. For these actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor several decades later, on February 5, 1895. Darrough's official Medal of Honor citation reads simply: "Saved the life of a captain."
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boats. The gunboats immediately withdrew from the shore, without having time to take up their gangplanks. The men on shore, including
Darrough, were now stranded and under intense fire. As one boat engaged the Confederates, the other proceeded downstream and, after reaching a point which was partly out of range of the artillery, pulled alongside the shore and took on all the soldiers who had reached that point.
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blocked his path. Deciding that his only option to avoid being killed or captured was to swim the mile-wide river, and knowing that his clothes and gun would weigh him down, he began looking for a log to float on. As he searched the bank, he found a canoe hidden in the reeds. Overjoyed, he jumped in
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by two steam-powered gunboats. As the men disembarked from the boats onto the south bank of the
Tennessee River just downstream of Eastport, they came under fire from a concealed battery of Confederate artillery. The battery was at close range, and its fire proved devastating to both the men and the
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Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company F, 113th
Illinois Infantry. Place and date: At Eastport, Miss., 10 October 1864. Entered service at: Concord, Morgan County, Ill. Birth: Kentucky. Date of issue: 5 February 1895.
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under intense enemy fire. Although he had found a canoe with which to cross the river safely, he voluntarily returned to the
Confederate-held shore to rescue a fellow soldier who was in danger of drowning.
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During his military service, Darrough was wounded and once escaped from
Confederate captivity. After the war, he returned to Iroquois County where he resided until his death at age 79.
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Darrough was unable to reach the boat in time and was again stranded as it pulled away from shore. He continued to follow the riverbank downstream until a deep
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as a child and enlisted in the Union Army from that state. While participating in a mission to destroy a
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and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration, the
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421:. Vol. 1. Detroit: The Perrien-Keydel Company. pp. 437–439.
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railway, Darrough and others were stranded on the shore of the
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Deeds of Valor: How
America's Heroes Won the Medal of Honor
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List of
American Civil War Medal of Honor recipients: A–F
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American Civil War recipients of the Medal of Honor
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459:People of Illinois in the American Civil War
380:"Civil War Medal of Honor recipients (A–L)"
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415:Beyer, Walter F.; Oscar F. Keydel (1901).
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211:113th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
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355:The Ledger Independent
323:public domain material
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158:Eastport, Mississippi
92:Years of service
164:, Darrough moved to
142:John Samuel Darrough
20:John Samuel Darrough
464:Union Army soldiers
187:Maysville, Kentucky
51:Maysville, Kentucky
219:Memphis, Tennessee
185:Darrough was born
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311:References
181:Early life
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264:See also
254:Citation
215:sergeant
166:Illinois
162:Kentucky
104:Sergeant
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82:branch
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