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Medal of Honor Recipient

William Doolen

U.S. Navy · U.S. Civil War

MOH-RC-002293Source-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
Coal Heaver
Service
U.S. Navy
Conflict
U.S. Civil War
Unit or command
U.S.S. Richmond

The Citation

Sources ↓
On board the U.S.S. Richmond during action against rebel forts and gunboats and with the ram Tennessee in Mobile Bay, 5 August 1864. Although knocked down and seriously wounded in the head, Doolen refused to leave his station as shot and shell passed. Calm and courageous, he rendered gallant service throughout the prolonged battle which resulted in the surrender of the rebel ram Tennessee and in the successful attacks carried out on Fort Morgan despite the enemy's heavy return fire.

Sources & record notes

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

  1. William Doolen — 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-002304
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
Pennsylvania
Archive transcription SHA-256
ff2aa2c681a4ae00a7d6ef111d88df001d9cd2a2af962cd1ae21113392f076fc

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. Documented aliases remain attached to this stable recipient identity: Dolan, William. No identity merge or split was performed. The controlled canonical unit or command is U.S.S. Richmond; the current structured profile renders U.S.S. Richmond, 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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