Mays, from unmarked grave to Arlington National Cemetery

Cpl. Isaiah Mays, a February 19, 1890 Medal of Honor recipient

Born into an insane and racist era in America’s history, Cpl. Isaiah Mays, was born on February 16, 1858 in Virginia into a system that classified and branded him as a slave and a second class citizen.

On May 11, 1889 while serving as a corporal in Company B of the 24th Infantry Regiment and providing security escort for a U.S. Army pay wagon, the Buffalo Soldier was caught in an ambush by robbers in Arizona and was shot in both legs. Almost all the other escorting soldiers were either wounded or killed. Despite his injuries, Cpl. Mays walk and crawl two miles to a ranch to seek help.

On February 19, 1890, Cpl. Mays was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the engagement.

In 1893, Cpl. Mays left the Army and worked as a laborer in Arizona and New Mexico.

Medal of Honor

He applied for a and was denied federal pension in 1922. He entered the Territorial Insane Asylum in Phoenix, which housed mentally ill people, people with tuberculosis, and the poor.

Cpl. Mays died at the hospital in 1925, at age 67, and despite being a Medal of Honor recipient, he was buried in the Asylum’s adjoining cemetery with only a number etched on his grave. Seventy-Six years after his death, the number was replaced in 2001 by an official U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs headstone which stated his name, service history, and his status as a Medal of Honor recipient.

In March 2009, under the dynamic and outstanding leaderships of the Missing in America Project and the Old Guard Riders, Inc., Cpl. May’s remains were exhume in Phoenix, cremated and placed in an urn for the historic journeying and subsequent burial on May 29, 3009 at the Arlington National Cemetery near Arlington, Virginia where other Medal of Honor recipients are either interred or memorialized.