Alvin Hubbard Griswold
Alvin Hubbard Griswold was born around 1835 in Benson, Vermont, to Hubbard N. Griswold and Louisa Kellogg. His father was a farmer who owned at least $1,700 in real estate and $600 in personal property in 1860. The family moved to Madison, Ohio, in the 1840s, and Griswold attended school there. He moved to Blakesburg, Iowa, sometime in the 1850s and married Ellen Terrill there on November 13, 1859. Their only son, Dwight Hubbard Griswold, was born on November 18, 1860. Griswold worked as a merchant, and he reported owning $1,000 in personal property in 1860.
He enlisted in the Union army on September 3, 1861, and mustered into Company K of the 3rd Iowa Cavalry as a 2nd lieutenant. The regiment spent the winter in Benton Barracks in Missouri, and in January 1862, Griswold complained that the “rigidity of army discipline; the inconveniences, perplexities and hardships of camp life, are apt, to knock the romance and enthusiasm out of most young fellows.” The men spent the spring of 1862 battling Confederate guerrillas in Missouri, and the experience led Griswold to predict that “this is to be a protracted war.” The fighting, he wrote, “perhaps may in the main be over soon but large armies will be required to hold the inhabitants in subjection.”
Griswold was a political moderate who hoped the “abolitionists in Congress would cease to aggitate the Slavery Question.” He believed Confederates would lay down their arms and return to the Union if the federal government vowed never to interfere with slavery. If, however, slavery was “abolished by Military or other decree the Southern people would have to be annihilated before they would submit and there could be no conciliation between the two Sections of the Country during the present Generation at least.”
The army transferred the regiment to Arkansas in May 1862. On June 27, near Village Creek, Arkansas, Griswold and twenty of his men were guarding wagons filled with provisions when they were “suddenly fired upon from a dense canebrake.” Griswold died instantly after reportedly being “pierced by seven balls.” His widow Ellen applied for a pension on November 10, 1862, and secured one soon afterwards.
DATABASE CONTENT
| (96) | Griswold, Alvin Hubbard | 1835 | 1862-06-27 |
- Conflict Side: Union
- Role: Soldier
- Rank in: 2nd Lieutenant
- Rank out: 2nd Lieutenant
- Rank highest: 2nd Lieutenant
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 10
- (887) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 11 June 1860
- (888) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 28 January 1861
- (889) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 2 May 1861
- (890) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 23 May 1862
- (891) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 25 May 1862
- (892) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 12 August 1861
- (893) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 21 March 1862
- (894) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Alvin H. Griswold, 5 June 1862
- (895) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 30 March 1862
- (896) [writer] ~ Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 23 January 1862
People - Records: 1
- (96) Griswold, Alvin Hubbard is the [child of] (97) Griswold, Hubbard Norton
Places - Records: 3
Regiments - Records: 1
- (91) [enlisted] [K] ~ 3rd Iowa Cavalry
SOURCES
1850 and 1860 United States Federal Censuses, available from Ancestry.com; Alvin H. Griswold to Hubbard N. Griswold, 23 January 1862, 30 March 1862, 5 June 1862, John Nau Collection; Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, 26 July 1862; Case Files of Approved Pension Applications of Widows and Other Dependents of Civil War Veterans, ca. 1861-ca. 1910, available from Fold3.com.
