Ephraim Ellsworth

            When Alexandria, Virginia, was taken by Union forces shortly after the war broke out tension was high. Lincoln looked out his window on the 24th of May 1861 and saw a large Confederate flag being flown from across the Potomac. Colonel Ephraim Ellsworth promptly offered to take down the flag for the president. 

            Ephraim and a company of men found the flag flying high over the Marshall House, an inn owned by James Jackson. The young colonel ascended the stairs to cut down the flag. Jackson did not take so kindly to the intrusion of his inn or the removal of his flag. As Ellsworth descended the stairs, flag in hand, Jackson blew him away with a double barreled shotgun. Not a moment later Jackson met the same gruesome fate when soldier Francis Brownell put a bullet through his head and then stabbed him six times with his bayonet.

            Ellsworth's body was buried on the banks of the upper Hudson with honors. Lincoln himself attended as chief mourner. The Colonel's name became a rallying cry in the North, hailed as a true patriot, and Brownell was the first person awarded the medal of honor during the Civil War for his actions. Jackson became a hero in his own right, the martyr who died defending the flag. The tensions of war continued to rise across America.

Article: A. Siepel