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Medal of Honor Recipient

Charles A Read

U.S. Navy · U.S. Civil War

MOH-RC-002617Source-based record

The award

Representative medal image: early Navy star design and striped ribbon. Not a portrait or a photograph of this recipient’s own medal.
Navy Medal of HonorAction-era reference: 1864

Portrait not yet available. Representative medal shown.

About this image

Presentation date is not usable for design selection. This is an action-era reference; a later presentation or replacement medal may differ.

Medal imagery and historical designs →

Medal of Honor

June 19, 1864

off Cherbourg, France

Rank at action
Coxswain
Service
U.S. Navy
Conflict
U.S. Civil War
Unit or command
U.S.S. Kearsarge

The Citation

Sources ↓
Served as coxswain on board the U.S.S. Kearsarge when she destroyed the Alabama off Cherbourg, France, 19 June 1864. Acting as the first sponger of the pivot gun during this bitter engagement, Read exhibited marked coolness and good conduct and was highly recommended for his gallantry under fire by his divisional officer.

Sources & record notes

General Order comparison: pending. Current-profile review does not mean that the underlying original order has been examined.

  1. Charles A Read — current Society profile ↗Congressional Medal of Honor Society · Checked 2026-08-31

    current identity, service, action metadata, and citation comparison

Transcription, metadata & provenance notes
Award ID
MOH-AW-002629
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-31
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
45
Accredited to
Ohio
Archive transcription SHA-256
0e4f02b676a741230c17067051f5a03dfc3c3528672deaf398ff9c0eb7f49a84

Legacy transcription retained without substantive editing; rendered current reference profile variants documented in the Phase 10 evidence snapshot.

Current reference profile confirms identity, USS Kearsarge, and the June 19, 1864 action off Cherbourg. Recovery provenance: the prior live-verification result is reconstructed because the described P10-C060–P10-C062 restart files were not physically available; the verified P10-C059 authority, retained web-reference metadata, legacy record, and prior session evidence are all preserved.

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