Luke M. Griswold

Luke M. Griswold
The USS Monitor sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras on the night of December 30, 1862. In the foreground a boat is taking off crewmen. The USS Rhode Island is in the background.
Born	1837 Massachusetts
Died	1892
Service/branch	U.S. Navy
Rank	Ordinary Seaman
Unit	U.S.S. Rhode Island
Battles/wars	American Civil War
Awards	Medal of Honor

Luke M. Griswold (1837 – 1892) was a sailor in the U.S Navy during the American Civil War. He received the Medal of Honor, the highest honor of the U.S. military.^[1][2][3]

Luke M. Griswold was born in 1837 in Massachusetts. He joined the U.S. Navy from Springfield, Massachusetts, and served on the ship U.S.S. Rhode Island.^[1] He died in 1892.^[4]

On December 30, 1862, the ship U.S.S. Monitor went down in a storm near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The U.S.S. Rhode Island rescued the crew. After the rescue, Griswold's small boat was lost during the storm. The crew members spent many hours at sea before being picked up.^[1]

Griswold's official Medal of Honor citation^[2] reads:

Served on board the U.S.S. Rhode Island which was engaged in saving the lives of the officers and crew of the Monitor, 30 December 1862. Participating in the hazardous rescue of the officers and crew of the sinking Monitor, Griswold, after rescuing several of the men, became separated in a heavy gale with other members of the cutter that had set out from the Rhode Island, and spent many hours in the small boat at the mercy of the weather and high seas until finally picked up by a schooner 50 miles east of Cape Hatteras.