Army Sergeant Richard Enderlin

USCIS Columbus Field Office 

U.S. Army Sergeant Richard Enderlin was born in Eichstetten, Germany on Jan. 11, 1843. He moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, with his parents and siblings on his eleventh birthday.

Sergeant Enderlin enlisted as a musician in Company B, 73rd Ohio Infantry, in 1862, during the American Civil War. The following summer, his unit fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. On the evening of July 2, 1863, a private named George Nixon lay near Confederate lines with a severe injury to his right hip and side. Hearing his cries, Sergeant Enderlin came to his rescue, reportedly dragging Private Nixon most of the way and carrying him in a final dash to safety. Although Nixon was rushed to the XI Corps Hospital, he died seven days later. His great-grandson, Richard Millhouse Nixon, would become the 37th president of the United States.

Sergeant Enderlin received the Medal of Honor on Sept. 11, 1897. His citation reads:

“[He] voluntarily took a rifle and served as a soldier in the ranks during the first and second days of the battle. Voluntarily and at his own imminent peril went into the enemy’s lines at night and, under a sharp fire, rescued a wounded comrade.”

Sergeant Enderlin continued to serve in the Army, and was later wounded in his right foot during the Battle of Dallas in Georgia in 1864. He recovered and served the remainder of his career with the Veteran Reserve Corps, a reserve organization created during the Civil War to encourage wounded and disabled soldiers to continue military service. Sergeant Enderlin completed his military career in 1865 after five years of honorable service.

Following his Army days, Sergeant Enderlin became an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union Army veterans, where he held the rank of a colonel, and was involved in extensive philanthropic organizations around his community. Upon returning home from war to his home in Ohio, Sergeant Enderlin became the president of the Union Shoe Manufacturing Company and the Carbondale Coal Company of Athens County.

He and his wife, Mary, had seven children before his death on Feb. 11, 1930, at the age of 87. He is buried at Grandview Cemetery in Chillicothe.