Lorraine Walker Griffin was born on August 24, 1834, in Rutherford County, North Carolina, to William and Elizabeth Griffin. His father was a house carpenter who owned $100 of real estate by 1850. He grew up and attended school in Floyds Creek, North Carolina.

 

He enlisted in the Confederate army on May 1, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company D of the 16^th North Carolina Infantry later that day. The regiment took part in the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox Campaign. He was wounded in the hand at Culpeper, Virginia, on October 1, 1862, but he eventually recovered and rejoined the regiment during the winter of 1862-63. During the Siege of Petersburg, he wrote that he would kill Black Union soldiers rather than take them prisoner: “I ainte intend to take a negro we sharp shooters ar agoing to kill all of them and if ther white men with them we ar agoing to kill them so they wont tell on ous.” He was promoted to sergeant on October 1, 1864. He surrendered on April 9, 1865, as part of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

 

He settled in Madison County, North Carolina, after the war, and he married a woman named Minerva. They had at least nine children: John, born around 1869; Lee, born around 1870; George, born around 1872; Nola, born around 1874; Lewis, born around 1877; Emma, born around 1878; Mary, born around 1881; Florence, born around 1884; and Belle, born around 1887.

 

Griffin worked as a farm laborer, and by 1870, he owned $100 of persona property. His wife died on May 11, 1887. By 1900, he was working in a cotton mill in Caroleen, North Carolina. He died on March 18, 1907.

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