Sergeant John E. Buffington
The Breakthrough
Sergeant John E. Buffington
6th Maryland Infantry, 2nd Brigade,
3rd Division (Seymour), Sixth Corps
Resident: Carroll County, Maryland
Enlisted: August 1862
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 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.” 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.”
Marker can be reached from Duncan Road (Route 670), on the left when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
