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Medal of Honor Recipient

Samuel W. Davis

U.S. Navy · U.S. Civil War

MOH-RC-002279Source-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.

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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. Brooklyn

The Citation

Sources ↓
On board the U.S.S. Brooklyn during successful attacks against Fort Morgan, rebel gunboats and the ram Tennessee in Mobile Bay, on 5 August 1864. Despite severe damage to his ship and the loss of several men on board as enemy fire raked her decks from stem to stern, Davis exercised extreme courage and vigilance while acting as a look-out for torpedoes and other obstructions throughout the furious battle which resulted in the surrender of the prize rebel ram Tennessee and in the damaging and destruction of batteries at Fort Morgan.

Sources & record notes

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

  1. Samuel W. Davis — 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-002290
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-30
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
45
Accredited to
Maine
Archive transcription SHA-256
f6d50b3b7097604db7a81a3ce07645de05506b5f177f348fe7e246baff083529

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

The inherited rank-1 Society candidate was confirmed by substantive comparison of identity, service, rank, unit or command, action context, and citation; candidate rank or successful rendering alone was not treated as verification. The exact current profile heading is Samuel W Davis; the controlled display name is Samuel W. Davis, and both forms remain preserved. The controlled canonical unit or command is U.S.S. Brooklyn; the current structured profile renders U.S.S. Brooklyn, 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 Fort Morgan, 51 Alabama 180, Gulf Shores, AL 36542, 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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