Soldier Parrott

Soldier Parrot brings a new level of research and personal grit to Civil War history with this riveting account of how Jacob Parrott, an 18-year-old, illiterate orphan from Ohio became the first soldier to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Parrott, a private in the Union Army, volunteered in 1862 for a secret mission behind Confederate lines to steal a train, tear up railroad tracks, bur...