James K. L. Duncan

Monmouth College Student Earns the Nation’s Highest Honor for Valor

Not much is known about Seaman James K. L. Duncan other than the specifics that of the action in which he earned the Medal of Honor.  He was born in Frankfort Mineral Springs in Pennsylvania on the 6^th of July of 1845.  He enrolled in Monmouth College and would have graduated with the Class of 1866 had he stayed in school.  Like so many young men though, he caught up in the patriotic fervor that swept the north, and enlisted in the Union Navy.  Monmouth College sent 232 young men to help put down the Rebellion during the Civil War.  James Duncan was assigned to serve on the USS Fort Hindman, a 286 ton “Tinclad” gunboat that was built in 1862 in Jeffersonville, Indiana, as a civilian steamer.  Purchased by the Navy in 1863, it was first commissioned as the USS James Thompson.  She went through two name changes, becoming next the USS Manitou in June of 1963, and later to the USS Fort Hindman in November of 1863.  In July of 1863, as the Manitou, it participated in an expedition that made its way up the Little Red River expedition and captured the Confederate steamer Louisville.

On the 29^th of February, 1864, a fleet of five gunboats and a monitor- the Osage-began patrols up the Red River, the Black River and the Washita River successively to break up some enemy camps that had formed near Harrisburg, Louisiana.  Arriving at the town of Trinity, at the junction of the Little and the Washita Rivers, a battery of 12-punder guns opened up on them, as well as a band of sharpshooters under the command of the Rebel General Polignac.  Responding with a barrage of fire of their own, the union flotilla drove the enemy from the town.

The following morning the fleet made its way up the Washita.  They proceeded in the following order: The Osage, Fort Hindman, Conestoga, Cricket, Washita and Lexington.  Within about two miles of Harrisburg, General Polignac set up his guns and sharpshooters and launched an attack against the advancing Union fleet, directing the heaviest fire against the Fort Hindman, the flagship of the Union flotilla.  The thin iron plating and the two inch planking that had been added to the steamer to make it battle worthy served as little defense against the Confederate fire.  Twenty-seven 12 pound shells slammed into the Fort Hindman within a half hour, one of them disabling her starboard engine.  With only her port engine left, the steamer was unable to maintain proper steerage, and thus swung back and forth in the current, exposing her to more enemy fire.   Seaman Hugh Malloy would earn a Medal of Honor earlier during this engagement for risking his life during the battle by leaping from the protection of the gunport to retrieve a sponge that had fallen, then cleaning the gun from the outside of the part, the whole time being exposed to a hail of enemy fire.

Next it was Seaman James K. L. Duncan’s turn to seize his opportunity to become a hero.  An enemy shell burst at the muzzle of one of the Hindman’s guns, setting fire to the tarred yarn of a cartridge, which had been put in the mouth of the gun prior to the next step, which would be to ram them home.  Seaman Duncan saw the yarn burning, and before the fire could eat its way through the covering of the cartridge and explode in the gun, Seaman Duncan quickly moved forward and grabbed the blazing cartridge with his bare hand, and wrenched it from the muzzle of the cannon.  Rushing to the port side of the ship with the blazing cartridge still in his hand, he threw it over the side of the vessel.  Barely had it left his hand when it exploded, still in the air. In Deeds of Valor, a two volume account of Medal of Honor heroism that was published in 1907, there is a riveting artist’s rendition of young Duncan being hurled back by the force of the cartridge explosion.  The force of the explosion knocked young Seaman Duncan unconscious and sent him reeling across the deck.  His shipmates caught him and carefully set the stunned sailor down.

 When Duncan came to he described his sensations.  It seemed to him at first as though all sounds of the battle had ceased.  “When I regained consciousness after the explosion of the cartridge I looked about me in surprise, but there were the men rushing about, loading and firing the guns, but all were inaudible to me.  Upon recovering from my amazement I became convinced that I was deaf.  This belief was confirmed by the surgeon, who pronounced the drum of my right ear completely destroyed, and the other temporarily impaired.”

As the action continued, the Hindman continued to be pounded with shot and shell.  The courage of its crew was exemplary though.  Not a man flinched from doing their duty, and yet another earned the Nation’s highest horror for valor.  Despite having his left hand shattered by a shell fragment, Seaman William P. Johnson bound the wound with a strip that he tore from his shirt, and took the place of a fallen comrade at one of the ship’s guns until the engagement was over.

     James K. L. Duncan never returned to Monmouth College to finish his education.  His trail grows dim after the war.  All that I could find for certain about him is that he eventually made his way to Wisconsin after the war, and lived until March 27^th, 1913, almost to the start of another Great War.  The brave Seaman is buried in Milwaukee’s Wood National Cemetery.  His GAR stone has been replaced with a more modern version, one that alludes to him being the recipient of the Medal of Honor.

Bibliography

Deeds of Valor, Volume 2    Perrien-Keydol Company, Detroit. 1907

James K. L. Duncan  Find a Grave Memorial

James K. L. Duncan     Wikipedia entry

USN Ships Fort Hindman    Naval Historical Center Internet Site

Medal of Honor Recipients 1863-1994  Vol. 1   Lang, Collins and White