b. 1841 Greene County, Pennsylvania. d. 10/05/1915 Washington DC.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 02/07/1863 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
James J Purman MOH
Purman was born in 1841 near Waynesburg, Pennsylvania to a farming family. He began a job typesetting at the local newspaper and attended Waynesburg College while simultaneously teaching at a local school.
Due to a series of Union defeats in 1862, Purman decided to drop out of school to organize a volunteer Army unit. Purman, along with four other men, started a volunteer cavalry corps out of Greene County, Pennsylvania. The first volunteer to enlist was James Pipes, who would go on to serve with Purman and later earn the Medal of Honor himself for their shared actions.
When the Union Army stopped accepting volunteer cavalry units, Purman’s company changed their name to the Greene County Rifles. They were mustered into the army under the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry, and soon thereafter were drawn into the action at the Battle of Gettysburg. On the first day of battle, July 1, Purman and Pipes were retreating under fire when they heard a fallen soldier calling for help and circled back to retrieve him. As they deposited the soldier on safe ground, both Purman and Pipes were shot. Purman was hit in the lower leg and spent the night wounded in the field. When the fighting resumed the next morning, Purman was shot in the other leg. He crawled to a nearby copse of trees where he begged a Confederate soldier for water. The enemy soldier helped Purman to a nearby tree and left him food and water. Purman was soon rescued by stretcher-bearers and brought to a field hospital where his left leg was amputated.
Purman was discharged from the Army in May 1864 due to disability. Following the war, Purman finished his degree at Waynesburg College and went on to marry Mary Witherow, one of the daughters of the family he lived with during his recuperation. Together they had two children. He became a principal of a Baptist school and later opened a law practice in Greene County.
Purman moved to Washington, D.C., to pursue medicine, and in 1881 took yet another job at the U.S. Patent Office. In 1907, Purman invited the Confederate soldier who saved him during the Battle of Gettysburg, Thomas Oliver, to Washington to meet President Theodore Roosevelt.
MOH CITATION:
Voluntarily assisted a wounded comrade to a place of apparent safety while the enemy were in close proximity; he received the fire of the enemy and a wound which resulted in the amputation of his left leg.
BURIAL LOCATION: ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA.
SECTION 1, GRAVE 615.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: GETTYSBURG MUSEUM AND VISITOR CENTER, NATIONAL CEMETERY, GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.
