David Lewis Gifford (September 18, 1844 – January 13, 1904) was a Union Army soldier in the American Civil War who received the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor.
[1] He was awarded the Medal of Honor, for extraordinary heroism shown on May 24, 1864, while serving as a Private with Company B, 4th Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry, at Ashepoo River, South Carolina.
[2] He received his Medal of Honor following the steamer the USS Boston running aground on an Oyster bed, leaving 400 individuals within range of Confederate artillery.
Gifford and four other men - led by George W. Brush - manned a small boat and ferried stranded soldiers to a safe area.
Three years after taking out his protection papers, at the age of nineteen, Gifford enlisted with the Four Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry, Company B.
The ship carried 300 men, and 80 horses and was part of a larger plan to cut off Confederate railroads connecting Savannah, Georgia to Charleston, South Carolina.
U.S. Army 1st Lt. George Washington Brush boarded a gunboat with 25 armed men from the 4th Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment to assist the Boston as sharpshooters.
Gifford immediately volunteered, along with his two closest friends in the military, William Downey, and John Duffey, as well as Patrick Scanlan.
After getting all the soldiers safely from the Boston to the south side of the river they set fire and burned the steamer to the ground.
The ship penetrated around 40 miles inland and destroyed salt works, liberated slaves, and burned 1,300 pounds of sea-island cotton.
[12] On July 1, 1875, Gifford was the captain on a whaling ship, the Young Phoenix, that saved the lives of several passengers on the Strathmore, which had run aground near Madagascar on the Crozet Islands in the Indian Ocean.
[23] In 1884, Gifford reenlisted in the navy and participated in the rescue of the Lady Franklin Bay Polar Expedition as an ice master on the HMS Alert.
[24] In his report on the rescue, Rear Admiral Winfield Scott Schley called out Gifford as giving him assistance during the expedition.
[27] The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Private David L. Gifford, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 24 May 1864, while serving with Company B, 4th Massachusetts Cavalry, in action at Ashepoo River, South Carolina.
Private Gifford volunteered as a member of a boat crew which went to the rescue of a large number of Union soldiers on board the stranded steamer Boston and with great gallantry assisted in conveying them to shore, being exposed during the entire time to a heavy fire from a Confederate battery.