{"id":65571,"date":"2016-05-03T12:15:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T16:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=65571"},"modified":"2016-05-03T20:19:33","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T00:19:33","slug":"belated-honors-for-a-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=65571","title":{"rendered":"Belated Honors for a Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not all who served in the Union forces during the Civil War were US citizens. It\u2019s estimated that roughly 1\/3 of those who fought in the Union Army were immigrants<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s also estimated that close to 10% of Union soldiers were Black<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Joseph Benjamin Noil was both an immigrant and Black.<\/p>\n

Noil was an immigrant from Canada \u2013 though precisely when he immigrated is unclear.\u00a0 He enlisted in the US Navy in New York; he served during the Civil War (roughly 19,000 Blacks served in the US Navy during the Civil War).<\/p>\n

He remained in the US \u2013 and in the Navy \u2013 after the war.\u00a0 But things didn\u2019t end well for Noil.\u00a0 On 25 March 1882, he died at what was then the Government Hospital for the Insane. \u00a0(Today the facility is named St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC.)\u00a0 Noil had been diagnosed with \u201cparalysis\u201d prior to being hospitalized there.<\/p>\n

He was buried in the hospital\u2019s cemetery.\u00a0 Due to an error on his death certificate his last name was misspelled \u201cNoel\u201d on his tombstone.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the way things would have likely ended \u2013 except recent research uncovered some information apparently unknown or ignored at the time of Noil\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

It turns out that Noil had received a postwar decoration for heroism.\u00a0 In on 26 December 1872, Noil voluntarily and at the risk of his own life saved another sailor from drowning in the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia.\u00a0 For this act, Noil had been awarded a personal decoration for valor<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Army and Navy had precisely one type of decoration for valor at the time:\u00a0 the Medal of Honor.\u00a0 Noil was a recipient of the Medal of Honor for noncombat heroism (allowable at the time).<\/p>\n

Fast forward nearly 130 years.\u00a0 In 2011, the Medal of Honor Society was conducting research concerning gravesites of Medal of Honor recipients.\u00a0 During the course of this research, they determined that the \u201cJoseph B. Noel\u201d buried at St. Elizabeths Cemetery was in fact actually \u201cJoseph Benjamin Noil\u201d, US Navy \u2013 and a recipient of the Medal of Honor.<\/p>\n

Noil\u2019s original gravestone did not reflect this. \u00a0Last month that error was corrected<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 His original gravestone was replaced, and was unveiled recently in a ceremony attended by both the US Chief of Naval Reserve (VADM Robin Braun) and the Canadian Defense Attache to the US (RADM William Truelove)<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Noil\u2019s gravestone \u2013 with his name correctly spelled \u2013 now properly reflects his receipt of the Medal of Honor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center>Yes, this error never should have happened.\u00a0 But it\u2019s corrected now.<\/p>\n

Rest in peace, elder brother-in-arms.\u00a0 And Kudos to the Medal of Honor Society and all others who helped belatedly honor the man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not all who served in the Union forces during the Civil War were US citizens. It\u2019s … Belated Honors for a Hero<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blue-skies","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}