Two Civil War soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor for helping to save a bridge under heavy fire were born in Fulton County, local officials recently discovered.

“I about fell over backwards when I heard we had someone from Fulton County in there,” said Floyd Franks of Wauseon who is active in local veterans affairs.

Lemuel F. Holland, a corporal, and Oscar Slagle, a private, both in the U.S. Army's Company D, 104th Illinois Infantry regiment, are thought to be the only Medal of Honor recipient with a Fulton County connection.

Mr. Franks learned about Mr. Slagle from a veterans board that wants to see all Medal of Honor recipients appropriately honored in their home county. Mr. Holland is also listed as being born in Fulton County, according to the Ohio Historical Society which lists his birthplace as Burlington, just south of Elmira in the western part of the county.

Likely, a plaque likely will be placed by the courthouse to remember the medal of honor recipients, Mr. Franks said. But first he wants to find out all he can about the two and put together the story of their lives.

The Medal of Honor citations say Mr. Holland and Mr. Slagle voluntarily joined a small party that, under heavy fire, captured a stockade and saved a bridge in Elk River, Tenn., on July 2, 1863.

There were 29 medals awarded for action that day; seven at Elk River and the other 22 at Gettysburg, Pa. - the site of much more well-known fighting that week.

Their 104th Regiment Infantry was organized at Ottawa, Ill., and mustered Aug. 27, 1862 and ordered to Louisville, Ky. It spent much of the war in Tennessee and later Georgia. The Elk River fighting was part of a Middle Tennessee or Tullahoma Campaign that lasted from June 24 to July 7 that year.

Mr. Holland entered the service in La Salle County, in north central Illinois and Mr. Slagle entered in Manlius, which is in Bureau County, immediately west of La Salle. Their medals, which are the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual in the U.S. military, were issued in 1897.

Their awards were among 1,520 awarded during the Civil War, when the medal of honor was created.