Medal of Honor medal of Civil War Soldier found

Nonprofit claims to have found Medal of Honor recipient's family

Civil War soldier's relatives thankful for return of medal
Click Orlando
By Troy Campbell - Reporter
February 27, 2019

ORLANDO, Fla. - A military nonprofit organization said Wednesday that it found the living relatives of a Civil War soldier News 6 first told you about Monday.

A couple of house flippers in Orlando reached out to News 6 after finding a Medal of Honor inside a home they purchased and planned to renovate.

Within minutes of the story airing, people from across the county began to call and email information about soldier Mark Wood.

Col. Zachariah Fike with Purple Hearts Reunited said that he located Wood's third-generation nephew and fourth-generation niece.

Kathy Tafel said that she received a call from Fike, telling her that her distant relative's medal had been found.

"This (is a) Medal of Honor that has been found in some house that apparently I'm connected to, and he's looking for my dad," Tafel said.

Fike said that it's believed Wood's Medal of Honor was one of the first two-dozen ever awarded by then-President Abraham Lincoln. He said the award was given for his role in what's now known as the Great Locomotive Chase, where Union soldiers attempted to cause damage along a Southern railway, to halt Confederate soldiers.
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