b. 1835 Jackson, Michigan. d. 05/06/1865 Washington DC.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 06/04/1865 Deatonsville (Sailors Creek), Virginia.
Savacool was born in Jackson, Michigan, to Morrilla Savacool in 1835. His home of record was Marshall.
Savacool enlisted in the Army as a private on August 29, 1861, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Service records list his age as 21 at enlistment – however, he was later shown to be several years older. He was mustered into Company K of the 1st New York Cavalry, a regiment containing 10 New York companies, 1 Pennsylvania company, and 1 Michigan company. He was promoted to sergeant on January 1, 1864, after reenlisting in the Army, second lieutenant on March 19, 1864, and captain on February 1, 1865, and was appointed commander of K Company. He was posthumously brevetted major.
1st New York spent the first years of the war protecting the B&O Railroad near the Potomac River. Savacool acted as a scout, frequently disguising himself as a Confederate regular or mailman to infiltrate enemy lines. On one occasion, he was able to fool the commander of a Confederate raiding party, major Harry Gilmor, into divulging the date and location of his next raid by riding disguised into Gilmor’s camp and handing Gilmor a letter from Gilmor’s lover; after drinking brandy in celebration, Gilmor informed Savacool of the planned attack on a bridge in Back Creek. This information led to the capture of 36 Confederate raiders the next day.
Savacool eventually took 72 Confederates prisoner, including future Senator Harrison H. Riddleberger and William L. Wilson, who would become a congressional Representative for West Virginia and eventually Postmaster General under the Grover Cleveland presidency. He killed one Confederate, captain John C. Blackford, and had five horses shot from under him, 3 while acting as a courier during the Second Battle of Kernstown in Virginia. He was captured twice in skirmishes but both times was promptly rescued by Union forces.
On April 6, 1865, at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek, Savacool’s K Company charged a line of Confederates. As Savacool captured a regimental flag from a color bearer, he was shot by a Confederate soldier. He was extracted to a hospital at City Point, Virginia, and eventually to Washington, D.C., where he died before dawn on June 3, 1865.
MOH CITATION:
Capture of flag, during which he was wounded and died several days later in Washington, D.C.
BURIAL LOCATION: ELMWOOD CEMETERY, DETROIT, MICHIGAN.
SECTION A2, LOT 10.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
