The story of James M. Miller, son of Michael Miller and grandson of George Miller, has been written about often over the years in the local area newspapers as well as books on Sherman’s campaign through the Carolinas. Some sources has Miller as a minister with only daughters, however the 1850 and 1860 census records of Chesterfield County show him as a farmer with daughters and sons. The following combines the articles in the local papers with The War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies to give the best account of the execution of James M. Miller.

Sherman’s Army in particular seems to be remembered in our area for their unseemly behavior. Both "bummers" who followed his army and in many cases soldiers themselves were known to steal and plunder the areas they frequented. After leaving Columbia an incident occurred that set the wheels in motion that led to the execution of Private James M. Miller. General James Chestnut had informed a lady of the approaching Northern Army and because of her and her very pretty daughter being alone and defenseless, recommended they flee until the army passed. Confederate cavalrymen returning later found the house in ruins, the daughter dead and the mother "insane". She said that seven Yankee soldiers had tied her and each raped her daughter. The Confederate cavalrymen tracked down the seven northerners and killed them, cutting the throats of two of them. In the days following, other Northern foragers, upon being caught, recieved the same treatment. On February 22, a week before entering Chesterfield County, 18 of General Kilpatrick’s cavalrymen were found with their throats cut and signs stating "Death to all foragers". This set off a series of Letters between Kilpatrick and Wheeler and the following letter between General William T. Sherman and General Wade Hampton.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI

In the Field, February 24, 1865.

Lieut. Gen. WADE HAMPTON,

Commanding Cavalry Forces, C.S. Army:

GENERAL: It is officially reported to me that our foraging parties are murdered after capture and labeled "Death to all foragers." One instance of a lieutenant and seven men near Chesterfield, and another of twenty "near a ravine 80 rods from the main road" about three miles from Feasterville. I have ordered a similar number of prisoners in our hands to be disposed of in like manner. I hold about 1,000 prisoners captured in various ways, and can stand it as long as you; but I hardly think these murders are committed with your knowledge, and would suggest that you give notice to the people at large that every life taken by them simply results in the death of one of your Confederates. Of course you cannot question my right to "forage on the country". It is a war right as old as history. The manner of exercising it varies with circumstances, and if the civil authorities will supply my requisitions I will forbid all foraging, but I find no civil authorities who can respond to calls for forage or provisions, therefore must collect direct of the people. I have no doubt this is the occasion of much misbehavior on the part of our men, but I cannot permit an enemy to judge or punish with wholesale murder. Personally I regret the bitter feeling engendered by this war, but they were to be expected, and I simply allege that those who struck the first blow and made war inevitable ought not, in fairness, to reproach us for the natural consequences. I merely assert our war right to forage and my resolve to protect my foragers to the extent of life for life. I am, with respect, your obedient servant.

W.T. Sherman,

Major-General, U.S. Army.

To which Hampton replied as follows:

HEADQUARTERS,

In the Field, Feb. 27, 1865.

Maj. Gen. W.T. Sherman, U.S. Army:

GENERAL: Your communication of the 24^th instant reached me today. In it you state that it has been officially reported that your foraging parties are "murdered" after capture. You go on to say that you have "ordered a similar number of prisoners in our hands to be disposed of in like manner", that is to say, you have ordered a number of Confederate soldiers to be "murdered." You characterize your order in proper terms, for the public voice, even in your own country, where it seldom dares to express itself in vindication of truth, honor, or justice, will surely agree with you in pronouncing you guilty of murder if you order it carried out. Before dismissing this portion of your letter, I beg to assure you that for every soldier of mine "murdered" by you, I shall have executed at once two of yours, giving in all cases preference to any officers who may be in your hands.

In reference to the statement you make regarding the death of your foragers, I have only to say that I know nothing of it; that no orders given by me authorize the killing of prisoners after capture, and that I do not believe my men killed any of yours, except under circumstances in which it was perfectly legitimate and proper that they should kill them. It is a part of the system of the thieves of whom you designate as your foragers to fire the dwellings of those citizens whom they have robbed. To check this inhuman system, which is justly execrated by every civilized nation, I have directed my men to shoot down all of your men who are caught burning houses. This order shall remain in force so long as you disgrace the profession of arms by allowing your men to destroy private dwellings.

You say that I cannot, of course, question your right to forage on the country - "It is a right as old as history." I do not sir, question this right. But there is a right older, even, than this, and one more inalienable - the right that every man has to defend his home and to protect those who are dependent on him; and from my heart I wish that every old man and boy in my country who can fire a gun would shoot down, as he would a wild beast, the men who are desolating their land, burning their homes, and insulting their women.

You are particular in defining and claiming "war rights." May I ask if you enumerate among these the rights to fire upon a defenseless city without notice; to burn that city to the ground after it had been surrendered by the inhabitants who claimed, thou in vain, that protection which is always accorded in civilized warfare to non-combatants; to fire the dwelling houses of citizens about robbing them; and to perpetrate even darker crimes than these - crimes too black to be mentioned?

You have permitted, if you have not ordered, the commission of those offenses against humanity and the rules of war; you fired into the city of Columbia without a word of warning; after its surrender by the mayor, who demanded protection to private property, you laid the whole city in ashes, leaving amidst its ruins thousands of old men and helpless women and children, who are likely to perish of starvation and exposure. Your line of march can be traced to the lurid light of burning houses, and in more than one household there is now an agony far more bitter than that of death. The Indian scalped his victim regardless of age or sex, but with all his barbarity he always respected the persons of his female captives. Your soldiers, more savage than Indian, insult those whose natural protectors are absent.

In conclusion, I have only to request that whenever you have any of my men "murdered" or "disposed of," for the terms appear to be synonymous with you, you will let me hear of it, that I may know what action to take in the matter. In the meantime, I shall hold fifty-six of your men as hostages for those whom you have ordered to be executed.

I am, yours, &c.,

WADE HAMPTON

Lieutenant-General.

That Sherman was aware of the actions of some of his men was obvious and wrote ‘that foragers "were to be kept within reasonable bounds" and that they not be protected "when they enter dwellings and commit wanton waste..." He wrote to Kilpatrick the foragers were "to be regulated and systematized, so as not to degenerate into common robbers..." (Sherman’s March Trough The Carolinas by John G. Barrett, page 105). Sherman also made it clear that "If our foragers commit excesses, punish them yourself, but never let an enemy judge between our men and the law." (Sherman’ March, by Burke Davis, page 187).

That Sherman received the letter from (General Wade Hampton ) is certain, for on March 05, he wrote a letter to General O.A. Howard, commanding the right wing of his army at Lynches River. He remarks, "I received a very original letter from Wade Hampton yesterday, who was in your front." That very day a forager went to the house of Mr. Gillum Sowell, near Jefferson, in Chesterfield County, and took two horses and made a negro named (Ephraim) Sowell mount one of the horses and rode off to join the army. At a point between McBee and Jefferson, they halted and the Yankee told the negro to cook some dinner while he took a nap. As soon as he was asleep, the negro took a light wood knot and hitting him in the head crushed his skull and took the horses back home. The Yankee forager, who was Private R.M. Woodruff, Company H. 13^th Illinois Regiment, was found the next day by his companions and buried. His grave is still pointed out. Hampton’s letter seems to have had no affect on Sherman, for we find the following order:

SPECIAL ORDERS, } HDQRS. SEVENTEENTH ARMY CORPS,

No. 56. } Thirteen Miles from Cheraw, SC, March 2, 1865.

I. In accordance with instructions from the major-general commanding the army, directing that for each one of our men murdered by the enemy a life of one of the prisoners in our hands should be taken, Maj. J.C. Marven, provost-marshal, Seventeenth Army Corps, will select from the prisoners in this charge one man and deliver him to Brig. Gen. M.F. Force, commanding Third Division, to be shot to death in retaliation for the murder of Private R.M. Woodruff, Company H., Thirtieth Illinois Volunteers, a regularly detailed forager, who was beaten to death by the enemy near Blakeney’s Bridge on about the 1^st day of March 1865.

By Command of Maj. Gen. F.P. Blair:

C. CADLE, JR.

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Lots were drawn among the prisoners and James Miller, mentioned at the first of this article, was the one selected to be shot, which was done the next day where Sherman’s army was in camp near where Patrick station is now located on the Seaboard Airline Railway and where are still to be seen remains of breastworks thrown up by Sherman’s men. Whether Hampton knew of Miller’s execution, and whether he carried out his threat and executed two of his prisoners in retaliation, is not known; the official records do not mention it.

(The following was written by William D. Trantham of Camden, SC, June 1, 1905) I have read with interest the articles of Mr. Forde and others in the recent issues of the Sunday News in reference to the shooting of James Miller by Sherman’s army in March, 1865, in retaliation for the killing of a Federal soldier by supposed bushwhackers. Mr Miller lived near Jefferson in Chesterfield County, SC, and I knew his brother, the late Maj. John S. Miller, and many of his neighbors and friends, among them some of these who participated with him in the casting of lots. Some years ago a newspaper was placed in my hands by a son-in-law of James Miller, in which was an account of the shooting of Mr. Miller, purporting to have been written by an officer connected with the affair and present at his death. I have forgotten the name of the officer, and of the newspaper, which I think was published in Lancaster or Chesterfield, SC, and reproduced from the article from a Western paper. This paper was in my portfolio which was mislaid, lost or stolen about 2 years ago.

It is stated that the dead body of a Federal soldier belonging to a Western cavalry regiment, I think from Michigan, was found where he had evidently been murdered by bushwhackers, that the Federal commander had determined to resort to retaliation to prevent such killings, and General Francis P. Blair, who commanded the 17^th army corps, issued orders for the casting of lots for one man to be put to death for the killing of the cavalryman aforesaid.

My informants did not know all who participated in the casting of lots, but among them were Mr. R.B. Clanton, now living in Chesterfield County, Mr. Robert Griffith and others who knew James Miller. I have talked with and corresponded with others about the cruel tragedy, and from them and the account by the Federal officer before mentioned my information was obtained. One or more of the participants said it came as a great surprise to all who were made to cast lots, and one of them declared that he never before or after found it such a task to stretch forth his right hand to draw a little piece of paper out of a hat. James Miller drew the fatal lot. He was a man between forty-five and fifty years of age and had been captured for a few days before some distance west of Cheraw while on his way home on furlough from Florence, SC, where he had been engaged in guarding prisoners. He protested that while he sympathized with his State in her struggle, and had given of his means for the support of the Cause, he was over age for active service, and had not fired a gun in the war. But he was told that the order was imperative. He begged to be allowed to communicate with his wife and children, but this privilege was denied him. He then asked to confer with such friends and neighbors as were captives with himself. To those he gave directions for his wife, asking that she be told that he was not coming home, and advising her about the farm and about the children, just as if he were going off on a journey to be absent for a long time.

He then made some requests of those who were about to shoot him. He asked, in the first place, that he be not bound either hand or foot, saying that he was not going to run, that he was prepared and not afraid to die. He then asked that he be not blindfolded, saying he wished to look into the eyes of those who were to shoot him. And lastly, he begged that he not be shot in the face, declaring that God had given him his face and that in all his life he had never done anything of which he was ashamed. He was marched off a short distance, the firing squad drawn up, the gun discharged as one and James Miller lay dead, as much a hero as if he had died at the cannon’s mouth at Gettysburg, in the charge up Snodgrass Hill, at Chickamaugua, or at the bloody angle at Spotsylvania.

"Don’t shoot me in the face, for God gave me that, and in all my life I have done nothing to be ashamed of."

What a sentiment, what a model!

At Five Forks’ Methodist Church in Chesterfield County on the road from Lancaster to Chesterfield Court House, and half way between the two is the little mound that marks the last resting place of James Miller. I have passed there a few times, but never without dismounting and going softly with uncovered head to the spot and recalling the manner and cause of his death. Chesterfield County has produced some of the great men of South Carolina, but she never gave birth to a purer patriot or more unostentatiously brave man than James Miller.

But the Federal cavalryman for whose killing Mr. Miller was shot was not killed by a Confederate or bushwhacker at all. Mr. Gilliam Sowell of Kershaw county owned a negro named Ephriam and entrusted him to hide his horses and mules from the enemy while Sherman’s army was passing, and he was found in Lynch’s creek swamp by a soldier who made the negro go with him. After they had gone some distance the sun came out, the first time in quite a while, the trooper said he was very tired and sleepy and suggested that he would lay down and take nap if the negro would keep watch and arouse him if any one approached. He soon fell asleep, and Ephraim, not relishing that manner of appropriating his master’s property, proceeded to kill the trooper with a lightwood knot. He carried his master’s horses and mules as well as the soldiers horse, back into the woods and they were all rescued.

Mr. Sowell, Ephraim’s owner, was the father of Mr. James M. Sowell, the well known supervisor of Kershaw County.

Sherman’s march from Savannah to Raleigh, and especially through South Carolina, was a belt of absolute desolation forty miles wide, where blackened ruins and lone chimneys stood as silent witnesses to show where peace and plenty and happy homes had been. The inherent grit and self-reliance of the Southern character have reclaimed the desolate fields and largely made them blossom as the rose. The chimneys and blackened ruins may be forgotten by those who are to come after us, but the heroic death of James Miller and others who perished in the spring of 1865 will be remembered.

(Editor’s note: Local tradition states that it was actually Sidney T. Knight, a son of Aaron Weaver Knight, who was a young man at the time, who drew the slip to be executed. However, James M. Miller, insisted upon exchanging places with Sidney, due to Sidney’s youthfulness. Five Forks Church no longer stands, but the cemetery, with James M. Miller’s tombstone and memorial stone still stands. When highway 151 was paved, the remains of Pvt. R.M. Woodruff were found where he was buried in March of 1865. If you stand in front of Beauford Baptist Church on 151 between Jefferson and McBee and look north, about half way up the hill is where Woodruff was laid to rest. I personally always called this Yankee Hill Cemetery.)