Name:
Company:
Enlisted:
Rank at enlistment:
Age at enlisment:
Place of enlistment:
Date of commission:
Residence at enlistment:
Profession/employment:
Born:
Died:
Buried:
Place of burial:
Riker, John Lafayette
Field & Staff
April 17, 1861
Colonel
36 (but recorded as 39)
Saltersville, NJ
July 3, 1861
125th Street & 5th Avenue, Harlem
Passed bar examination in New York City in 1860 – Lawyer
August 15, 1824, Delancey Street (possibly 134), New York, NY
KIA Battle of Fair Oaks, VA, May 31, 1862 aged 37.
June 10, 1862
Green-wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY
Married:
Date of marriage:
Children:
Anna E. Elder (b. 1826, d. December 23, 1851)
c. 1847
Anna E. Riker (b. 1848, d. 1927)
John L. Riker (b. 1849, d. November 15, 1854)
IN MEMORIAM
COL. J. LAFAYETTE RIKER,
62d Regiment, N. Y. S. V. (Anderson Zouaves,)
KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF FAIR OAKS, MAY 31, 1862.
I.
One by one the roll is filled!
One by one the names are written!
One by one brave hearts are stilled,
As by death's hand they are smitten.
Heroes these and heroes all,
Who for freedom fight or fall,
Fall, fall,
As their country's call, who fall.
II.
Boyhood yields it spring-time flow;
Youth forgets its summer brightness;
Manhood offers autumn's glow,
Old age gives its wintry whiteness
Here for freedom all agree,
At the shrine of freedom see,
See, see,
What they offer to be free!
III.
As each soldier falls, his name
History writes upon her record;
Each his heritage of fame
Has, if brief or bright or chequered:
Say of him of whom we write,
He fell as they fall who fight,
Fight, fight,
Conscious of the the might of Right.
IV.
In the prime of manhood's power,
In the flush of manhood's promise:
Offering the patriot's dower,
RIKER has been taken from us
Sad and sorrowful the flow
Of the words we utter low,
Low, low,
As his final fate we know.
V.
Stemming the rebellion's flood,
By a traitor's bullet smitten,
He has sealed his faith in blood!
To his glory be it written.
Hero he and heroes all
Who thus, upon freedom's call,
Call, call,
Do not fear to fight or fall.
Harlem, N. Y., June 4th, 1862 W. E. P.
The following poem was published in New York City as a pamphlet in the week following Riker’s death.
(from the collection of David Sanders. Used with permission).
(from the collection of David Sanders. Used with permission).
The Riker grave marker in Green-wood cemetery, Brooklyn.