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| Medal of Honor, U.S. Army Public domain |
Civil War veteran Edgar A. Bras (1841-1923) made his way to Fort Lauderdale in the 1900s. Approaching their final years, Bras and his wife moved in with their daughter Ethel and her husband, Herbert Otto.
Bras was a carpenter and farmer for most of his life. The Iowa native and
his family moved to Kansas, then Nebraska and to Oklahoma. Fort Lauderdale was
his final chapter, a quiet one but not far removed from the way he lived his
life as a young man.
No doubt, there were probably a few Civil War vets in Broward
County during the 1900s. Bras was not only a vet of that conflict but also
recipient of the Medal of Honor for his act of valor during the Battle of
Spanish Fort in Mobile, Alabama. The action is listed as “Capture of Flag” On
April 8, 1865.
His military career was nothing if not one of dogged
determination. It began when Bras, then 20, signed up with the 8th
Iowa Volunteer Infantry, U.S Army in Sept. 1861, about five months after the
conflict erupted. He was promoted a few months later to Fifth Corporal.
Bras fought in the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee (April 6-7,
1862) where he was shot in the upper thigh; the bullet remained there for
the rest of his life. He was wounded again during the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi
(April 29-May 30, 1862) where a bullet hit him in the head, lodging behind his
left eye. He recovered (bullet removed?) and was promoted to Fourth Corporal in
September 1862. When his term of service ended, he immediately signed up again,
Jan. 11, 1864, with the same regiment and was again promoted, this time to First
Sargeant. There were more battles to fight.
Mobile, Alabama was a port critical to Confederate supply lines
and a favorite of Southern blockade runners. General R.S. Canby led Union
forces into the Battle of Spanish Fort with an eye on capturing Mobile. Edgar
Bras bravely charged through a Confederate camp at the fort and was able to capture
the Confederate flag from a color bearer on April 8th, 1865. For this
action, he was commended and received the Medal of Honor. Mobile was not captured
but Spanish Fort was rendered useless by Union forces.
The war ended April 9, 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. President Andrew Johnson declared it officially over Aug. 20, 1866. The Medal of Honor was first available to Marines and those in the Navy in 1861; it was extended to the Army in 1862.
It appears that sense of duty never left Edgar Bras. While in Fort Lauderdale, approaching 80, he served as deacon and superintendent of Sunday school at First Baptist Church. He died in 1923 at 81, a few years after his wife. The final resting place for both is at Evergreen Cemetery.
Among the
countless others to honor on Memorial Day in Fort Lauderdale are Edgar A. Bras
and Alexander R. (Sandy) Nininger, both Medal of Honor recipients and former
Fort Lauderdale residents. According to the National Medal of Honor Museum, “of
the 40 million Americans who have served in the Armed Forces since the Civil War,
only 3,519 have earned the Medal of Honor”
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| Medal of Honor, U.S. Army Public domain |
Sources:
https://mohmuseum.org/the-medal/
ancestry.familysearch.org
https://www.iowasuvcw.org/monuments-in-the-state-of-alabama
IowaHistory.org
https://www.cmohs.org/
https://victoriacrossonline.co.uk/edgar-a-bras-moh/
