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Medal of Honor Recipient

Thomas Irving

U.S. Navy · U.S. Civil War

MOH-RC-002425Source-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: 1863

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

November 16, 1863

Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, USA

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

The Citation

Sources ↓
Served on board the U.S.S. Lehigh, Charleston Harbor, 16 November 1863, during the hazardous task of freeing the Lehigh, which had grounded, and was under heavy enemy fire from Fort Moultrie. Rowing the small boat which was used in the hazardous task of transferring hawsers from the Lehigh to the Nahant. Irving twice succeeded in making the trip, while under severe fire from the enemy, only to find that each had been in vain when the hawsers were cut by hostile fire and chaffing.

Sources & record notes

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

  1. Thomas Irving — 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-002436
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-30
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
32
Later or highest recorded rank
Acting Master's Mate
Entered service at
New York
Archive transcription SHA-256
95cf222100714a98a7ce98a9170f68ebdb9249140ca46c7882650a16bc3c3333

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 current profile also supplies the separately retained rank rendering Coxswain (Highest Rank: Acting Master's Mate); action and later or highest ranks remain separately attributed. The controlled canonical unit or command is U.S.S. Lehigh; the current structured profile renders U.S.S. Lehigh, and the inherited wording Not documented remains preserved as a separately attributed variant. The current authoritative evidence controls the action date as 1863-11-16 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 Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, USA; the current structured place Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, USA and the complete inherited geocoder value Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, 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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