Thomas Irving (born 1842, date of death unknown) was a Union Navy sailor in the American Civil War and a recipient of the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for helping to free his grounded ship.
Born in 1842 in England, Irving immigrated to the United States and was living in New York when he joined the U.S. Navy.
[1][2] On November 16, 1863, Lehigh was in Charleston Harbor providing support for Union troops on shore when the ship ran aground on a sand bar and came under heavy fire from Fort Moultrie.
Despite intense Confederate artillery fire, Irving and fellow sailor Gunner's Mate George W. Leland rowed a small boat trailing a hawser from Lehigh to another Union ironclad, the USS Nahant.
Rowing the small boat which was used in the hazardous task of transferring hawsers from the Lehigh to the Nahant.