Charles Hawkins: Medal of Honor Citation

Rank at action: Seaman
Service: U.S. Navy
Conflict: U.S. Civil War
Unit or command: U.S.S. Agawam

The Citation

Hawkins served on board the U.S.S. Agawam, as one of a volunteer crew of a powderboat which was exploded near Fort Fisher, 23 December 1864. The powderboat, towed in by the Wilderness to prevent detection by the enemy, cast off and slowly steamed to within 300 yards of the beach. After fuses and fires had been lit and a second anchor with short scope let go to assure the boat's tailing inshore, the crew again boarded the Wilderness and proceeded a distance of 12 miles from shore. Less than 2 hours later the explosion took place, and the following day fires were observed still burning at the forts.

Sources & record notes

General Order comparison: pending. Current-profile review does not mean that the underlying original order has been examined.

Charles Hawkins — current Society profile ↗Congressional Medal of Honor Society · Checked 2026-08-30
current identity, service, action metadata, and citation comparison

Transcription, metadata & provenance notes

Award ID: MOH-AW-002397
Transcription status: Legacy full text · current reference profile matched
Last source check: 2026-08-30
Recorded order reference (not verified against the original): 45
Later or highest recorded rank: Boatswain's Mate
Accredited to: New Hampshire
Archive transcription SHA-256: 8f2b4582a8ca83888e8b0f56603ea0a0869e3800fd577bdf5d4a7b67d4663ea1

Legacy transcription retained without substantive editing; rendered current reference profile variants documented in the Phase 10 evidence snapshot.

The inherited rank-1 Society candidate was confirmed by substantive comparison of identity, service, rank, unit or command, action context, and citation; candidate rank or successful rendering alone was not treated as verification. Documented aliases remain attached to this stable recipient identity: Harkins, Charles. No identity merge or split was performed. The current profile also supplies the separately retained rank rendering Seaman (Highest Rank: Boatswain's Mate); action and later or highest ranks remain separately attributed. The controlled canonical unit or command is U.S.S. Agawam; the current structured profile renders U.S.S. Agawam, and the inherited wording Not documented remains preserved as a separately attributed variant. The current authoritative evidence controls the action date as 1864-12-23 and classifies the action under U.S. Civil War; the inherited unnormalized date and conflict values remain preserved in the audit record. The controlled historical action place is Fort Fisher, North Carolina, USA; the current structured place Fort Fisher, North Carolina, USA and the complete inherited geocoder value Fort Fisher Historic Museum, 1610 South Fort Fisher Boulevard, Kure Beach, NC 28449, USA remain preserved in the audit evidence. The inherited full citation remains canonical and checksum-protected; current rendered wording is preserved separately where transcribed. No underlying General Order was examined, so the exact-order gate remains pending and no General Order verification is claimed.