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Medal of Honor Recipient

Charles W. Kenyon

U.S. Navy · U.S. Civil War

MOH-RC-002454Source-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: 1862

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.

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Medal of Honor

May 15, 1862

Drewry's Bluff, James River, Virginia, USA

Rank at action
Fireman
Service
U.S. Navy
Conflict
U.S. Civil War
Unit or command
U.S.S. Galena

The Citation

Sources ↓
On board the U.S.S. Calena in the attack upon Drewry's Bluff, 15 May 1862. Severely burned while extricating a priming wire which had become bent and fixed in the bow gun while his ship underwent terrific shelling from the enemy, Kenyon hastily dressed his hands with cotton waste and oil and courageously returned to his gun while enemy sharpshooters in rifle pits along the banks continued to direct their fire at the men at the guns.

Sources & record notes

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

  1. Charles W. Kenyon — current Society profile ↗Congressional Medal of Honor Society · Checked 2026-08-30

    current identity, service, action metadata, and citation comparison

Transcription, metadata & provenance notes
Award ID
MOH-AW-002465
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-30
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
11
Later or highest recorded rank
Acting Third Assistant Engineer
Accredited to
New York
Archive transcription SHA-256
c8896d8038932b898175c0fb732534bb496c39d354a2a7713f14bfa92d3b8160

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

The canonical reference profile was recovered through a controlled archival reference search outside the inherited candidate set and then confirmed by substantive comparison of identity, service, rank, unit or command, action context, and citation; successful rendering alone was not treated as verification. The exact current profile heading is Charles W Kenyon; the controlled display name is Charles W. Kenyon, and both forms remain preserved. The current evidence expands or refines the inherited display name Charles Kenyon to Charles W. Kenyon; the inherited form remains preserved as a separately attributed variant. The current profile also supplies the separately retained rank rendering Fireman (Highest Rank: Acting Third Assistant Engineer); action and later or highest ranks remain separately attributed. The controlled canonical unit or command is U.S.S. Galena; the current structured profile renders U.S.S. Galena, and the inherited wording Not documented remains preserved as a separately attributed variant. The current authoritative evidence controls the action date as 1862-05-15 and classifies the action under U.S. Civil War; the inherited unnormalized date and conflict values remain preserved in the audit record. The controlled historical action place is Drewry's Bluff, James River, Virginia, USA; the current structured place Drewry's Bluff, James River, Virginia, USA and the complete inherited geocoder value Drewrys Bluff, Bradenton, FL 34203, USA remain preserved in the audit evidence. The canonical reference profile was recovered through a controlled archival reference search outside the inherited candidate set. Its structured ship name is U.S.S. Galena; the inherited citation spelling U.S.S. Calena remains checksum-protected as a legacy textual variant and was not silently replaced. The inherited full citation remains canonical and checksum-protected; current rendered wording is preserved separately where transcribed. No underlying General Order was examined, so the exact-order gate remains pending and no General Order verification is claimed.

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