Canadian Medal of  

          Honor.com

  • Sunday evening's blogs
  • graves, memorials and medals
  • About the Author
  • contact the Author
  • Home
latest blog

Medal of Honor awarded to sailor from near Niagara Falls!

3/5/2013

0 Comments

 
I can remember many years ago driving my MG from Toronto to Niagara Falls with my latest gilfriend. About a dozen miles from the Falls I raised my hand and could feel the dampnest in the air as we got closer and closer to our tourist attraction. Surely that same dampnest could be felt back in the mid 1850's when James Stoddard was a youth and young man in his home town of Port Robinson in Canada West. It was just a dozen miles from the Falls.

He was etching out a living as a blacksmith when the Civil War was in high gear many miles to his south, and the day would come when he would travel many miles east to Detroit and would sign up for service... still close to the water. He signed up with the US Navy for a one year stint on  the USS Marmora and ended up doing almost 2 years.
Picture
The Marmora was a stern paddle wheeled steamer of about 160" in length and had a draft of only 4 Feet which would allow it and its class of war vessels to travelled up and down many of the rivers where the bigger vessels could not go.

In early March of 1864 this vessel and several others raced up the Yazoo River in Mississippi to come to the aid of Union forces on land at the city of the same name. The USS Cairo in the lead was blown up and sank in minutes after stiking an underwater mine but all were saved. (It's commander was T.O. Selfridge, a later rear Admiral. And his nephew would many years later work with Alexander Graham Bell in Canada. He would still later die in the first ever North American airplane crash and his co-pilot would be injured. THat man's name was Orville Wright.)

On arrival the crew of the Marmora would find that the land the Union forces had recently captured was about to be overrun by Southern forces. In fact the Union men were about to be drive back into the waters of the Yazoo River. This is the report of the event by the commander of the USS Malmora the day of the battle, and therein you will see the beginnings of a recomendation for the Medal of Honor for three of the sailors... including  Janes Stoddard....

Picture
Stoddard, Laffey and Franks noted here were all awarded Medals of Honor in Navy General Order # 32 dated 16 April 1864 for their bravery at Yazoo City on 5 March 1964.

Stoddard was shot in the neck during the above battle but pulled through and a few months later waa transferred to another vessel and would leave end his military carrer by leaving that vessel in  May of 1865.

Like so many other MOH recipients he seems to have completely disappeared after that date. There are no records found yet about where he went after the war, or what he did or where he died and lies buried

But his name lives in memory with the US Navy. Over the years the US Government has named over 1,000 war vessels of all types after brave sailors and marines.  Both Stoddard and Lafferty in the above battle would be so honoured.

In 1944 there was a naval warship chistened the USS James Stoddard, and it would do most honourable service during WW11 and also in Veitnam and Korea.  Former sailors and others wanting to preserve the history of the vessel would later create a website that is still in existance and is most worthy of a visit. Plan to stay awhile as it is most interesting and can be found at  www.ussstoddard.org.  There you can read about the efforts still ongoing to have another warship christened and named in honour of this Ontario hero.

Please check it out. 

Picture
Ladies and gentlemen... this is the USS Stoddard that was named after a blacksmith form Port Robinson Ontario. Like James, there were several other vessels named after Canadians who became heroes in the US Militray. These will be covered in future blogs.

By the way Stoddard's General Order was dated 149 years ago today.

Bart

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author;
    Bart Armstrong, C.D.,
    Recipient, Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers 

    Archives

    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly