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Medal of Honor Recipient

John O'Neal

U.S. Navy · Interim 1871 - 1899

MOH-RC-002576Source-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: 1872

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

April 12, 1872

Greytown, Nicaragua

Rank at action
Boatswain's Mate
Service
U.S. Navy
Conflict
Interim 1871 - 1899
Unit or command
U.S.S. Kansas

The Citation

Sources ↓
Serving on board the U.S.S. Kansas, O'Neal displayed great coolness and self-possession at the time Comdr. A. F. Crosman and others were drowned near Greytown, Nicaragua, 12 April 1872, and by personal exertion prevented greater loss of life.

Sources & record notes

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

  1. John O'Neal — 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-002588
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-31
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
176
Accredited to
Pennsylvania
Archive transcription SHA-256
c3e7b76b8ed3265b85f7971add162efd436d4e6d458b5c530b82ba50f4d43486

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

Current reference profile confirms identity, USS Kansas, and the April 12, 1872 Greytown lifesaving action. 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.