John G . B . Adams John Gregory Bishop Adams ( October 6 , 1841 – October 19 , 1900 ) was an American soldier who received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the American Civil War . Adams enlisted into military service as a Private and eventually achieved the rank of Captain . During his civil war service he fought in several major battles including Antietam , Fredericksburg , Chancellorsville and Gettysburg . It was during the Battle of Fredericksburg that his actions would earn him the United States militaries highest decoration for valor , the Medal of Honor . During the battle of Cold Harbor his entire regiment was captured and held as prisoners in a confederate prison camp were he was held for 9 months . When he returned home after the war he worked a series of jobs including working for a shoe company , a customs inspector , postmaster and deputy warden . Civil War service . Adams was born October 6 , 1841 in Groveland , Massachusetts and when the Civil War broke out , he enlisted as a private in Major Ben Perley Poore ' s Rifle Battalion , a unit that was later folded into the 19th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment . When the 19th departed the state on March 1 , 1861 , Adams was a Corporal in Company A . He served with the 19th in the Peninsula Campaign and at the Battle of Antietam . While serving as a Second Lieutenant in Company I , he was one of 18 Union soldiers who received the Medal of Honor for valor at the Battle of Fredericksburg . Adams recovered the regimental and national colors as a corporal and a lieutenant carrying them fell mortally wounded . With a flag in each hand he advanced , and the regiment was reformed on him . He was one of seven soldiers from the 19th Regiment who received the Medal of Honor during the war . Later promoted to Captain , Adams commanded Company I at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg , where he was severely wounded on July 2 , 1863 . His convalescence was relatively brief and he was able to return and fight at The Wilderness , Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor . He and the entire regiment were captured near Cold Harbor on June 22 , 1864 and Adams was held at Libby Prison in Richmond , Virginia . He was also imprisoned at Macon , Georgia and Charleston , South Carolina , where he and other officers were placed on Morris Island in an attempt to stop naval bombardment by the Union . Moved to Columbia , he and a comrade attempted to escape but were eventually captured . He was held for a total of nine months . Postwar life . After the war Adams was a foreman for ten years at the B . F . Doak & Company shoe factory in Lynn , Massachusetts . He left that post to become an inspector in the Boston Custom House and later served as the Postmaster of Lynn and Deputy Warden of the State Reformatory at Concord . He served as an elector for the state in the 1868 presidential election . In 1885 he was elected Sergeant at Arms for the Massachusetts legislature , overseeing a staff of approximately forty and earning a salary of $ 3 , 000 . Adams was a Freemason as a member of Columbian Lodge A . F . & A . M . in Boston , and the Grand Army of the Republic ( GAR ) , joining as the first member of his local post . He served as a delegate to the national GAR convention twelve times and served a year as Department Commander before being elected as Commander - in - Chief in 1893 . At the time he was elected he had been President of the Association of the Survivors of Rebel Prisons for seven years . In 1899 he published a memoir of his war service , " Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment . " He died October 19 , 1900 and is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn , Massachusetts . Medal of Honor citation . Rank and organization : Second Lieutenant , Company I , 19th Massachusetts Infantry . Place and date : At Fredericksburg , Va . , December 13 , 1862 . Birth : Groveland , Mass . Date of issue : December 16 , 1896 . Citation : Seized the 2 colors from the hands of a corporal and a lieutenant as they fell mortally wounded , and with a color in each hand advanced across the field to a point where the regiment was reformed on those colors .