President Joe Biden will honor two Union Army privates with the Medal of Honor on Wednesday for “gallantry and intrepidity while participating in a covert military operation 200 miles behind Confederate lines on April 12, 1862” in what the White House called “one of the earliest special operations in U.S. Army history.”

Privates Philip G. Shadrach and George D. Wilson will receive the U.S. military’s highest honor for their service, which included dressing as civilians to infiltrate the Confederacy and hijacking a train in Georgia for a sabotage mission. Both men were executed by the Confederacy after being captured.

“It is unknown why Private Shadrach and Private Wilson were not originally recommended for the Medal of Honor.  Both were deserving in 1863, and on July 3, 2024, by order of the President of the United States both will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor,” the White House said.

The two privates were part of a group of volunteers led by James J. Andrews, a Kentucky-born civilian spy and scout. Known as “the Andrews’ Raiders,” the group of 24 men infiltrated the south and met up north of Atlanta in Marietta, Ga. On April 12, 1862, they took control of a locomotive and began a journey 87 miles north, destroying railroad tracks and cutting telegraph wires along the way. The mission became known as “The Great Locomotive Chase.”

The men rode the train until it ran out of fuel and were soon captured by Confederate troops, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Andrews and seven of his Raiders, including Shadrach and Wilson, were executed by hanging, while the rest were held as prisoners of war.

Six of Andrews’ Raiders became the first recipients of the then-newly created Medal of Honor after they were released in 1863 as part of a prisoner exchange. The remaining living Raiders escaped from prison and were later awarded the Medal of Honor, as were six of the eight executed members of the expedition.

Shadrach, a Pennsylvania native, was only 21 years old when he volunteered for the mission and was one of the captured men who was executed. 

“Like many other young volunteer Soldiers, Private Shadrach was willing to encounter both peril and hardship to fight for what he believed in,” the White House said.

Wilson was a Ohio shoemaker in his 30s when he joined the Union Army. He volunteered for the train heist and was a “central figure” in the mission, according to the White House. He was also executed.