Davis Guard Medal

The Davis Guard Medal was a Confederate decoration, authorized by the Confederate Congress to the members of F Battery, 1st Texas Heavy Artillery Regiment, for the incredible victory at the Second Battle of Sabine Pass.

The award was funded and presented by the Government of Texas and was presented as a one-time award to exactly 50 men. Most, 49 of them, were members of the battery, and the final award was presented to Jefferson Finis Davis himself as the unit's honorary commander. President Davis had his medal on him at the time of his capture in May 1865, but it was stolen by a Union soldier and remains lost to this day.

The 50 recipients of the Davis Guard Medal were listed as such on the Confederate Roll of Honor for this respective award. The medal consisted of a silver Mexican coin polished smooth with the letters "DG" on the front above a cross pattee. The reverse bore the inscription "Sabine Pass Sept. 23, 1864" in cursive script. The medal hung from a green ribbon. While low-quality reproductions are widely available today, original medals are worth tens of thousands of dollars, are rarely found with the ribbon, and one was even found in a western town via metal detector.

This was the only physical medal presented by the Confederacy during the war. However, since then the Sons of Confederate Veterans' Confederate Medal of Honor (created 1977) has been awarded to fulfill the original intent of the Confederate States Congress, and the Commonwealth of Virginia produced the New Market Cross of Honor in 1904 for the 294 cadets of VMI who fought at the Battle of New Market. Additionally, the SCV has produced a medallion to honor the 2,104 names on the Confederate Roll of Honor, for whom no medal was originally intended.