The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Captain (Infantry) Dewitt Clinton Lewis, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 16 June 1862, while serving with Company F, 97th Pennsylvania Infantry, in action at Secessionville, South Carolina. While retiring with his men before a heavy fire of canister shot at short range, Captain Lewis returned in the face of the enemy’s fire and rescued an exhausted private of his company who but for this timely action would have lost his life by drowning in the morass through which the troops were retiring.