Beautiful Medal of Honor awarded to 2nd Lt. John Hall, Company E 27th Main Volunteers.

On the request of President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sent letters on June 28, 1863, to the commanding officers of the 25th Maine and 27th Maine regiments, asking for them to remain beyond their contracted service due to the invasion of Pennsylvania by Robert E. Lee and his army. Declined first by the 25th Maine, the 27th was then asked, and over 300 men volunteered to remain beyond their service time in the defenses of Washington during what became the Gettysburg Campaign. When Colonel Wentworth delivered the message to Secretary Stanton, he was informed that "Medals of Honor would be given to that portion of the regiment that volunteered to remain". With the battle soon over, they left Washington for home on July 4, reuniting with the rest of the regiment in Portland for their mustering out on July 17, 1863. Following the end of the war, when the promise to award medals to the volunteers was fulfilled, there was a lack of an agreeable list of those who stayed behind in Washington. This resulted in some 864 medals being made, and it was left up to Wentworth to distribute them to those members he remembered staying behind with him.

These medals were later purged by Congress in 1917 as the actions of the regiment did not meet the criteria for receiving such a medal.

There were a total of 949 men listed on the muster rolls for the 27th Maine. During their service, the regiment lost nineteen men by disease and one was killed by the accidental discharge of his musket.

(From: Wikipedia)