JUNE 9, 2025 – During the Civil War, Navy Acting Master’s Mate Thomas Harding did his best to save one of his superiors on a sinking vessel. His brave actions earned him the Medal of Honor.
Navy records show Harding was likely born in 1837 in Middletown, Connecticut. No details of his early life have been published, but Department of Veterans Affairs records show he enlisted in the Navy in 1859 and served as a seaman on the USS Dolphin. Similar records show he was discharged in 1861 but reenlisted again soon after the Civil War began.
Harding was discharged for a second time in January 1862, National Archives records show, but about a month later, he enlisted a third time.
His heroic actions came toward the end of the war when he held the rank of captain of the forecastle on the USS Dacotah, which was used as a gunboat during the Union blockage of the South.
On June 9, 1864, the Dacotah was off the coast of Beaufort, North Carolina, when a nearby ship’s boiler exploded. Harding and some of his crewmates were tasked with rowing a small boat out to the damaged ship to try and rescue some of the sailors and collect its cargo. On the way, however, the boat started taking on water, and its acting master’s mate, Jarvis Farrar, couldn’t swim.
According to Harding’s Medal of Honor citation, he refused to let Farrar drown as the boat sank. The 5-foot-6-inch Harding reportedly said, “If we are swamped, sir, I shall carry you to the beach or I will never go there myself.”
Harding tried his best to save Farrar, but he didn’t succeed. Harding was the only man in the boat who tried to save the officer — actions his superiors thought were admirable and worthy of appreciation.
About three weeks after the incident, Harding was appointed as the Dacotah’s new acting master’s mate. He was then transferred to the USS Massasoit in August 1864 before being dismissed from service about four months later.
On Dec. 21, 1864, six months after Harding’s heroic actions, it was announced that he would receive the newly minted Medal of Honor — the nation’s highest medal for valor, which had been approved for sailors through legislation signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.
It’s likely Harding never received the honor. Information from an 1866 issue of the United States Army and Navy Journal showed that his medal went unclaimed. According to a 1989 Hartford Courant newspaper article, he was never presented with the medal.
After leaving service, Harding lived for many years, moving to Cheyenne, Wyoming, around 1890 to work as a lamplighter for the Union Pacific Railroad, according to the Laramie Republican, a newspaper published in Wyoming.
Harding died Dec. 15, 1911, in Cheyenne. He is buried in Greenhill Cemetery in Laramie.
In July 2017, Harding was honored by veterans who commissioned and placed a new Medal of Honor grave marker where his previous marker stood.
Harding’s Medal of Honor is stored at the Naval History and Heritage Command at the Washington Navy Yard. It is part of a large collection of Medals of Honor given to the command in 1957 due to a variety of factors, including recipients who were unable to be located or who were deceased, and the Navy couldn’t find their next of kin.
By Katie Lange, DOD News