St. Clair Augustine Mulholland (1 April 1839 – 17 February 1910) was a Union Army colonel during the American Civil War who received the Medal of Honor for gallantry shown at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Biography[]
St. Clair Augustine Mulholland was born in Lisburn, County Antrim, Ireland on 1 April 1839, and he emigrated to Philadelphia with his parents when he was a young boy. He became an active member of the local militia, and, at the start of the American Civil War, he became a Major in the Union Army's Irish Brigade. Mulholland served under Thomas Francis Meagher at the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Battle of Chancellorsville, when he saved the abandoned guns of the 5th Maine Battery from the Confederates, distinguishing himself and earning the Medal of Honor. He later fought at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, and he was promoted to Colonel in early 1864; he was wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness and the Battle of Totopotomoy Creek during the Overland Campaign. On 4 May 1866, he was brevetted to the rank of Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and, on 20 February 1869, he was promoted to Major-General. In 1868, he became Chief of Police in Philadelphia, keeping both the police force and the city in good order. President Grover Cleveland appointed Mulholland a Pension Agent, continuing to serve under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. He died in 1910 at the age of 70.