…Poor Col. Riker, who fell at Fair Oaks Battle leading his regiment, is to be buried here tomorrow with honors. He was a brave man, of a brave family – a descendant of the brave old Batavian race who settled old New York. HIERO saw him proudly march down Broadway at the head of his regiment : yet he was not the man to wish to shed the blood of Americans ; nor did he aim to pervert this war into a crusade to liberate Africans. He marched and fought as a soldier, not as a partisan. He has a soldier's grave, and has left a hero's name. Like Vosburgh – like hundreds more of his low-Dutch blood and his Democratic politics – he has fallen in a war for guilt of which he was not by vote or voice responsible.

Syracuse Daily Courier and Union, Saturday, June 14, 1862, p.1.