cer, cautioned him, and told him where he would probably find the enemy. The officer, disdaining the advice of "only a captain," rode on haughtily, hardly listening to the warning. This regiment was nearly all captured that night.

In attempting to rejoin the cavalry corps on the Maryland side, going toward Gettysburg, our squadron ran into the enemy's cavalry. Griggs, in command during Grinton's absence, gave battle, the enemy retreating rapidly toward the Potomac, and becoming more numerous as they fell back. Here his second mistake occurred. Far away from any support, Griggs continued the pursuit through a dense pine wood, until we found ourselves in the midst of Stuart's cavalry, which had crossed at Seneca Falls the night before, unperceived by Halleck's scouts, who reported his advanced-guard as a small forage party, and upon which information we had attacked. After losing seventeen men, mostly wounded, we made a desperate run for safety, hotly pursued, but managed to elude our enemies. Griggs's mistake, however, was in this case most fortunate; for in two hours the Secre tary of War and General Halleck were made acquainted with Stuart's purpose to cut off communication between Washington and the North.

The rebel general, believing he had met the advance of Kilpatrick's cavalry, changed the direction of his march to the Monocacy, where he did considerable damage. He told our wounded men that we had delayed his whole command an hour and a half, and would not believe the statement of the smallness of our num ber.

be.

Griggs was ever after proud of this mistake, as he well might

After another ineffectual attempt to break through the enemy's column at Rossville, the squadron was ordered back to Washing ton, where it remained for a month, or until Meade came back from Pennsylvania, when it again joined the regiment and for a time. watched Mosby at Thoroughfare Gap. Here Griggs sought and obtained permission to take a hundred men and climb the mountain to Mosby's reserve camp.

Arriving at the base of the mountain, having gone up the east side and crossed over to the west, by a winding road above, to avoid detection, he dismounted one half the command and made his way with them, on foot, up the steep ascent. Mosby's “rèserves "had managed to conceal themselves in the wild gorges

along the mountain, and he was compelled to come back without success. The excessive heat had almost overpowered the command, yet, after a few moments' rest, he sprang up, fresh as ever, and announced his purpose to go up the mountain again with the other half of the command. While all panted, and the writer almost fainted with exhaustion, Griggs kept on cheerfully, though he had done double the work of most of the party. The camp was broken up this time, and altogether we took one prisoner, twenty-seven horses and all the sutler stores we could carry. About this time Kilpatrick succeeded in getting the regiment into his new division, the third of the cavalry corps, and offered Griggs a position on his staff, which the hero refused because his services were most needed with the regiment.

His greatest feat, perhaps, was performed at Culpeper in September about a month previous to his death, and on the same hill.

The great cavalry advance had pushed the enemy from the Rappahannock, past Brandy Station, to Culpeper, where, occupying a strong position, they for some time resisted our further progress. At length, as Buford's division, on the right, swung around toward the town, the "Harris Light" was called upon to charge. Griggs led his squadron (which was much the nearest to the battery square) upon it, capturing three Blakely guns of the "Washington Light Artillery." (I believe this was the name of the company.) Others, as in many like cases, have claimed this achievement, one paper giving the praise to Buford's division, at least a quarter of a mile to the right of the battery; but we know positively that Griggs captured at least two of the pieces before any other troops caught up with him.

In a few minutes, leaving others to gather the spoils, he was again after the enemy, and engaged them warmly, until Buford took the advance and drove them beyond Pony Mountain.

Griggs, temporarily commanding a battalion, skrimished heavily on the Rapidan for several days, when we marched by Madison Court-House to the rear of Lee's army. Griggs acted on Kilpatrick's staff during this expedition. In the heavy fight of the 22d of September, near Orange Court-House, he shone comspicuously. Carrying orders, watching the enemy, and cheering the men, he was everywhere, and knew every thing.

His self-imposed duties, or a premonition of his rapidly approaching fate, had made him more than usually thoughtful of late.

When fighting commenced on the Robinson river, he gave his money to the chaplain, having previously given his watch to the surgeon, for safe keeping.

On that fatal 11th of October our division abandoned the line of the Robinson river, and followed our retreating army toward the Rappahannock. A division of the enemy's cavalry was known to be far in advance of us on our left flank. Buford was fighting at Stevensburg, in advance of our right. With the prospect of being cut off from the army, our division was halted below Culpeper, to find out why the enemy did not attack our rear. Pleasanton, at Culpeper, sent an order to Kilpatrick to send one of his best officers with a good squadron back to the rear, to penetrate the rebel lines and develop their intentions. This, when every intelligent private soldier in the division knew the enemy were closing in ahead of us on both flanks, and when a squadron of ours had the night before found a brigade going into camp on the Sperryville road, far toward the Rappahannock! It was an uncalled-for hazard. Kilpatrick sent the order to General H. E. Davies, commanding our brigade, the sternest officer in the army. He in turn sent it to the commanding officer of our regiment, with directions to send Captain Griggs and his squadron. This admission on his part that Griggs could execute the order, if any body could, was doubtless the greatest compliment he could pay Griggs; for, himself the bravest of the brave, he expected the utmost of every one.

The order was then given me to take back to Griggs, who was on the rear-guard. It was my melancholy duty to hand him his death-warrant. With a sharp condemnation of the order, he gave it back to me. (I kept it till it wore out.) I never saw him alive again. He knew that it was an unnecessary sacrifice, but never hesitated, and was quickly out of sight. Sadly depressed, I returned to my place. My old company was with him, and nearly every man in it was dear to me. As I reached the regiment, which had been halted during Griggs's movement, orders came to move out again in retreat, and also a hasty order to send a few men to try to reach Griggs and bring him back. The rebels were closing in rapidly upon our rear, between Griggs and us, and on both flanks. A few volunteers started, but could not reach Griggs. He was already cut off. When near our camp of the previous night, and out in the open country, he came in plain view of the enemy's long columns, off toward

Cedar Mountain, hurrying forward to Culpeper. No time was to be lost. Rapidly countermarching, he discovered the barricades we had made to impede the enemy carefully cut away, and the fresh marks of wheels on the ground, made since he had gone out.

On the hill back of Culpeper, a picket in blue overcoat halted him. Already we were fighting desperately beyond, in the direction of Brandy Station, and a division of rebels occupied Culpeper.

Some one told Griggs the man wore gray pants. Turning his squadron into the woods to the right, where it was half concealed, he rode out, alone, to the brow of the hill overlooking the fierce host. Wheeling about, he shouted to his men: "To the right, save yourselves!" A volley was fired upon him, and he dropped from his saddle.

With painful eagerness, we on the distant hills watched the desperate race around to the right of the town, across our old camping-ground. Fully a regiment was in hot chase after the little band, which, knowing every foot of the ground, led the rebels through a marshy lot, which alone enabled them to escape. The battle almost ceased. Staff and line officers from the main command were on the skirmish line, with eager inquiries about Griggs. His horse came with the rest, but the saddle was empty.

Whether he was dead or alive we could not tell. A letter of inquiry was sent through General Meredith to the Richmond authorities, and a courteous answer returned that they had no prisoner of his name. It was almost certain he was dead, as the men said he was shot in the head.

At length the cavalry corps recrossed the river, and we at once commenced the search for our comrade. We found the house into which he had been carried by two stragglers, and where he breathed his life away, the evening of the fight. He never spoke after he fell.

As soon as practicable, we had his remains transferred to the old graveyard of his native town, where his heart-broken mother may visit his tomb.

With no data except memory, after four years of varied cares and excitements, it is impossible for me to do justice to his many gallant exploits, or to present a faithful record of his services. I have simply put down here that which came uppermost in my

mind as I wrote, and I feel conscious I have given but a faint outline of the character of this gifted young man. Looking back over the last years of the war, I can not call to mind another of such merit who did not receive a greater reward. He ought to have been a general, for he was more capable than many who attained that grade. I never met a man more unselfishly patriotic or more devoted to the cause. He ever held his life at the disposal of his country, and was more profoundly impressed with a sense of duty to her than any one I ever knew.

I would that the duty of writing this sketch had fallen to an abler pen than mine; but those who could most faithfully record his noble deeds are away in distant islands, and I feel that I owe this much to the memory of my dead friend and messmate.

MY JUNE.

Go never any more, fair June,

Go never any more:

In dreams I stand beneath your moon,
In dreams I hear your song-bird's tune:
Oh! bind the vision that it stay,
Or you, fair June, go not away-
Go never any more.

Go never any more, bright June,
Go never any more:

'Neath skies that weep, and leafless trees,
I long for June and balmy breeze.

O fair enchantress! is it vain

That I 'neath weeping skies complain
My June returns no more?

Go never any more, sweet June,
Go never any more:

Within a heart that loves you well,

Sweet June, you can not choose but dwell;

And all the love you brought I keep,

And so, though all the flowers sleep,

You go no more.