Civil War
With the secession of eleven Southern states and the outbreak of the Civil War, Miller joined the Union Army. On August 27, 1861, Governor Oliver P. Morton commissioned Miller as Colonel of the 29th Indiana Infantry. After training, the regiment was assigned to Kirk's Brigade in Alexander M. McCook's division in Buell's Army of the Ohio and marched to Tennessee. Miller saw action on the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, as well as during the subsequent Siege of Corinth. Miller led his regiment through northern Alabama and Tennessee and pursued Braxton Bragg through Kentucky. Miller commanded a brigade under James Negley during the Battle of Stones River in late December 1862. On the second day of the battle, Miller spearheaded the Federal counterattack across Stones River which repulsed John C. Breckinridge's Confederate attack. During this charge Miller was wounded in the neck.
During the Tullahoma Campaign, Miller commanded a brigade under General McCook in the XX Corps. He was severely wounded, losing his left eye, in a minor fight at Liberty Gap on June 27, 1863, and was out of action for nearly a year while he recuperated. Miller was promoted to brigadier general April 10, 1864, retroactive to January 5. In May 1864, he was assigned to administrative duty as commander of the garrison at Nashville, Tennessee. He returned to the field in December, commanding a sizable force of infantry and artillery at the Battle of Nashville. For his services at that battle, Miller was brevetted as a major general on March 13, 1865.
Read more about this topic: John Franklin Miller (senator)
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
Of the expropriated mycologist.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)