Despite being placed under arrest for insubordination that very morning, Colonel Luigi di Cesnola, a Piedmontese immigrant nobleman and head of the 4th New York Infantry, led three charges against entrenched Confederate positions, reportedly without his sidearms, during the Battle of Aldie in Virginia. He was wounded and captured in a final charge and spent nine months in captivity in Richmond. He was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and became the first professional director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Walter Frederick Beyer, Oscar Frederick Keydel, Deeds of Valor: from records in the archives of the United States government; how American heroes won the Medal of Honor ... (Detroit, MI: Perrien-Keydel Co., 1901), I: 211-212.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Battles/Soldiers