Valor in Gray: The Recipients of the Confederate Medal of Honor

This book documents over 50 heroic stories of bravery, courage, and fortitude. Although no real medals were given out by the Confederacy, years later, Confederate organizations and historical organizations posthumously gave out citations for the bravery and heroism. This book documents those who’ve received these awards.

On a memorable …

This book documents over 50 heroic stories of bravery, courage, and fortitude. Although no real medals were given out by the Confederacy, years later, Confederate organizations and historical organizations posthumously gave out citations for the bravery and heroism. This book documents those who’ve received these awards.

On a memorable day in 1977, residents of Smyrna, Tennessee, played host to an important historic commemoration as visitors and dignitaries from across the country gathered to honor a native son, Pvt. Sam Davis of the Confederate Army. It was a day filled with inspiring words, presentation wreaths, and solemn salutes. Authentically uniformed re-enactors recalled the colorful scenes of another era. And everyone, including the Governor of Tennessee, heard once again the incredible story of the undaunted courage of the “Boy Hero of the Confederacy.” Unlike the thousands of other Confederate commemoration that had been held in the century after Appomattox, the event at Smyrna on this day were unique: Sam Davis was to be posthumously awarded the Confederate medal of Honor for intrepid courage in the face of the enemy, bravery that cost him his life.

Why resurrect a never-presented decoration of valor from the buried memories of a long-dead government? The answer is as simple as it is enduring, and surprisingly it has nothing to do with medals and ribbons.

The soldiers of that time were fighting for America. Their sacrifices, their forfeitures of hearth and home, family and future and life itself–regardless of geography–must never be forgotten. They are of us. Their hopes and dreams are still our hopes and dreams. and on a hundred fields in a dozens states, they are with us still, and they must be remembered!