Charles Griffin

After graduating from West Point in July 1847 he was appointed brevet 2nd Lieutenant, 4th United States Artillery and served in the Mexican War (-1848). He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, 2nd US Artillery on 12 October 1847 and served in garrisons at Tampa Bay, Fl, Fortress Monroe, VA, and Santa Fe, NM. He was promoted to First Lieutenant on 30 June 1849 and continued in frontier service in the Southwest to 1854. He was posted to the garrisons at Fort Leavenworth, KS, Fort Independence, MO, Fort Snelling, MN, and Fort Riley, KS into 1859, then took some leave. He was at Fortress Monroe by June 1860 then Assistant Instructor of Artillery at West Point from September 1860 to January 1861.

He was promoted to Captain on 25 April 1861, transferred to the 5th US Artillery on 14 May, and was in command of the "West Point Battery" - Battery D, 5th US Artillery - at First Bull Run on 21 July. He later described the events there:

After I had been there [on Henry Hill] about five minutes, a regiment of confederates got over a fence on my front, and some officer (I took it to be the colonel) stepped out in front of the regiment, between it and my battery, and commenced making a speech to them. I gave the command to one of my officers to fire upon them. He loaded the cannon with canister, and was just ready to fire upon them, when Major Barry rode up to me and said, “Captain, don't fire there; those are your battery support.” I said, “They are confederates; as certain as the world, they are confederates.” He replied, “I know they are your battery support.” I sprang to my pieces and told my officer not to fire there. He threw down the canister ...

After the officer who had been talking to the regiment had got through, he faced them to the left, and marched them about fifty yards to the woods, then faced them to the right again, and marched them about forty yards towards us, and then opened fire upon us, and that was the last of us. I had about fifty horses killed that day. I had had several horses and some men killed before. Before this occurred I started to limber up my pieces, so thoroughly convinced was I that they were the confederates. But as the chief of artillery [Major Barry] told me they were my battery support, I was afraid to fire upon them ...

He was in command of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division of the Fifth Corps on the Campaign. They were not significantly engaged at Antietam on 17 September 1862, but did see action at Boteler's/Blackford's Ford on the Potomac River near Shepherdstown, VA on the 20th.

From December 1862 he commanded the First Division, 5th Corps and was at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and on the latter part of the Gettysburg Campaign. He was on sick leave and then court martial duty in Washington, DC into April 1864, then back in command of his division in the field from the Wilderness to Appomattox. He was appointed Major General of Volunteers on 2 April 1865.

He was honored by Regular Army brevets during the war to Major (for 1st Bull Run), Lieutenant Colonel (Wilderness), Colonel (Weldon Railroad), Brigadier General (Five Forks), and Major General (war service); and in the Volunteer service to Brevet Major General (Wilderness and later campaigns).

He mustered out of the Volunteers on 15 January 1866 and continued in the Regular Army. He was appointed Colonel of the 35th US Infantry on 28 July 1866 and commanded the Department of Texas with headquarters at Galveston. On 5 September 1867, while the yellow fever was raging in Galveston, he was assigned to the temporary command of the 5th Military District (Louisiana and Texas) on the removal of General Sheridan, and ordered to make his headquarters at New Orleans. He replied that "to leave Galveston at such a time was like deserting one's post in time of battle." He died there of yellow fever on 15 September, just 41 years old.

His service from Heitman1 and Cullum2 (his Cullum #1353). The First Bull Run quote above from Griffin's January 1862 testimony before the Joint Committee (of Congress) on the Conduct of the War, online from Harry Smeltzer's Bull Runnings. The Galveston quote from Appleton's.3 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a c. 1860 photograph (as First Lieutenant, 2nd US Artillery) now at the Library of Congress. Thanks to Mike Rengert for the link below and the nudge to improve Griffin's bio sketch here.

He married Sarah Virginia “Sallie” Carroll (1837-1917) of the prominent Maryland family, in December 1861. They had two sons, but both died young; their second, William Thomas died in infancy, their first, Charles Carroll, died in Galveston ten days before his father, at 5 years old, presumably also of yellow fever. Sallie married again, Austrian Count Miksa (Maxmillian) Ernö Esterházy de Galántha, in 1870 and lived in London as Countess Esterházy.

Also see a fine biographical sketch from the Granville Ohio Historical Society [pdf].

12/18/1825; Granville, OH

09/15/1867; Galveston, TX; burial in Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, DC