PROFILE of
HOWELL G. TROGDEN
Naval Battle at Vicksburg
8th MO Infantry (US)
Company B
 
Naval battle at Vicksburg

On April 4, 1862, Howell Trogden was captured by Confederates near Ripley, Mississippi, while carrying a dispatch for General W.T. Sherman.   He was released and fought at Vicksburg the next year.   Trogden was the first North Carolinian to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Corporal Robert Cox of the 55th Illinois Infantry relates this story of Trogden's reckless indifference to death and danger:   "After Trogden had planted his flag on the parapet, the Confederates tried to capture it by hooking it with the shanks of their bayonets, but failed, due to the hot fire kept up by the sharpshooters.
 
Thereupon, Trogden asked me for my gun to give the enemy a thrust.   This was a foolish request, for no soldier ever gives up his gun, but I concluded to try it myself.   I raised my head again about as high as the safety of the case would permit, and pushed my gun across the intervening space between us and the enemy, gave their bayonets a swipe with mine, and dodged just in time to escape being riddled.   I did not want any more of that kind of amusement; so, did not undertake to force the acquaintance any further.
 
After we had been in this predicament about 2 hours, the Confederates sent over a very pressing invitation to 'Come in, you Yanks, come in and take dinner with us'.   We positively declined; however, unless they would come out and give us a chance to see if the invitation was genuine.   This they refused to do, but agreed to send a messenger.   By and by, the messenger arrived in the shape of a shell, which went flying down the hill without doing us any damage."

Medal of Honor
WAR DEPARTMENT INFORMATION
BIRTH 1840 at Cedar Falls, North Carolina
ENTERED SERVICE AT St. Louis, Missouri
RANK/ORGANIZATION Private, Company B, 8th Missouri Infantry
MOH CITATION Gallantry in the charge of the "volunteer storming party."   He carried his regiment's flag and tried to borrow a gun to defend it.
PLACE/DATE At Vicksburg, Mississippi; 22 May 1863
DATE OF ISSUE 03 August 1894
extracted from www.army.mil

Howell Trogden is mentioned in Chapter 36 of "Anarchy and Anarchist: A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe" by Michael Schaak.   The book was published in 1889.