b. 03/07/1830 Milton, Pennsylvania. d. 07/05/1900 Joilet, Illinois.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 22/05/1863 Vicksburg, Mississippi.
George T Hyatt MOH
Civil War Medal of Honor Recipient. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he moved to Gardner, Illinois in 1846 with his family. He became a teacher, and resided in Missouri when the Civil War started. He returned to Gardner to enlist in the Union Army, and was mustered in as a Sergeant in Company D, 127th Illinois Volunteer Infantry on September 5, 1862. Promoted to 1st Sergeant on March 10, 1863, he participated in the Spring-Summer 1863 Vicksburg Campaign, where he was awarded the CMOH for his bravery in combat on May 22, 1863. His citation simply reads “Gallantry in the charge of the “volunteer storming party.”
On the day in question 150 men were called to volunteer to make a “forlorn hope” diversionary charge on the Confederate position near Vicksburg, Mississippi known as the Stockade Redan – a charge that was intended to draw fire away from the real planned attack, and a charge no one was expected to return from (to this end, only unmarried men were accepted as volunteers). After charging an open plain in full view of the Confederates, the withering fire was such that most of the volunteers were cut down, and those that made it through the fire sought shelter in a ravine under the Redan. There they stayed and fought until nightfall, when the survivors made their way back to the Union lines, 1st Sergeant Hyatt being one of them. 85 percent of the men who made the charge did not make it back. He would go on fight in the 1864 campaign to capture Atlanta, Georgia, and was shot in the left foot on August 3, 1864, which was permanently crippled. After a long convalescence he was honorably discharged due to disability on March 10, 1865.
After the war he returned to Illinois, where he entered the Baptist ministry, and spent time as a missionary in Texas and in the Indian Territory. He was awarded the Medal on July 9, 1894, thirty one years after his brave act. Originally interred in Lockport Cemetery, Lockport, Illinois when he died in Joliet, Illinois in 1900, his remains were removed to the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois when it was opened in 1999.
MOH CITATION:
Gallantry in the charge of the “volunteer storming party.”
BURIAL LOCATION: ABRAHAM LINCOLN NATIONAL CEMETERY, ELWOOD, ILLINOIS.
SECTION 1, SITE 1613.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: BELIEVED TO BE FAMILY.
