Replies

More Bedtime Stories For Damnyankees
or 66 Days of Hell

An Account of Sherman's March Through South Carolina Vol. 5 of the Confederate Regimental History Series Sherman's March Through South Carolina by John Rigdon

This article is the excerpted from a talk given on the subject and was published in the April 1999 issue of "The Front Line."

The loss of life both to the Confederate and Federal armies, and the population at large was relatively light in view of the destruction of property. In his report, the Surgeon for the Federal Forces, D. L. Huntington, puts their losses at 106 deaths and 697 wounded. A tally of the first hand accounts indicates a much higher number - something approaching 1,000 deaths. Confederate casualties are unknown for this period. There is a report of some 200 civilians being massacred in the upstate above Columbia, and something less than 20 killed when Columbia was burned, but the records are virtually non-existent as Sherman burned almost everything in his path. The tallies made by the federal officers would indicate approx. 300 confederate troops died.

The following excerpts are taken from "The Fiery Trail" by Thomas Osborn and other first hand accounts of the march.
30 DEC 1864 - Exit Savannah
02 JAN 1865 - First Crossing into South Carolina by Federal Troops
05 JAN 1865 - Pocotaligo
09 JAN 1865 - Sherman and his officers arrived by Steamer at Beaufort from Savannah.
They marched out of Savannah on 31 DEC 1864.
I do not think it is in General Sherman's plans to move directly against Charleston, but to neutralize it by other operations. It is strongly fortified and an attempt to take it would result in a large loss of men. The information we pick up indicates that the enemy is not in large force in this part of the country, but that the main body of the troops have been shipped to some other point. The prominent railroad connections above us, the posession of which appear to be of value in cutting off supplies from General Lee's army are Branchville, Columbia, Florence, Raleigh, Goldsboro, Greensboro, Weldon and Danville.."3
"Our soldiers were so many, needed so many supplies, and felt themselves at last on South Carolina soil, that a lawless spirit came over them and many complaints came to me of their doings." 4
14 JAN 1865 - Gen. Howard leaves Beaufort to join Gen. Blair
Battle at Pocotaligo creek. Federal loss - 2 officers killed and 2 men wounded. Federal forces take the railroad at Pocotaligo Station with a loss of about a dozen men.
15 JAN 1865 - Right wing of Sherman's army reaches Beaufort, SC
17 JAN 1865 - XVII A.C. occupies the Savannah & Charleston railroad. Loss Federal - about 12 men. "The XVII Corps has occupied the Charleston and Savannah railroad which it succeeded in doing with a loss of about a dozen men. I am told here that at one time and another 6,000 men have been lost in attempts to occupy this railroad from this point. Of course we have more men than has at any one time been employed and the enemy are in less confident spirit than at any time before. Yet I am disposed to think that the success with so light a loss is more owing to good military judgement than to any other cause." 5

25 JAN 1865 - 4 straight days of rain reported - all streams uncrossable. Federal estimates up to 20,000 Confederate in front. "We are about starting on a new campaign and it is not now unlikely we shall be absent from the coast as long as we were between Atlanta and Savannah. We may not be out of reach more than two weeks, quite likely six, but I guess about four. We cannot tell how much the enemy will oppose us, from present indications not very much, but probably more then [sic] in the last campaign. General Grant notifies General Sherman that General Lee shall not send his army, or any portion of it, against this. If that promise can be kept, the enemy has not force enough in our front to hinder us greatly.6
26 JAN 1865 - The XV A.C. leaves Beaufort."We know little or nothing about the future. General Sherman says it is to be the greatest campaign yet undertaken. So General Hooker said before Chancellorsville, and he was correct. I hope General Sherman will not be correct in the same sense."7
28 JAN 1865 - Roper's Crossroads
29 JAN 1865 - Federal forces leave Pocataligo for the mid-state. Federal troop strength 60,000 men. Gen. Slocum has crossed the Savannah River above Savannah and is moving towards Branchville. "The remnants of General Hood's army, left after the battle of Nashville, is moving east and will probably be in our front again." 8
02 FEB 1865 - Rivers' Bridge - Salkehatchire River. Federal losses about a dozen men killed and wounded. Confederate dead reported by Federal forces - four. "We took last evening seven prisoners, and this morning picked up a few more. We learn that the 5th, 37th, 47th Georgia Infantry Regiments were here also 5th South Carolina Artillery, 4th Tennessee Cavalry, also two companies of Texas Cavalry, in all 2700 men, commanded by Colonel Harrison, 32nd Ga. Infantry."9
"At McBride's plantation, where Sherman had his headquarters, the out-houses, offices, shanties, and surroundings were all set on fire before he left. I think the fire approaching the dwelling hastened his departure... In Georgia few houses were burned; here few escaped, and the country was converted into one vast bonfire. The pine forests were fired; the resin factories were fired; the public buildings and private dwellings were fired. The middle of the finest day looked black and gloomy, for a dense smoke rose on all sides clouding the very heavens - at night the tall pine trees seemed so many huge pillars of fire. The flames hissed and screeched, as they fed on the fat resin and dry branches, imparting to the forest a most fearful appearance... The ruins of homesteads of the Palmetto State will long be remembered. The army might safely march the darkest night, the crackling pine woods shooting up their columns of flame, and the burning houses along the way would light it on, while the dark clouds and pillars of smoke would safely cover its rears. I hazard nothing in saying that three-fifths of value of the personal property of the counties we passed through were taken by Sherman's army." 10
03 FEB 1865 - Federal forces reach the Salkahatchie river. "The actual invasion of South Carolina has begun... The well-known sight of columns of black smoke meets our gaze again; this time houses are burning, and South Carolina has commenced to pay an installment, long overdue, on her debt to justice and humanity. With the help of God, we will have principal and interest before we leave her borders. There is a terrible gladness in the realization of so many hopes and wishes. This cowardly traitor state, secure from harm, as she thought, in her central position, with hellish haste dragged her Southern sisters into the caldron of secession. Little did she dream that the hated flag would again wave over her soil; but this bright morning a thousand Union banners are floating in the breeze, and the ground trembles beneath the tramp of thousands of brave Northmen, who know their mission, and will perform it to the end." 11
05 FEB 1865 - Branchville "The majority of the citizens here are of the same "cracker or sand hill" species we have found so plentiful everywhere we have been. I heard a soldier say to his comrade today the "the whole damned state was not worth the life of our Federal soldiers," He was about right. We everywhere hear the fear expressed of "Negro equality," while no one ever expressed a fear of equality with this class of "Southern white trash." They are lower than the negro in every respect, not excepting general intelligence, culture, and morality. A man not acquainted with this larger population of the South can form an idea of it in their style of living and cleanliness, &c. They are not fit to be kept in the same sty with a well-to- do farmer's hogs in New England. Once in ten or fifteen miles we find a plantation owned by a "reliable" man, a "first family" who lives in Charleston or Columbia, while every half mile we find a shanty with the poles a foot apart, a stick chimney, three or four half naked children, two or three with nothing but a shirt, but with an incrustation of dirt which entirely conceals the natural color; the mother with her person partially concealed by ragged cotton cloth and dirt combined. If you ask her where her husband is, the reply is "in the Army"... 12
07 FEB 1865 - Blackville "Our foraging parties are now gathering on the north side of the river more material than can be consumed, and large accumulations will be left in the morning... we find more supplies in this country than I feared we might. Chickens, sweet potatoes, fresh pork, and honey and fresh lard, all rewarded the zealous inquiries of our headquarters foragers today." 13
"Our troops reached the R.R. about 2 P.M. .. There is a German Jew who has a couple hundred bales of cotton and wants protection because he is a foreigner. He asks that his cotton be saved to pay some "beebles" [people] up in New York, who he owes some "little debts." He will hardly save the cotton. "14
"I visited today the residence of William Gilmore Simms, the South Carolina novelist and author of "Marion" &c. He has evacuated but has left a very ardent secesh family to protect the residence and library for him. He has a fine library. I think it will be saved, but I should have no objection to seeing it burned... many books from his library, bearing his autograph, found their way into camp, and were carried away by the men as mementoes." 15
11 FEB 1865 - North Fork - Orangeburg "We do so many thing that are wrong in this living off the country in the way we do that I do not like it and I am afraid of retribution...but the army must be fed and the Bummers must feed us,"16
11 FEB 1865 - Battle of Aiken
12 FEB 1865 - Orangeburg "Orangeburg contains about 800 people, and was, before we entered it a fine little place with a fair proportion of churches, small cotton brokers' establishments, &c &c... If the town had been built on purpose for a bonfire it could not have been bettered. All that could be done was to watch it on the windward side and the outskirts of the town. We occupied the town at 2 P. M. and at four one third or one half of the town was on fire and burning with the greatest rapidity. I think one half of the body of the town was destroyed. The fires was not so extensive as the one in Atlanta, but more grand and beautiful."17
13 FEB 1865 - Big Beaver Creek "Today has been beautiful, clear and still. From the starting of the column this morning we could trace the tracks of each by the column of smoke from burning buildings, cotton, turpentine mills, pine woods &c. [Along] the line of the XVII A.C. on the R. R. the smoke lifted like a grand curtain here and there, tassled by a more dense column of smoke from a store house of cotton or resin. The columns of smoke which marked Logan's line of march were more isolated, but in themselves were very dense. Many of these columns were really wonderful. The smoke rising from the pitch fields rolled up in volumes to the sky so impenetrable that not a ray of light could be seen through them. They looked like a dozen cities burning at the same time. I wish I had the power of describing the grandeur of this scene." 18
15 FEB 1865 - Little Congaree
16 FEB 1865 - Saluda Factory on the Saluda River "A little before midnight last night the enemy opened fire from a battery in position on the north side of the river, firing into the rear of our troops on this side. We had no artillery with which we could silence it and they did considerable damage, killing an officer and several men, and wounding nearly twenry. The fire was very annoying." 17
17 FEB 1865 - Gen. Hampton evacuates Columbia
18 FEB 1865 - Columbia surrendered to the Federal forces - subsequently burned. "... when the brigade occupied the town the citizens and negroes brought out whiskey in buckets, bottles and in every conceivable manner treated the men to all they would drink. ... The negroes, escaped prisoners, state convicts, and such other people as would all went into the work of pillaging with a will. By this time all parties were willing to assist it on... The negroes piloted the men to the best places for plunder, and both men and negroes by evening were setting fires rapidly... One cannot conceive of anything which would or could make a grander fire than this one, excepting a larger city than Columbia. The city was built entirely of wood, and was in most excellent condition to burn. The space on fire at midnight was not less than one mile square, and one week before, sheltered from 25,000 to 30,000 people. The flames rolled and heaved like the waves of the ocean; the road was like a cataract. The whole air was filled with burning cinders, and fragments of fire as thick as the flakes of snow in a storm. The scene was splendid - magnificently grand. The scene of pillaging, the suffering and terror of the citizens, the arresting of and shooting negroes, and our frantic and drunken soldiers... this I will leave for the present for the imagination of those who choose to dwell upon it... I have in this war seen too much... and choose rather to remember the magnificent splendor of this burning city... I believe the burning of the city is an advantage to the cause and a just retribution to the state of South Carolina. 20

21 FEB 1865 - Winnsboro "Two of our men were found today with their brains beat out, and from all appearances had been captured and then murdered." 21
23 FEB 1865 - Rocky Mount "General Sherman sends us word again today that the enemy have murdered eleven of Kilpatrick's men, and the General has also ordered retaliation by killing the same number of rebels now in Kilpatrick's hands. Kilpatrick reported the incident: " An infantry lieutenant and seven men murdered yesterday by the 8th Texas Cavalry after they had surrendered. We found their bodies all together and mutilated, with paper on their breasts, saying "Death to foragers." Eighteen of my men were killed yesterday and some had their throats cut... I have sent Wheeler word that I intend to hang eighteen of his men... I have a number of prisoners and shall take a fearful revenge."
22 02 MAR 1865 - Cheraw
02 MAR 1865 - Florence "The sufferings which the people will have to undergo will be most intense. We have left on the wide strip of country we have passed over no provisions which will go any distance in supporting the people. We have left no stock by means of which they can get more. All horses, mules and cattle, sheep and hogs have been taken. They cannot go outside of the country traversed for lack of transportation... Even before we came into the State the provisions were vastly greater than we had ever supposed... We have been out on this trip a little longer than before, and made the same distance, and covered the same or a greater breadth of territory, and have again left nothing... I do not think that the Rebel armies will not fight, they will do so whenever an opportunity offers, which affords a hope of success. They still believe their government, their property, their honor, and their Southern pride is at stake, and they will fight for them. "In addition to what is said above of the people, there is one thing they invariably do, no matter how great the cost: they cling to the niggers as the visible proof of their respectability and chivalry and no matter how great the sacrifices they are compelled to make to restore them, they willingly make the sacrifices.23
11 MAR 1865 - Fayetteville, NC
16 MAR 1865 - Averasboro
19 MAR 1865 - Bentonville
26 APR 1865 - Gen. Johnston's troops surrendered at Goldsboro, NC
NOTES: 1. Osborn, Thomas. The Fiery Trail - A Union Officer's Account of Sherman's Last Campaigns. Knoxville, The University of Tennessee Press. 1986 pg. 143.
2. ibid. pg.
3. ibid. pg. 81.
4. Howard, Oliver Otis. Autobiography. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1907. pg. 98-99.
5. Osborn. pg. 82
6. ibid. pg. 83
15. Simms, William Gilmore. Sack and Destruction of the City of Columbia. SC Atlanta 1937. pg. 18-19.
16. Howard. Collection of personal papers in a letter to his daughter.
17. Osborn. pg. 117. 18. ibid. pg. 119. 19. ibid. pg. 125. 20. ibid. pg. 128. 21. ibid. pg. 143
22. O. R. Ser. 1 vol. 47 pt. 2 pg. 533.
23. Osborn. pg. 153.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: Unpublished Letters and Papers Oliver Otis Howard. Letters. Howard Collection. Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine. Thomas Ward Osborn. "Autiobio-graphical Sketch." Florida State University, Tallahassee. Sherman, William Tecumseh. "Report of Major General William T. Sherman to the Hon. Committee on the Conduct of the War. 2 vols. Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office. 1866. Newspapers and Articles Gibbes, James E. Philadelphia Times (Sept. 20, 1880) Hesseltine, William B. and Larry Gara, eds. "Sherman Burns the Libraries", South Carolina Historical Magazine IV no. 3 (July 1954)
The Civil War in South Carolina © - 1998 Eastern Digital Resources
The Civil War in South Carolina Index

"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 24th 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. 13th 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 1st 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 17th 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.)"

I guess the Colonel will be given valuable insight into the yankees' true opinion of his humble, therefore more honorable, southern ancestors.