We Once Had an Official “Red Badge of Courage”
I’d guess many if not most TAH readers have read Steven Crane’s Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage. And I’d also guess that virtually all TAH readers know a bit about the Purple Heart and its history.
But like the main character in Crane’s novel, with one minor change in history we easily could have ended up with a literal “red badge of courage” for wounded soldiers vice today’s Purple Heart. In fact, the Army actually did have and award such a thing – for a period of roughly three months.
Many TAH readers know that the Purple Heart was not the first decoration used by the Army to recognize combat wounds. The World War I Wound Chevron preceded the Purple heart. It was a gold chevron worn on the lower right sleeve of the uniform where today’s Overseas Bars are worn, and was instituted in War Department General Orders 6 of January 12, 1918.
But the Wound Chevron was not the first decoration or badge used to recognize combat wounds.
The Wound Chevron itself was preceded by a different but short-lived means of recognizing combat-wounded soldiers. The Army Wound Ribbon was the original Army recognition for combat wounds.
The Army Wound Ribbon was a ribbon-only award. It was also a very short-lived decoration – it was awarded for a period of roughly three months. It was created by order of the Secretary of War on September 6, 1917 and implemented by the War Department on October 12, 1917. It was formally rescinded on January 12, 1918, with the directive creating the Wound Chevron.
The ribbon was scarlet with a rather wide white center stripe.
Army Wound Ribbon, 1917
I wasn’t kidding with the title above. As you can see, for a short while the US Army really did have a literal “Red Badge of Courage” for combat wounds. And had the Army not taken that little “side trip” down Wound Chevron Way, my guess is that we’d use that same scarlet and white ribbon today – almost certainly with an accompanying medal – instead of the Purple Heart to recognize individuals wounded in combat.
Hat tip to Sparks’ comment here regarding the Red Badge of Courage for prompting the research that led to me finding this little bit of history.
Category: Big Army, Historical
Army Times had a story a couple of years ago about how, when the Purple Heart was first authorized, some Civil War veterans applied for, and were awarded, the medal for wounds suffered during that conflict. There were only two or three who got the medal, but I would hazard a guess that they were technically the first awardees.
This list accounts for 15 Civil War Purple Heart recipients:
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/list-of-veterans-from-civil-war-awarded-purple-heart.82672/
68W58: actually, that would be a negative.
Those were retroactive awards. Their wounds predated the reestablishment of the Purple Heart in 1932, but they received their medal after the first one had been awarded.
The first Purple Heart (the early ones were apparently numbered) was presented to GEN Douglas MacArthur, for wounds he’d received in World War I. That makes him the first recipient of the present-day Purple Heart, even though others’ wounds predate his.
Since MacArthur played a huge role in getting the Purple Heart reestablished, IMO it’s OK that he got the first.
who or,what entity comes up with the design of medals/ribbons and other decorations/awards?
This is cool stuff.
Great post.
Pete the Institute of Heraldry plays at least a part.
Hondo-change it to earliest qualifiers if that helps, I mainly brought it out to add to the historical discussion. MacArthur certainly provided brave service in WWI and deserves recognition for that (I still think his MOH for the Phillipines was nonsense), but I don’t think there is any denying that he was often somewhat self-serving.
Another interesting aspect to this is how different military cultures regard getting wounded. The Germans had a wound badge which came in black for the first wound, silver for the fifth and gold for the tenth. The British have no decoration for getting wounded (though I think they may have had wound chevrons in the past). I have even heard the Purple Heart referred to by Joes as an award for “not being able to duck in time” or “proof that you were smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it and lucky enough to survive” (full disclosure, I do not have one, but my grandfather had one for wounds suffered in Italy in 1944).
FWIW, the “Red Badge of Courage” that Steven Crane referred to was the “Kearney Patch. Gen Phil Kearney instituted a red cloth square for his officers to wear upon their cap, hat or coat breast as a means of recognizing them. This was quickly copied by the men of his division. the story has it that the first patches were made by Kearney having one of his red wool blankets cut up for the purpose.
Within weeks after this started, red enameled badges on silver frames appeared. After his death at Chantilly, the men of his entire division adopted the red square in his honor. Shortly after his death, the Kearney Medal was instituted for bravery. It was for officers within his own division, though, however, a variant known as the Kearney Cross was developed for NCOs and other enlisted men. It was suspended from a red ribbon. Shortly thereafter, it became widespread throughout the AoP.
When Dan Butterfield came up with the designs for Corps badges for the Army of the Potomac, Butterfield kept the red square, simply turning it on end to make it a diamond.
http://bjmi.us/bay/1he/people/birney/kearny-medals.gif
68W58: as a general rule, recognition of combat wounds seems to have begun during World War I. The UK indeed used wound stripes in World Wars I and II, but didn’t reinstate them for the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Soviet Union also used a variant during World War II. The French have used a ribbon-only award for combat wounds since 1916. And, as you observed, the Wehrmacht used a wound badge during World War II.
I too was lucky and managed to avoid any random hasty body piercings under unsanitary field conditions during my military career. One of my uncles and one of my great-uncles weren’t so lucky, though.
I’ve heard the Purple Heart referred to in similar terms as you have. There is some justification to that point of view; getting one is sometimes as much a matter of bad luck and/or “right place/wrong time” as anything else.
Thanks for this. I did not know about these old awards. Can’t wait to see a poser wearing one! Please Lord there’s no way they would do that…is there.
AW1Tim-the corps badges thing is also interesting. My understanding is that each corps had its own symbol (the different suits of cards, half moons, whatever) then each division was a different color, often something like 1st division was white, 2nd red and 3rd blue.
@10 Interesting. Now I will have to do research to get the whole story about these old, interesting awards.
Sparks-I didn’t mean to say that those symbols were awards, rather they were unit identifiers.
@12 Gotcha! That helps, Thank you.
@68W58,
Correct. It started with the Army of the Potomac, then moved to the other federal armies. Army of the James, of the Tennessee, the Gulf, etc.
1st Corps was a sphere, 2nd a trefoil, 3rd a Diamond, 5th a Maltese Cross, 6th a Greek Cross, 9th was a crossed cannon & anchor, etc.
In each corps, the 1st division wore the patch in red, 2nd was in white, 3rd in blue, and if there were a 4th & 5th division, in green and orange respectively.
After Gettysburg, with 1st & 3rd Corps so beaten up, they were each consolidated into a single division, and the old 1st Corps became part of the 5th Corps, while the 3rd was folded into the 2nd Corps. The old fellows didn’t like giving up there old corps badges, so they made them a part of the new insignia. Therefore, the 1st Corps wore a white sphere with the 5th Corps badge within it. The 3rd Corps used a diamond with the trefoil inside of it, etc.
11th & 12th Corps were also badly shot up. They were merged together into a new Corps, the 20th,m and given a new insignia before being sent west to be a part of Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee.
It’s really neat stuff to research, and to learn where all our current heraldry comes from.
V/R
So if MacArthur was awarded the first Purple Heart, that is really unique- believe he is also one of only two father-son MOH awardees too. Unless his father was purged in 1917?