Rufus Saxton Rufus Saxton ( October 19 , 1824 – February 23 , 1908 ) was a Union Army brigadier general during the American Civil War who received America ' s highest military decoration , the Medal of Honor , for his actions defending Harper ' s Ferry during Confederate General Jackson ' s Valley Campaign . Early life . Saxton was born in Greenfield , Massachusetts . His father , Jonathan Ashley Saxton , was a Unitarian and a Transcendentalist whose feminist and abolitionist writings were heard on the lyceum circuit . He descended from a family of Unitarian ministers ( Ashley , Williams , Edwards ) . His father attempted to secure a place for Rufus Saxton at Brook Farm in West Roxbury , Massachusetts , a transcendentalist community started by George Ripley and attended by Nathaniel Hawthorne . Rufus Saxton ' s brother Samuel Willard " Will " Saxton attended Brook Farm in his stead , learning the printing trade for the Farm ' s publication " The Harbinger " . Later , Will would join Rufus Saxton in South Carolina as his aide - de - camp and printer during the Port Royal Experiment . Rufus Saxton married a Philadelphian missionary , Mathilda Thompson , who had come South to teach the newly freed blacks with her newspaper journalist brother . Rufus Saxton was educated at the United States Military Academy at West Point , graduating in 1849 . His antebellum career included posts fighting Seminoles in Florida , teaching artillery tactics at West Point , surveying the uncharted Rocky Mountains on George B . McClellan ' s staff in advance of the Northern Pacific Railroad ( 1853 ) , and map work for the Coastal Survey . He was promoted to first lieutenant in March 1855 . Civil War . As the Civil War broke out , Saxton served as a quartermaster and ultimately a brigadier general for the Union forces . During the war , he commanded the Union defenses at Harpers Ferry and he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his " gallant service " there in May and June 1862 . According to a New York Times article of April 22 , 1893 , about Saxton ' s award , " So far to only two other general officers have been awarded the medals , Gens . Schofield and Miles . " Saxton was later appointed military governor of the Department of the South . As such , he directed the recruitment of the first regiments of black soldiers who fought in the Union army . Postbellum career . Saxton later served as assistant commissioner for the Freedmen ' s Bureau , where he pursued the policy of settling freed slaves in land confiscated from white landowners in the Sea Islands , until he was removed from his position by President Andrew Johnson . After the Civil War , Saxton remained in the Army , serving in the Quartermaster Corps . He retired in 1888 as a colonel and assistant quartermaster general and lived in Washington D . C . until his death . He is honored with a private memorial in Arlington National Cemetery . African - American relations . Saxton was an abolitionist and proponent for greater rights for blacks . According to an account by his close personal friend , author Thomas Wentworth Higginson , Saxton " had been almost the only cadet in his time at West Point who was strong in anti - slavery feeling , and who thus began with antagonisms which lasted into actual service . " In 1866 , Saxton testified before Congress ' s Joint Committee on Reconstruction , saying " I think if the Negro is put in possession of all his rights as a citizen and as a man , he will be peaceful , orderly , and self - sustaining as any other man or class of men , and that he will rapidly advance . " Saxton appointed his friend , author and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson , colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers , the first official black regiment . Rufus Saxton figures prominently in Higginson ' s book " Army Life in a Black Regiment " ( 1870 ) . On the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation , Higginson and Saxton were both presented with engraved silver ceremonial swords by the freedmen . Namesake . Battery Barlow - Saxton at Fort MacArthur is named in his honor . Medal of Honor citation . Rank and Organization : Citation :