b. 20/11/1838 Fayette County, Pennsylvania. d. 07/04/1910 Logan Township, Kansas.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 22/05/1863 Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Joseph Wortick MOH
Born on November 20, 1837, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania to Simon Wartick and Margaret Ann Chron Wartick. The family moved to Adams County, Illinois in 1854. Married Nancy Elizabeth Odell in 1866. They had two sons, John Alvin and William Sherman. John Alvin died in 1869. In 1896 they moved to Kansas where he lived until his death on Thursday, April 7, 1910, at his home near Hickory creek.
On 5 March 1862, at Hannibal, Missouri, he volunteered in Company A, 6th Regiment, Missouri Infantry, Army of the Tennessee, U.S. (Union) Army. He was wounded in the charge at Vicksburg, Mississippi (the Vicksburg campaign). Private Wartick was the first man in his regiment to step to the front when his Colonel (William T. Sherman) asked for 200 men to storm a redoubt at Vicksburg. Thirty of those men carried heavy planks to bridge a ditch outside of the earth works. The group of men were mowed down like grass. Some were able to reach the ditch and many were killed by grenades thrown over the breast works by the Confederates. Wartick and a First Lieutenant were the only ones to cross the ditch (22 May 1863), but they couldn’t stay. Nearly all the storming party was killed or wounded, not a dozen escaped. Later Mr. Wartick was asked if he wasn’t afraid to join the forlorn hope. He said, “I don’t know; I heard what my Colonel said, believed it should be done and wanted to help do it. It was pretty bad business. I don’t know how I escaped death.” His heroism there and his surviving comrades earned them a Legion of Honor Medal, voted by Congress in recognition of patriotism and valor. He was hit seven times and still carried lead in his body. He participated in the Battle of Champion Hill (16 May 1863). After recovering from his wounds, he “Marched to the Sea” with Major General Sherman in the Savannah Campaign (15 Nov-21 Dec 1864), took part in the Grand Review of the Armies in Washington D.C. (23-24 May 1865) and, finally, was Honorably Discharged on May 27, 1865.
He received his Medal on July 14, 1894.
MOH CITATION:
Gallantry in the charge of the “volunteer storming party.”
BURIAL LOCATION: LEON CEMETERY, LEON, KANSAS.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
