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Sommers volunteered for service in the U.S. Navy and was assigned to the Union sloop-of-war USS Ticonderoga (1862). His enlistment is credited to the state of New York.
On January 15, 1865, the North Carolina Confederate stronghold of Fort Fisher was taken by a combined Union storming party of sailors, marines, and soldiers under the command of Admiral David Dixon Porter and General Alfred Terry.
Medal of Honor Citation:
For The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Chief Quartermaster Robert Sommers, United States Navy-
"for extraordinary heroism in action while serving on board the U.S.S. TICONDEROGA in the attacks on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, 13 to 15 January 1865. The ship took position in the line of battle and maintained a well-directed fire upon the batteries to the left of the palisades during the initial phase of the engagement. Although several of the enemy's shots fell over and around the vessel, the TICONDEROGA fought her guns gallantly throughout three consecutive days of battle until the flag was planted on one of the strongest fortifications possessed by the rebels."
General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 59 (June 22, 1865)
Action Date: January 15, 1865
Service: Navy
Rank: Chief Quartermaster
Division: U.S.S. Ticonderoga
Other Comments:
I HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT THERE MAY BE FAMILY TIES INVOLVED AS MY FAMILY ON MY FATHERS SIDE IS FROM THE OLD COUNTRY AND IS SPREAD THROUGH OUT WALES, IRELAND (COUNTY CORK) AND GERMANY. I HAVE FOUND NOTHING THAT WOULD MAKE THIS FACTUAL. WHATEVER THE CASE HE SERVED THE UNITED STATES NAVY, GRANDLY AND WITH HONOR. WE ARE PROUD THAT HE CARRIED THE NAME SUMMERS. OUR FAMILY HAS SEEN SERVICE IN ALL WARS TO DATE.
- Stanley K. Summers
Civil War
From Month/Year
April / 1861
To Month/Year
April / 1865
Description The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America. The Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U.S. history.
Among the 34 U.S. states in February 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the U.S. to form the Confederate States of America. War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U.S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to include eleven states; it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona and New Mexico (called Confederate Arizona). The Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North. The war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865.
The war had its origin in the factious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. Four years of intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers dead, a higher number than the number of American military deaths in World War I and World War II combined, and much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed (most of them by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation). The Reconstruction Era (1863–1877) overlapped and followed the war, with the process of restoring national unity, strengthening the national government, and granting civil rights to freed slaves throughout the country.