Sergeant John E. Buffington
Petersburg, United States
<br>Sergeant John E. Buffington<br><br>6th Maryland Infantry, 2nd Brigade,<br>3rd Division (Seymour), Sixth Corps<br><br>Resident: Carroll County, Maryland<br><br>Enlisted: August 1862<br><br>Sergeant John Ezra Buffington, with five other men of his regiment, stormed the ramparts of the Confederate works near this position during the attack on April 2, 1865. The commander of the brigade that included the 6th Maryland wrote after the battle, “<i>I have made a full investigation as to who was in fact the first man from this brigade to enter the works and am fully satisfied that Sergeant John E. Buffington, Co. C 6th Maryland Volunteers was the first man to pass over the works</i>.” It was not until March 4, 1908 that Buffington was awarded the Medal of Honor for “conspicuous gallantry in carrying the lines of the enemy at Petersburg, Virginia, April 2, 1865.”