Daniel Richmond Edwards, Maj

Daniel R. Edwards, Medal of Honor recipient, was born at Mooreville, Texas, on April 9, 1888. He entered military service at Bruceville. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor twice for his exploits in World War I. Because the military preferred not to confer two such awards on an individual, his first award was changed to a Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest honor given. The action for which Edwards received the Distinguished Service Cross occurred on May 28, 1918, near Cantigny, France. He was serving as a private in Company C, Third Machine Gun Battalion, First Infantry Division, when he was part of a gun squad covering the retreat of the battalion. All the other members of the squad became casualties, and Edwards covered his battalion's retreat by himself, operating an eighty-pound weapon that he carried on his shoulder. As his battalion withdrew he repulsed several counterattacks from flame-throwers as well as other weaponry. He received bayonet wounds in the wrist and stomach but refused to quit until darkness fell. He was evacuated to a hospital, from where he was to be sent back to the United States.

The action that earned him the Medal of Honor took place some weeks later, during the battle of Soissons, on July 18, 1918. Edwards learned that his unit was preparing for another attack, left the hospital without permission, and hitchhiked to the front, where he rejoined his outfit. During the fighting he crawled into a German trench, his severely wounded right arm notwithstanding, and there killed four German soldiers and took four others prisoner. As he marched the group back to his own lines an artillery shell exploded nearby, killing one of the German soldiers and seriously injuring Edwards in his left leg.

After the war he became a celebrity. During the 1920 presidential election he served as a press aide to Warren G. Harding, who subsequently appointed him to a job helping war veterans. Later in his life Edwards worked as a fishing guide on Lake Ouachita in Arkansas. For a while he was also a popular speaker on the war. His exploits as he reported them approached the unbelievable, however, and doubts have been raised about some of them. Edwards married Mary Hanie in Georgia in June 1941, and they had four children. His life was chronicled in a book, This Side of Hell: Dan Edwards, Adventurer (1932), by Lowell Thomas. Edwards died on October 21, 1967, at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was buried in Cunningham Cemetery, near Hot Springs, Arkansas.

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The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pleasure in presenting the

Medal of Honor

to

EDWARDS, DANIEL R.

Rank and Organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company C, 3d Machine Gun Battalion, 1st Division. Place and Date: Near Soissons, France, 18 July 1918. Entered Service At: Bruceville, Tex. Born: 9 April 1897, Moorville, Tex. G. O. No.: 14, W.D., 1923.

Citation

: Reporting for duty from hospital where he had been for several weeks under treatment for numerous and serious wounds and although suffering intense pain from a shattered arm, he crawled alone into an enemy trench for the purpose of capturing or killing enemy soldiers known to be concealed therein. He killed 4 of the men and took the remaining 4 men prisoners; while conducting them to the rear one of the enemy was killed by a high explosive enemy shell which also completely shattered 1 of Pfc. Edwards' legs, causing him to be immediately evacuated to the hospital. The bravery of Pfc. Edwards, now a tradition in his battalion because of his previous gallant acts, again caused the morale of his comrades to be raised to high pitch.