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Medal of Honor Recipient

John C. Donnelly

U.S. Navy · U.S. Civil War

MOH-RC-002291Source-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

August 5, 1864

Mobile Bay, Alabama, USA

Rank at action
Ordinary Seaman
Service
U.S. Navy
Conflict
U.S. Civil War
Unit or command
U.S.S. Metacomet

The Citation

Sources ↓
Served on board the U.S.S. Metacomet. As a member of the boat's crew which went to the rescue of the U.S. Monitor Tecumseh when that vessel was struck by a torpedo in passing the enemy forts in Mobile Bay, 5 August 1864, Donnelly braved the enemy fire which was said by the admiral to be "one of the most galling" he had ever seen and aided in rescuing from death 10 of the crew of the Tecumseh, eliciting the admiration of both friend and foe.

Sources & record notes

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

  1. John C. Donnelly — 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-002302
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-30
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
71
Accredited to
New York
Archive transcription SHA-256
7b91901c4c0146be0ecaa1f531847ab9ae51f2d9e5df835181656f92c92ec74c

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 current authoritative source expands or normalizes the inherited name from John Donnelly to John C. Donnelly; both renderings remain preserved. The exact current profile heading is John C Donnelly; the controlled display name is John C. Donnelly, and both forms remain preserved. The controlled canonical unit or command is U.S.S. Metacomet; the current structured profile renders U.S.S. Metacomet, and the inherited wording Not documented remains preserved as a separately attributed variant. The current authoritative evidence controls the action date as 1864-08-05 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 Mobile Bay, Alabama, USA; the current structured place Mobile Bay, Alabama, USA and the complete inherited geocoder value Mobile Bay, Alabama, USA remain preserved in the audit evidence. 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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