Nathaniel Grigsby ²

  General Notes:

Civil War veteran of the 2nd Lt. Co. G, 10th Indiana Cavalry. He was a farmer.

Nathaniel was a dear firend of Abraham Lincoln.

After Lincoln moved to Illinois in 1830, Nathaniel moved with his father to Carroll Co., MO in 1855.

In 1860, he was living in Norborne. He wrote to Lincoln and received an appointment as Republican Precinct Committee Man. He placed Lincoln's name on the 1860 ballot. All of Natty's neighbors were Southern sympathizers. He had been talking about electing Lincoln for president in town. One morning at about 2 or 3 a.m. a neighbor rode up and told Natty not to light any lights. The neighbor wanted to warn him that his neighbors were planning to murder him and if he wanted to live he should be on his way.

After the warning, Natty moved back to Spencer Co., IN where he and four of his five sons enlisted in Company C 10th IN Cavalry ( Richmond Davis did not enlist). Natty was named 2nd Lieutenant.

The family appearently returned to Carroll Co., MO but in 1885 they moved to Harper Co., KS and settled on a farm in the extreme northwest corner of the county. In 1890, they moved to Attica, KS. Nathaniel was buried in Attica.

His tombstone reads as follows:

(front)

N. Grigsby
Died
Apr 16 1890
Aged
78 Yrs 6 Mo 5 Days
2nd Lieut. Co. C
10th Ind. Cavy

Went to school with Lincoln. Brother to Aaron Grigsby who married Abe Lincoln's
oldest sister. Visited in White House.

(back)

Through this inscription I wish to enter my dying protest against what is called
the Democratic Party. I have watched it closely since the days of Jackson and
know that all the misfortunes of our nation has come to it through this so-called
party, therefore beware of this party of treason.
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WICHITA EAGLE (Wichita, KS) 18 January 1999.
Byline by Roy Wenzl.

"From The Grave, A Cry Of Treason"

"Wait 'till you see this gravestone inscription," my brother said, putting a paper into my hands. Carved on a tombstone in a windswept prairie graveyard outside Attica, Kan., it read:
"Through this inscription I wish to enter my dying protest against what is called the Democratic Party. I have watched it closely since the days of Jackson and know that all the misfortunes of our nation has come through this so called party. Therefore beware this party of treason."
I looked up from the paper. Brother Gary looked happy. History, dead to so many, is to the brothers Wenzl a living discovery. We live amid books. We perform researches into the obscure. Gary's girlfriend Missy, who lives in Attica, an hour southwest of Wichita, had told him about the tombstone. So he had sent her to it, in winter cold, with instructions to copy it down for brother Roy. "I've seen this guy's name before," Gary said. "Get your history books out. I bet we find him in there." We went to my bookshelves and got my books out. And we found him: Nathaniel Grigsby, friend to the good, the great and the wise. And now we know the story of the stone. Today, with the U.S. Senate putting our president on trial, we live amid the rhetoric of political polarization. But as angry as today's arguments can sound, they are nothing like those Grigsby heard in 1861. Leading Democrats like Jefferson Davis led their states out of the Union that year, Republicians accused Davis and other Democrats of treason. One of those angry Republicians was Nathaniel Grigsby. Today, our poloirized politicians are examining with great earnestness a tale tied to a talky girlfriend, a goatish president and whether the goat lied under oath. Important. But absurd.
In contrast, Grigsby lived through a national argument that killed 618,000 men. In that war, Grigsby fought as a 53-year-old Indiana cavalryman. He lost one son. He lost boyhood friends. There was one boyhood friend in particular.
He was great, he was good and he was very wise. He told funny stories. And even as a boy, he talked politics with Grigsby, as Grigsby later said, "until we wore the subject out." when he was killed in 1865, as one of the last casualities of the Civil War, it was widely regarded as the ultimate national betrayal. His name was Abraham Lincoln, and to Nathaniel Grigsby, he was more than a boyhood friend. He was family. Lincoln's sister (Sarah) married Grigsby's older brother.
Lincoln and Grigsby. They met again one day just before the war, in 1861 when Grigsby walked intio Lincoln's law office in Springfield, Ill. His friend looked up with delight. "Nattie," Lincoln said. Lincoln was recently elected; the country was splitting apart. Democrats like Davis were leading states out of the Union. Men like Grigsby were calling them traitors. "A great many people were calling on (Lincoln), warning him of the danger of assassination and pleading with him to protect himself...," Grigsby's son J.W. Grigsby later remembered. Grigsby and Lincoln spent several days together as Lincoln prepared to move his family to Washington. As they parted, Lincoln offered to appoint Grigsby and his sons to government postal jobs. "No," Grigsby replied. "We are going to have a war, and I have myself and three sons to offer for the country's service." Lincoln froze. Moments passed. Then Lincoln spoke: "I am in hopes when I gert to Washington, I can do something to prevent it." Grigsby then asked his friend to protect hiw own life. Lincoln shook this off. "The man who seeks my life can gert it," he said. "With what I have to do, I couldn't prevent it...I am going to do what I have to do regardless of consequences." The consequences caught up with Lincoln on April 14, 1865. When he heard the news back in Indiana, Grigsby fell down in a faint. Twenty years later, Grigsby and several of his sons moved to farms near Attica, Kan. where his great granddaughter still lives. Grigsby, on his deathbed, asked a son to see to the carving of the message on the stone. It was a parting shot--at treason, at Democrats, at those he thought had helped kill family and friends.
The great-grandaughter of Nathaniel is Anna Mae Turner.
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Nathaniel married Mahulda Cummings, daughter of John Ephraim Cummings and Elizabeth Lanman, on 1 Dec 1836 in Spencer County, Indiana. (Mahulda Cummings was born in 1817 in Breckenridge County, Kentucky, died on 12 Jun 1853 in Spencer County, Indiana and was buried in Old Pigeon Cemetery, Dale, Spencer County, Indiana.)

Nathaniel next married Catherine S. Powers Davis on 9 May 1856 in Carroll County, Missouri. (Catherine S. Powers Davis was born on 7 May 1826 in Kentucky, died on 12 Jun 1897 and was buried in Attica Cemetery, Attica, Harper County, Kansas.)