August 30, 2006

When I don't know something, which, alas, is often the case, people come to my assistance. Take a recent column about Medal of Honor winner Charles Cleveland.

Cleveland is buried in Utica's Forest Hill Cemetery and his tombstone cites the fact that Congress awarded him the country's highest medal. This was because of what Cleveland did during the Civil War at the Battle of Antietam in 1862.

In a previous column I included all I knew about Cleveland, which wasn't much. According to a website about the Civil War, Cleveland "voluntarily took and carried the colors into action after the color bearer had been shot." That was about it.

But Don Wisnoski has come to my assistance. Wisnoski, who has forgotten more about the Civil War than I know, gathered information about Cleveland, including a picture, from a variety of sources.

Cleveland was a private in the 26th New York Infantry, known as the "2nd Oneida." The 26th, also known as the "Utica Regiment," consisted of companies A, B, C and E, all of which were recruited in Utica, D from Hamilton, F from Whitestown, and I from Oriskany.

According to "Glory Was Not Their Companion," the story of the 2nd Oneida, the regiment was advancing through a Maryland farmer's cornfield when they were spotted by the Confederates.

"Realizing they had been spotted," the commander of Cleveland's battalion "gave the command to commence firing. The battalion opened with everything they had and continued discharging their muskets evenly and carefully for some 30 rounds. The Confederates sent volley after volley in return, delivering their fire with promptness and spirit.

"When the regiment's color bearer fell with a bullet wound, Pvt. Charles Cleveland of Company C voluntarily picked up the flag and continued holding it aloft, still slowly moving the men forward. In the process, Cleveland suffered gunshot wounds in the left forearm, left breast, and left foot. His wounds at Antietam cost him a two-month stay at a Baltimore hospital, but would later earn him what would be the first of three Medal of Honor awards for soldiers in the Twenty-Sixth New York."

After the war, Cleveland lived on Blandina Street in Utica and worked as a marble cutter, something he did until 1874, when he was appointed to the Utica Police Department.

He was promoted to sergeant in 1882, a detective in 1887, assistant chief in 1896 and chief in 1898.

Cleveland was married and had three sons. The family went to Grace Church.

Cleveland died in 1908. In those days, nobody mentioned cancer but it sounds like Cleveland might have had it. This is how The Saturday Globe reported Cleveland's death: "After a long sickness, during which the moments dragged as hours in an agony of pain, Chief of Police Charles F. Cleveland passed away at his home, 178 Blandina Street, a 4 o'clock this morning. While the news of his death will cause no surprise, because the critical nature of his sickness was known, it will cause profound sorrow.The city which he conspicuously served for a period of 34 years will mourn him, and thousands of citizens, who learned to admire his sterling qualities as a man and as an official, will shed a tear of sympathy over his departure."

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Joe Kelly is the editor and publisher of The Boonville Herald & Adirondack Tourist and THE GRIFF.