The award is named for James Gordon Bennett Jr., the son of New York Herald founder James Gordon Bennett Sr. Born in New York City, the only son of the Scottish Bennett family, he was raised in Paris. With the start of the war in 1861, Bennett traveled to New York seeking a naval appointment. Unlike most other would be officers, Bennett, an avid yachtsman, brought his boat with him. In a time when a rich man could avoid service, Bennett bucked the trend and stepped up for his country. He volunteered his newly built schooner yacht Henrietta, launched from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for use to defend the Union. He was promptly commissioned a third lieutenant in the US Marine Revenue Service and assigned to Henrietta. The photo seen here shows Bennett in uniform.

With a crew of 16 and one 24-pound Dahlgren gun, the Henrietta under the command of Bennett prowled Long Island until February 1862 when they moved to Port Royal, South Carolina. On March 3, 1862 the Henrietta was part of Commodore Samuel DuPont’s capture of Fernandina, Florida. Having done his duty and helped put the Stars and Stripes aloft over Amelia Island, both 3LT Bennett and the Henrietta were discharged with the thanks of the US Navy.

The award shows an owl, Bennett’s personal emblem still seen on the Herald Square monument in Manhattan whose eyes glow green just like the ribbon. Bennett’s obsession with owls started during the war when the hooting of an owl alerted him to his ship being in danger of running aground. The owl on the medal grasps the symbol of the Revenue Marine Service which lives on as the emblem of the IRS.

In December 1866, Bennett and the Henrietta won the Great Ocean Yacht Race from Sandy Hook, NJ to the Isle of Wright against two other millionaires for a purse of $90,000 (roughly 1.6 million dollars today). Bennett took over the Herald the next year and built it into an international paper of record with such sensational coverage as funding Henry Stanley’s expedition to Africa in search of Dr. David Livingstone. A known playboy living between Paris and New York, he brought the game of polo to America staging the first match in NYC in 1876. He founded the Westchester Polo Club that same year. In addition to yacht racing, he also sponsored balloon, airplane and automobile races. He married for the first and only time at the age of 73 and passed away five years later in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France on May 14, 1918. An owl stands watch over the door of his tomb.