b. 17/07/1843 Fairfield County, Ohio. d. 22/12/1908 Kenton, Ohio.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 05/04/1862 Georgia.
Jacob W Parrott MOH
Parrott was a native of Fairfield County, Ohio. He joined the United States Army in 1861 as a private in Company K, 33rd Ohio Infantry and first saw combat in the Battle of Ivy Mountain. In April 1862, he volunteered to take part in a daring raid with 21 others (later known as “Andrews’ Raiders” because they operated under the command of James J. Andrews). After infiltrating Confederate lines and hijacking the locomotive “General,” they were captured and imprisoned. Parrott was severely beaten 110 times in an attempt to make him talk. Parrott and 14 others managed to escape, but only six of them reached friendly lines. He was later exchanged and taken to Washington, D.C. meeting President Abraham Lincoln and was presented with the Medal of Honor by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. He served with the Union Army for the remainder of the war. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1863 after the Battle of Stones River and as a first lieutenant in 1864.
He returned to Kenton, Ohio after the war and remained a cabinet maker and operated a stone quarry south of Kenton, Ohio. Parrott suffered a heart attack and died on December 22, 1908, while walking home from the county courthouse in Kenton, Ohio. He is buried in Grove Cemetery, which is located on the eastern edge of Kenton on the corner of Ohio State Route 309 and the road that now bears his name: Jacob Parrott Boulevard.
MOH CITATION:
One of 19 of 24 men (including two civilians) who, by direction of Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchell, penetrated nearly 200 miles south into enemy territory and captured a railroad train at Big Shanty, Ga., in an attempt to destroy the bridges and track between Chattanooga and Atlanta.
BURIAL LOCATION: GROVE CEMETERY, KENTON, OHIO.
LOT 338, SECTION 1W, GRAVE 16.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: WEST POINT MUSEUM, WEST POINT, NEW YORK (1863 DESIGN); HARDIN COUNTY MUSEUMS, KENTON, OHIO (1904 DESIGN).
