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Medal of Honor Recipient

William Nichols

U.S. Navy · U.S. Civil War

MOH-RC-002566Source-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
Quartermaster
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, Nichols fought his gun with skill and courage 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. William Nichols — 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-002578
Transcription status
Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check
2026-08-31
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original)
45
Accredited to
New York
Archive transcription SHA-256
d7ab91720aa0a8e238887bfc28f3e08f30cf7d0362199fba0479d9b1da1f4d92

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

Current reference profile confirms William Nichols, alias Nichols, Barzilla, USS Brooklyn, and the August 5, 1864 Mobile Bay 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.

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