Griffin Seward

He Climbed a Rocky Mesa Into a Wall of Fire

Griffin Seward was born on October 8, 1842, in the Dover area of Kent County, Delaware. He came of age just before the United States descended into the American Civil War, and military service would eventually shape a large part of his adult life. His career carried him from Civil War cavalry service into the Regular Army and finally to the rugged mountains of the Arizona Territory, where his conduct under intense fire earned the Medal of Honor.

During the Civil War, Seward served in the United States Army with the 2nd Pennsylvania Cavalry. Cavalry service demanded endurance, horsemanship, discipline, and the ability to operate far from the main infantry formations. Mounted soldiers performed reconnaissance, guarded roads and communications, screened army movements, carried messages, and fought both mounted and dismounted when circumstances required.

The Civil War gave Seward years of military experience, but the end of the conflict did not permanently end his life as a soldier. After returning briefly to civilian life, he entered the Regular Army and was eventually assigned to Company G of the 8th United States Cavalry.

The 8th Cavalry was a relatively new Regular Army regiment, organized during the post-Civil War period when the United States was increasing its military presence across the western territories. Its companies were assigned to isolated posts and frequently conducted patrols and expeditions across vast areas where roads, reliable communications, and supply systems were limited.

By 1869, Seward held the military position of Wagoner in Company G. A wagoner had an essential logistical role. Cavalry units operating across the Southwest depended upon wagons to move food, ammunition, equipment, forage, and other supplies over long distances. The work required practical skill with animals, wagons, difficult terrain, and the constant problems created by operating far from established supply centers.

The title “Wagoner,” however, should not suggest that Seward remained safely behind combat troops. Soldiers assigned to transportation duties could find themselves directly exposed whenever a column was attacked or when circumstances required every available man to participate in an engagement. Seward’s experience in the Chiricahua Mountains demonstrated exactly how quickly a support role could become direct combat.

During the late 1860s, the Arizona Territory was the scene of violent conflict involving the United States Army and Chiricahua Apache groups defending their homelands against expanding American military and civilian presence. The region’s mountains, canyons, desert valleys, and isolated water sources created conditions very different from the large Civil War battlefields on which Seward had previously served.

The Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona offered particularly formidable terrain. Rocky slopes, narrow passes, broken ridges, and elevated defensive positions gave fighters familiar with the region significant advantages. Cavalry soldiers accustomed to mobility on horseback often had to dismount and climb through terrain where horses offered little practical advantage.

In October 1869, elements of the 1st and 8th U.S. Cavalry were operating in the region under Captain Reuben F. Bernard. The soldiers were pursuing Chiricahua Apache forces through difficult country and eventually followed them into the mountains.

On October 20, 1869, the pursuit developed into a serious engagement in the Chiricahua Mountains.

The American troops encountered Apache fighters holding strong positions among rocks and elevated terrain. What followed was not a conventional open-field cavalry charge. The landscape forced the soldiers to advance on foot through steep, broken ground toward defenders who possessed superior positions above them.

Seward went forward with the attacking soldiers.

Contemporary military reporting described the advance as an extraordinarily dangerous climb up a steep and rocky mesa. The men moved upward while subjected to extremely heavy fire from Apache positions among the rocks.

Every advantage appeared to favor the defenders.

The soldiers had to expose themselves while moving uphill. The rocks and uneven ground restricted their speed. The elevated Apache positions allowed the defenders to observe and fire downward on approaching troops, while natural stone cover made them difficult targets.

Seward nevertheless continued advancing.

The soldiers pushed to within roughly thirty steps of the opposing position before reaching a ledge of rocks. At that distance, the fighting became exceptionally dangerous. Any soldier who exposed himself above the rocks immediately risked drawing several shots.

The ledge became the Americans’ temporary fighting position.

From behind the available rock cover, Seward and the other soldiers continued returning fire. The terrain transformed the battle into a close-range contest in which individuals had to use every natural feature available for protection.

Seward’s participation was particularly notable because his official Army position was Wagoner. His ordinary responsibilities centered on military transportation and logistical support, yet during the Chiricahua Mountain engagement he advanced into the same lethal terrain as the cavalrymen conducting the attack.

The fighting continued until the soldiers were ordered to withdraw from the advanced position.

Retreating from such terrain could be as dangerous as advancing. Turning and running directly downhill would expose the soldiers completely to fire from above. Instead, the withdrawal had to be conducted carefully from one piece of cover to another.

The men moved from rock to rock, stopping periodically to return fire before continuing downward. This method allowed some soldiers to move while others provided protection, reducing the danger of a disorganized retreat.

The entire engagement demanded physical endurance and personal discipline. The soldiers had climbed steep terrain while carrying weapons and equipment, fought at close range from rocky cover, and then withdrew while still exposed to enemy fire.

Seward’s conduct during this battle was judged exceptional.

His official Medal of Honor citation would ultimately summarize everything he had endured and accomplished with only three words:

“Gallantry in action.”

The citation is extremely short compared with many later Medal of Honor citations, but brevity was common in records from this period. It should not be interpreted as evidence that the action itself was minor.

The military documentation surrounding the battle shows the conditions behind those three words: a steep rocky ascent, intense enemy fire, extremely close engagement, and a dangerous fighting withdrawal.

For Griffin Seward, October 20, 1869 became the defining day of his military career.

Recognition followed much more quickly than it did for many Civil War Medal of Honor recipients.

On February 14, 1870, less than four months after the Chiricahua Mountains engagement, Seward was formally presented with the Medal of Honor.

The Medal of Honor itself had been created during the Civil War. Congress authorized the Army version in 1862 as a national decoration for extraordinary military conduct. At the time, the United States did not possess the extensive hierarchy of valor decorations developed during later wars, making the Medal of Honor the principal federal recognition for exceptional gallantry.

Seward’s award came during the earliest period of the decoration’s history. For the historical database, his verified decoration is therefore represented as Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1870.

The date distinction is important.

Seward performed the heroic action on October 20, 1869.

His Medal of Honor was formally presented on February 14, 1870.

The 1870 date therefore represents the year of official recognition, not the year of the battle itself.

Seward received one Medal of Honor. No additional star, clasp, bar, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified with the decoration.

His final verified decoration is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1870 — no device or clasp.

Seward continued serving with the 8th U.S. Cavalry after receiving the Medal of Honor. His unit remained active in the Southwest, where Regular Army troops operated from remote military posts and conducted patrols through New Mexico and Arizona Territory.

This period of service was fundamentally different from his earlier Civil War experience. During the Civil War, armies could number in the tens of thousands and battles might involve entire corps moving across relatively concentrated areas. In the Southwest, operations frequently involved small detachments traveling enormous distances through difficult and sparsely populated terrain.

For a soldier such as Seward, adaptability was essential. He had experienced the mass warfare of the Civil War and then entered a military environment dominated by isolated forts, small cavalry columns, extended patrols, supply problems, and sudden engagements in mountains and deserts.

His later years were spent in the American West before he eventually moved to California. The surviving military record preserves his combat service and Medal of Honor achievement far more clearly than many details of his civilian life, so uncertain personal claims should not be allowed to overshadow the documented facts of his military career.

What is firmly established is that Seward lived for nearly four decades after receiving the Medal of Honor.

He witnessed the transformation of the western territories, enormous expansion of the American railroad system, the growth of western cities, and the gradual disappearance of the frontier military world in which he had served.

By the opening years of the twentieth century, the Army itself had changed dramatically. The small frontier force of Seward’s era was developing into the institution that would serve overseas during the Spanish-American War and later emerge as a major twentieth-century army.

Seward’s Medal of Honor remained a permanent connection to an earlier military generation.

Griffin Seward died on September 10, 1908, in Los Angeles, California.

He was buried at Los Angeles National Cemetery, where the National Cemetery Administration continues to recognize him as a Medal of Honor recipient. His grave places him among generations of veterans whose service ranged from the Civil War and nineteenth-century western campaigns into later American conflicts.

Seward’s military legacy is unusual because it crossed two dramatically different periods of United States Army history. He first served during the enormous national crisis of the Civil War and later returned to the Army when cavalry companies were scattered across remote western territories.

Yet the moment that permanently defined his record occurred far from the famous Civil War battlefields.

On October 20, 1869, Wagoner Griffin Seward of Company G, 8th U.S. Cavalry advanced with fellow soldiers up the steep rocks of the Chiricahua Mountains while fire came down from positions above them. He continued forward until the fighting reached extremely close range, held his position among the rocks, and participated in the dangerous withdrawal when the order finally came.

The United States summarized his conduct simply as “Gallantry in action.”

On February 14, 1870, those three words brought him the nation’s highest military decoration.

His final verified award remains Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1870 — no device or clasp.

Griffin Seward’s story therefore survives as one of endurance under extraordinary conditions: a veteran soldier, officially serving as a wagoner, climbing a hostile rocky mesa under intense fire and demonstrating the courage that transformed an otherwise obscure mountain engagement into the defining moment of his life.