Sunday, March 10, 2024

A Final Act Of Retaliation -- The Execution of Private James M. Miller C.S.A.

The grave of Private James Madison Miller C.S.A.
(1816-1865).


On Thursday, March 2, 1865 near the small Southern town of Cheraw, in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, a Confederate soldier was executed by Union soldiers under the command of Major General William T. Sherman in a final brutal act of retaliation before the invading army left the Palmetto State and marched north into North Carolina.

By the time the winter of 1864-1865 was turning over to spring, the War Between the States was only a couple of months away from formally ending. However, the war was still very much a serious concern for the people of South Carolina.


One month before, on Wednesday, February 1, 1865, Major General William T. Sherman's invading Union army entered the Palmetto State, beginning the Carolinas Campaign, the final major campaign of the American Civil War.

Despite delaying the Union forces in several small battles, and winning one victory at Aiken, South Carolina, the Confederate defenders could only conduct a fighting withdraw in the wake of Sherman's nearly 60,000 man blue-clad horde -- which conducted itself harshly on the first Southern State that first dared to declare its independence from the Federal Union. Many cities, including the State capitol of Columbia, South Carolina, were burned almost to the ground.

During Sherman's Carolinas Campaign the Official Records report that about 46 Union soldiers were executed by Confederate troops, or civilians. These were Yankee foragers -- better know as bummers -- many of whom were caught in the act of robbing Southern civilians, or committing other personal crimes.

In addition to the destruction of military targets, many of Sherman's forage took it upon themselves to enact personal retribution upon the civilian population of the Carolinas, burning down houses, robbing and destroying valuables, and even committing acts of rape and murder. The worst of the latter  were against the African-American slave population that they were alleged to be liberating from bondage.

These acts became so heinous that many of these bummers, when they were caught by the Confederate army, were shot or hanged without trial on the spot.

The majority of these incidents occurred once Sherman's forces advanced past Columbia, South Carolina into upper South Carolina and many of these acts were blamed on Confederate cavalry under the command of Lieutenant General Wade Hampton III, himself a native of South Carolina.

The following correspondence regarding these incidents was exchanged between Generals Sherman and Hampton gives great insight into just how ugly the war became in its final year.

On Friday, February 24th, General Sherman wrote the following to Hampton directly:


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 Chesterville, and another of twenty "near a ravine eighty rods from the main road" about three miles from Feasterville. I have ordered a similar number of prisoners in our hands to be dispensed 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 cannon 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 directly 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 better feelings 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.

Three days later on Monday, February 27th, General Hampton responded, not mincing words:

HEADQUARTERS,
In the Field, Feb. 27, 1865.
Maj. Gen. W.T. Sherman, U.S. Army:
GENERAL: Your communication of the 24th inst. 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.

Major General William T. Sherman, U.S.A. and Lieutenant General Wade Hampton III, C.S.A.
Photos courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress.

Hampton more than got his point across as no mass executions of Confederate prisoners took place after this exchange.

However, this isn't to say that there were no further individual "eye-for-an-eye" acts of retaliation between the two armies, the last of which occurred at the beginning of March, 1865. 

On Wednesday, March 1st, one of Sherman's bummers, Private Robert M. Woodruff of Company H, 30th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, was found dead near Big Lynch Creek in Chesterfield County allegedly beaten to death by the enemy.

The next day, on Thursday, March 2nd, the Headquarters, 17th Army Corps issued the following order:

HDQRS. SEVENTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Thirteen Miles from Cheraw, S.C., March 2, 1865.
SPECIAL ORDERS, No. 56.
I:
In accordance with instructions from the major-general commanding the army, directing that for each 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-martial, Seventeenth Army Corps, will select from the prisoners in his 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, Thirtienth Illinois Volunteers, a regularly detailed forager, who was beaten to death by the enemy near Blakney's Bridge on or about the 1st day of March, 1865.


The Union major initially refused to pick a prisoner for execution, believing that Private Woodruff -- who'd apparently been unpopular among his own peers -- might have been murdered by one of his own comrades.


It would actually be learned several years later that the Yankee had actually been killed by a slave who had been taken by this soldier. When the opportunity arose, the slave killed Private Woodruff and returned to his master's farm.

Regardless, the major was threatened with court-martial if the order was not carried out.

At about noon that day, lots were then drawn among the Confederate prisoners. One young prisoner was the unfortunate winner, but another prisoner stepped forward volunteering to take the young man's place, an older man named James Miller.

James Madison Miller was a native of Chesterfield County, born in Jefferson, South Carolina on Sunday, April 7, 1816 and was a Methodist minister and father of six when the war broke out in 1861. Private Miller served in Company C, 5th Battalion, South Carolina Reserves (also known as Brown's Battalion), and later as a guard and minister for prisoners at the Florence POW Stockade between September of 1864 till February of 1865.

The 48 year old Miller was at home on leave when he was captured by Union troops in late February, 1865. Private Miller was taken to a nearby ravine where a firing squad of half-a-dozen member of Woodruff's infantry company waited to execute him.

According to eyewitness accounts, the Union major tried to tie Miller's hands, but the Confederate private asked for no restraints. The major then handed him a handkerchief and told the prisoner to drop it when his prayers were concluded.

According to the personal account of a Wisconsin Union soldier who witnessed the terrible scene:

"As the smoke floated away among the tall pines, our boys looked with sadness upon the bleeding corpse of a brave old man who had med his death unflinchingly and heroically for the crime of another man. If the old man had bounded away into the forest, we'd never have run a step to catch him."


The following was recorded in a Union soldiers diary entry:


"At noon the prisoners had by lot selected one of their number and was sent under guard to the 30th Ills - and was by them shot at 2 P.M. The unfortunate man was over 40 years of age and the father  of numerous family - he met his fate like a hero, five balls entered into his breast. On visiting his grave afterward I found the following inscription: "James M. Miller Co. C. Browns Batt. S.C. Infy. Who was shot to death in retaliation for a regularly detailed forager who was murdered and found near Big Lynch Creek S.C., March 2nd 1865."

The execution of Private James M. Miller was the final act of petty retaliation by Sherman's invading army in South Carolina before marching north into eastern North Carolina and the final surrender of the Confederate Army of Tennessee over a month later.


Private James M. Miller's grave and memorial marker at
Five Forks Methodist Church Cemetery near Pageland, in
Chesterfield County, South Carolina.

The marker on the gravestone of Private James M. Miller.


The following sources were used for this article:

Touring the Carolinas' Civil War Sites by Clint Johnson ISBN 0-89587-146-7.
The Chesterfield (SC) Historical Society http://chesterfield.scgen.org/historicalsociety.html.
The U.S. Library of Congress -- The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies.
All photos of the grave of Private James M. Miller were taken by the Witherspoon-Barnes Camp #1445 Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).

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