Griffin Family of West Virginia During Civil War

This is the story of our Griffin family’s life and involvement during the Civil War.  They lived in western Virginia at the time (which would soon become West Virginia).   That portion of the state had mixed views of the situation and about secession.   Many settlers had come there from New England states, as ours did.   They stood strong for the Union, but there were differences of opinion even in one family.    Jonathan and Rachel Griffin had five sons and two daughters.  The sons were a little old for fighting, but grandsons enlisted.   Abraham’s family still lived on the Stony Creek property in Pocahontas County.   Benoni, William, Jonathan Jr., and Samuel had moved to Nicholas/ Webster Counties over the mountains, as had Margaret who married Isaac Hamrick and lived on Point Mtn. in Webster Co.  Rachel, widow of Jonathan Sr., had gone to live with daughter, Margaret.   Daughter, Rachel, married Charles Ruckman, a teacher and minister, and they had gone to Ohio, supposedly because he differed with his brothers’ southern sentiments.

You may want to have a map handy while you read this.  As I gathered our family info, I realized I don't have much about THE WAR.  But the people are what it's all about.   We just learned all of this in the past few years by connecting dots and gathering what various cousins had passed along at family reunions and in letters.    Not surprisingly, the same accounts kept popping up.   Since my Gt Grandfather, Samuel Young Griffin, had died fairly young and before our branch of the family moved to Oklahoma, we only had his obituary, saying that he was a "little drummer boy".    As it turned out, he was very ill during much of the war and was assigned close to the hospitals and was a guard.  According to his pension papers, the effects of the typhoid fever eventually took his life at age 51.  

The Griffin, Harris and Miller families were all related by marriage, through the daughters of James Rodgers.  The Griffin heritage was from Wales to Connecticut to Virginia --- educated, religious, active in local politics, always moving further into unknown lands.  Suddenly a war was moving into their community. Cousins raised on the same farm land were choosing sides according to their family's leaning.  Many young men in Pocahontas County signed up for the "Pocahontas Rescuers" in 1861.  Matthias Potts Griffin, first cousin of my gt grandfather, son of Abraham Griffin and Nancy Waugh, was only 18 or 19 when the Pocahontas Rescuers gathered in Huntersville to be mustered into Confederate Service.  The following is a summary of news articles describing the Rescuers.
 
Listed is the muster roll which includes a Capt. D.A. Stofer who was issued a blanket and a pair of gloves, Lieut. Skeen, blanket , Sgt. Slarker (no blanket listed), Two Musicians, and 49 Privates (including Matthias P. Griffin).   A few were issued blankets, and two fellows got a pair of shoes and a shirt.

“The Pocahontas Rescuers marched from Huntersville about 10 a.m. on May 18, 1861.   A large crowd of ladies and gentlemen were present and at the moment of marching, hardly an eye that was not wet with tears.   Many gentlemen and ladies accompanied us to the bridge.   Then the Rev. Mr Flaherty addressed the crowd and all meekly bowed the knee in the public road while he fervently addressed a prayer in behalf of those marching and of the parents and friends left behind. Halted at night in front of William Gibson’s and the company were entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Gibson, John and John B. Hannah, and I.M. Hogsett.”

From the journal of Lieut. Skeen:  “Sunday the 19th –  After the company attended church at I.M. Hogsett’s and heard a patriotic sermon from Rev. Flaherty, they marched to J. Varner’s.   Just as the company arrived, the Cavalry under Capt. McNeel came in sight. They were received with all honor     The company then heard a sermon from Rev. J.E. Moore and were dismissed and entertained by Jno. Varner, Josiah Herold. Colonel Gatewood at Big Spring , John Bath Cavalry and Company.   Then across the Mountain to Marshall’s.   Rain during the evening and all night.

Monday 20th –  March resumed at 61/2 a.m.   Halted an hour at J.W. Marshall’s and marched to Jacob Conrad’s, a few going with John McLaughlin, 5 to Snyder’s, and the rest quartered upon Jacob Conrad.   Rained at intervals all day.”

[my note: This is where Lieut. Skeen   stopped writing his journal.   He was responsible for purchasing and keeping receipts, etc.   So he lists the expenses for a few more days… these purchases included shoes, socks, combs, gloves, bacon, tallow, flour, meal, horse feed, etc. ]

The newspaper editor   Mr. Price, in 1941 writes:
“ Mr. Skeen started off fine to keep a   report on the daily progress of the “Pocahontas Rescuers” but I guess he got too busy, for after three days, he quits in the middle of a page.

And in speaking of this march, the old soldiers referred to it as the “Tin Cup Campaign.”   A cup was all the equipment furnished them.   They provided their own arms.
They met the invaders at Philippi, Barbour Co., and had no luck in repelling them.  
[My note: I have found that the battle at Philippi bridge, on June 1, 1861, was the first land battle of the area.]

“The Cavalry referred to was Capt.   Andrew McNeel’s   Company.   On their return from Philippi,   this company was disbanded and the men joined the 11th Virginia –  Bath Squadron –  and Capt. William L. McNeel’s and Capt. J.W. Marshall’s companies, 19th VA Cavalry.

On the return of the Pocahontas Rescuers, the company was disbanded and the men, with a number of additions, made up company I, 25th VA Infantry.   J.H. McLaughlin was elected First Lieutenant.

This Company was engaged in the following battles:
Philippi, McDowell, Winchester, Cross Keys, Port Republic, Seven Days, Fight around Richmond, Slaughter Mountain, Second Manasses, Brestow Station, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Second Winchester, Gettysburg, Mine Run, and the Wilderness.   At the Wilderness, the 25th was captured; the Pocahontas Rescuers and replacements had been reduced to seventeen men, of these seventeen, , eleven lived through the war, six dying in prison. …..”

[The Battle of Sharpsburg (also called Antietam)   took place Sept. 17, 1862.   Matthias Potts Griffin {called Potts}was killed in this battle, at age 20. ]

Matthias Potts Griffin's death is noted in Louise McNeill Pease's "Milkweed Ladies".   Griffin's spinster sister, Malinda, lived in the McNeill household [though not related to any McNeill's] and shared "visions" and stories. Louise McNeill Pease writes,  "Aunt Malindy was full of signs and portents.  She had her death-bell sign, her howling hound dog, and, from her girlhood, that strange, death-ridden omen which she had seen one long-ago summer midnight:  the great fireball screaming in the sky over Buckley Mountain the night her brother Potts was killed at the battle of Gettysburg."  [Note it was actually the Battle of Antietam, although his company did fight at Gettysburg the following year.]

Meanwhile, over the mountain in the area of Webster Springs, other Griffin cousins as well as their extended family of Harris and Millers, were standing up for their beliefs also.  William Griffin was one of the few that opposed secession in his township at the breaking out of the Rebellion. Family letters coming from various sources have been put together to tell the story.   William and Elizabeth Griffin's oldest son, Joseph had died before the war, and now three more of their sons were in harm's way.  Samuel Young Griffin, age 21, and  James M. Griffin, age 19, enlisted in the Ohio Vols 47 Reg., in 1861,  and the next year, Levi J. Griffin, age 18, signed on at Sutton with the West Virginia Infantry, 10 Reg.    Of these three, only Samuel, my gt grandfather, returned home, his brothers dying of measles or other disease in camp.   A letter from Samuel to his father is on my blog.  http://dgranna.blogspot.com/search/label/Samuel%20Y.%20Griffin

Samuel's maternal Uncle, Adonijah Harris, and his son-in law, John J. Miller, were very close to the Griffin family.  Miller was age 30 at the beginning of the war, and Harris was 50.  Miller was an abolitionist and disagreed with even his own father.   A descendant of the Millers gives this account ( so you see things from Union view here.):

"Thousands of soldiers passed by continually during the first year of the Civil War. John J. was an abolitionist, disagreeing with his father, about reimbursing slave owners. John J. Miller, Taylor Sutton and James Harris (all sons or sons-in-law of Adonijah Harris), were  forced to hide in the mountains for months to escape rebel soldiers. Diana Mary, John's wife, was forced to support herself and four small children. John J. was taken prisoner in 1861 or 62 at the home of his father, a rebel. Upon the protest of his parents he was left in the home, a prisoner with two soldiers left to guard him.

The guards fell asleep one night and John J. escaped to his own home 40 miles away, wading through mush ice in the rivers 5 times. He was quite ill by the time he reached home. The illness proved to be measles, which all but two members of several families contracted, and which caused the deaths of Adonijah Harris' daughters, Julia Ann Harris (unmarried) and Mrs. Elizabeth Jane "Harris" Sutton, mother of two tiny children.

Immediately after Miller's escape, the families were taken, in 1862, by government wagons to Clarksburg 175 miles away as refugees. This removal from the family home near Suttonville to Clarksburg, W.VA was made upon the advice and with the assistance of a friend, Col. Samuel Young, who was afterwards the founder of Radical City, KS.

[My note: In 1862, William Griffin’s brother, (Samuel's Uncle) Benoni, Union Homeguard, who had led a raid from Suttonville to Laurel Creek, against his own neighbors, moved to Clarksburg area of Harrison County WV as well. He lost one son, George, at Rocky Gap 1863, and another son, Isaac H., was wounded in Union service. These were two more first cousins of my gt grandfather, Sam Griffin.]

In 1863 Webster had officially become a county.  At the first election, Benoni Griffin  was elected a member of the house of delegates for the fourth delegate district.  I would guess that he was eligible as he still owned land, even though his family had been moved to Harrison County for safety.

In the year 1864, the Harris/ Miller family was moved to Fairmont, WVA, where John Jackson Miller enlisted in the Union Army, leaving wife and four children. The family also lived a short time in Grafton WVA.

In the meantime the father of John Jackson Miller had lost everything possible in raids by bush-whackers, rebels, etc. and nothing left at the end of the war but a house with an attic filled with honey and bees. He died about 1870.

From the book “Moccasin Tracks and Other Imprints” by William Christian Dodrill, “The human can scarcely depict the chaotic condition existing in Webster County at the close of the Civil War.  … No battles were fought in the county, but many shooting affrays occurred between irregular bands of partisans, which were not always bloodless.  Many refugee outlaws found a safe retreat in the mountains and terrorized the citizens with deeds of lawlessness.  ….Houses were plundered and burned, … fences and farm buildings destroyed… farms became overgrown with briers and bushes.”

After returning from one year's service at the close of the War, John J. Miller and the Griffin and Harris families went back to their homes near Suttonville and found all the buildings gone and the farm overgrown with saplings and weeds. Their sympathies for the Union brought persecution from their neighbors...to the extent that at one time they had to hide in a water filled ditch.  One family letter states that William Griffin's family--father, mother and all the kids -- had word someone was coming after them since they were northern sympathizers.  The parents hid the entire family in a deep ditch near their home and spent the night there.  That was bad enough---it seems the ditch was full of water also.  The ten children of William Griffin were of ages 4 - 24.   At some point when it was safe to escape, they got out of there and soon got on board a river boat to head for safer territory. Too discouraged to begin again in that place, Miller traded the land for 80 acres near Exira, Iowa where the families prepared to move.
Family letters state that in 1865, William and Elizabeth and ten children, along with Harrises and Millers, maybe more, boarded a steamboat on the Ohio River (probably at Marietta, OH), and   sailed down the Ohio to the Mississippi, then to the Missouri River and up to Council Bluffs, Iowa.  As John Miller had land in Exira, Audubon County, Iowa,  the family must have traveled there by wagon.  Elizabeth Griffin had an uncle who had gone to Iowa years before the war.  I'm sure some letters were exchanged and on that long and difficult journey, Elizabeth's two aunts in their 80s, one blind, went to live out their days with their brother in Lacona, Iowa. 

As stated in Miller’s story, the Griffins, Millers, and Harrises farmed for a short time in Iowa, then they heard about the Osage reservation land in the Kansas-Oklahoma being opened up for purchase. They left Iowa to make a claim but heard wild tales of difficulties with Indians. Instead, they moved to Carthage, MO, and finally to Montgomery County, in southeastern Kansas, in 1871.  Griffin Hill in Sycamore Township became the home of this family and descendants for many years. Eventually the younger generation married and went on to further frontiers of Colorado, Oregon, California, Washington, Oklahoma, and Texas.   In each branch of the family, bits and pieces of the Griffin story have been passed along.  The account continues to evolve as we gather more cousins and share our  pieces of the patchwork.  

Daneille Griffin Grimes