Soldier Parrott

Book excerpt: Soldier Parrot brings a new level of research and personal grit to Civil War history with this riveting account of how Jacob Parrott, an 18-year-old, illiterate orphan from Ohio became the first soldier to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Parrott, a private in the Union Army, volunteered in 1862 for a secret mission behind Confederate lines to steal a train, tear up railroad tracks, burn bridges, and cut telegraph lines. The mission failed. Parrott and his companions were captured. Several were hung as spies and Parrott spent nearly two years in a Confederate prison. Parrott was only eighteen-years old when he volunteered for the secret mission. He had never been farther than ten miles from his home in Fairfield County. Soldier Parrott is literally the stuff of history--a fast-paced, extremely well-told tale of espionage, capture, trial, and escape. Half the team was executed; the half that escaped received the newly established Medal of Honor.