Watch Live: Biden awards Medal of Honor to 2 Union soldiers who hijacked train behind enemy lines
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Washington — President Biden is awarding posthumous Medals of Honor on Wednesday to two Army privates who were a part of a plot to hijack a train and destroy Confederate infrastructure during the Civil War.
The president will honor Philip Shadrach and George Wilson for their "gallantry and intrepidity" in carrying out a covert operation called the "Great Locomotive Chase," which played out 200 miles behind Confederate lines in Georgia in 1862, the White House said.
"In one of the earliest special operations in U.S. Army history, Union Soldiers dressed as civilians infiltrated the Confederacy, hijacked a train in Georgia and drove it north for 87 miles, destroying enemy infrastructure along the way. During what later became known as the Great Locomotive Chase, six of the Union participants became the Army's first recipients of the newly created Medal of Honor," a White House official said.
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