The Medal of Honor is the United States of America's highest and most prestigious personal military decoration that may be awarded to recognize U.S. military service members who distinguished themselves by acts of valor. 14 Delawareans have received this medal.
"Griffin Seward" was born on August 10, 1842, in Hazlettsville, six miles west of Dover, Delaware. He enlisted, in Dover, in Company B, 2nd Pennsylvania Cavalry on August 16, 1861. He was noted as a farmer, 5' 3" tall, weighed 113 lbs., had gray eyes, black hair, and a dark complexion.
During the Civil War Seward was taken as a prisoner in April, 1863, later he either was released or escaped and then was taken as a prisoner a second time when he was sent to Andersonville.
He was discharged from the Army on July 13, 1865, when he returned to Delaware to work on a farm in Delaware City. After only a little over a year, he re-enlisted with the Army and was sent to the Arizona Territory.
Seward, along with 30 others, received the Medal of Honor for Gallantry in Action while fighting Cochise and the Chiricahua Indians during a battle at Chiricahua Mountains. Captain Bernard noted in his report:
"These men are they who advanced with me up the steep and rocky mesa under as heavy a fire as I ever saw delivered from the number of men, Indians, say from one hundred to two hundred. These men advanced under this fire until within thirty steps from the Indians when they came to a ledge of rocks where every man who showed his head was shot at by several Indians at once. Here the men remained and did good shooting through the crevices of the rocks until ordered to fall back which was done by running from rock to rock where they would halt and return the fire of the Indians."
After his discharge in New Mexico Seward remained in the area and became an Indian trader at a post near Holbrook, Arizona Territory. He died at the National Home for the Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Los Angeles, California on September 10, 1908. He was interred in the Los Angeles National Cemetery, Los Angeles, California.