Jordan was born in 1847 in Williamson County, Tennessee, enlisting in the Army six months after President Andrew Johnson signed the 1866 bill allowing African-Americans to serve in the post-Civil War Army. Jordan educated himself, learning how to read and write, and joined K Troop four years later. He remained there throughout his career, proving to be one of the best field commanders in the Army west of the Mississippi. No one buffalo soldier so epitomized their motto of \u201cWe can. We will.\u201d The white officers in charge of the all-black units often trusted Jordan with half of their commands because of knowledge and skill in the field. He served 30 years in the Army and retired.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Jordan was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1890 for his actions as a Sergeant, with Company K, 9th U.S. Cavalry at Fort Tularosa, N. Mex., May 14, 1880 and at Carrizo Canyon, N. Mex., August 12, 1881. His citation says;<\/p>\n
While commanding a detachment of 25 men at Fort Tularosa, N. Mex., repulsed a force of more than 100 Indians. At Carrizo Canyon, N . Mex., while commanding the right of a detachment of 19 men, on 12 August 1881, he stubbornly held his ground in an extremely exposed position and gallantly forced back a much superior number of the enemy, preventing them from surrounding the command.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Hooper’s search leads to the discovery of Jordan’s Medal of Honor, which it turns out, had been used as a decoration on a Christmas tree in Arkansas;<\/p>\n
Jordan\u2019s personal effects were placed in a barrel by his friends after he died and deposited with the Army to hold for his next of kin. None ever showed, and around 1909 a ranch manager\u2019s widow in Nebraska bought the barrel at auction for $1. It was passed to her schoolteacher daughters, who never married and then willed it to their caretaker, Janet Mize, who later moved to Arkansas.<\/p>\n
Mize said during the time the sisters possessed the barrel, most of the old photos of black soldiers, personal items and Jordan\u2019s military accouterments got parceled out. The Medal of Honor itself was saved only by the shining brass that made it a useful Christmas tree decoration in a historic home. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Someone sent us a link to the story that Ed Hooper tells about his search for … Ed Hooper: Iconic Medal of Honor discovered in Arkansas<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71238","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/71239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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