The first action that wins the Congressional Medal of Honor takes place in Arizona
Between February 13 and 14, 1861, Bernard Irwin, a medical assistant surgeon, took command of his detachment of United States Cavalry and defeated a group of Chiricahua Apache near Apache Pass, Arizona. This was a full year before the Congressional Medal of Honor was authorized but the award was made decades later, in January 1894, to then Colonel Irwin for this action. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Joseph Nathan Kane, ed., Famous First Facts (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1981), 370.