James T. Miller was a soldier from the Warren area who enlisted early in the war in response to President Lincoln's call for three-year volunteers. Older than the average enlistee, he was almost 32 years old with a wife and three young children when he enlisted in the fall of 1861. James operated a small farm in northwest Pennsylvania, but his sense of patriotism and duty led him to place his life in harm's way. The 111th PA Volunteers would fight in dozens of battles--including Antietam, Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge--serving in bloody campaigns in both the eastern and western theaters. They would be the first troops to enter both Atlanta and Savannah and at the end of the war would be assigned the task of guarding the Lincoln Conspirators. James would not live to see the conclusion of the war--he was among the many men killed in the bloody fighting that took place at Peach Tree Creek outside of Atlanta. We know of his ordeal and his innermost thoughts thanks to the hundreds of letters he wrote home and to the editorial efforts of Jedediah Mannis and Galen R. Wilson. Their book, Bound to be a Soldier (2001), reveals the depth of American patriotism during the mid-nineteenth century. James--a mostly self-educated farm-boy--often wrote home about the impact of Democratic Copperheads who wished to see the nation permanently divided with slavery permitted to exist. He vented his anger against the "cowards" in the North who hired substitutes so that they could avoid military conscription and possible injury or death in the bloody fight to reunite the country. These strong feelings were expressed even against his own brothers. When James learned from the family that his brothers William, Joseph, and John had all joined the association formed for such purposes in their township, he railed against the practice and his brothers in a letter to William, dated September 7, 1863.*
Dear Brother yours of [the] 29th inst i got on the fifth and was glad you were well . . . my health is good and the health of the regiment is good i am glad to hear the draft is over but i am sorry to hear that you joined that white livered thing which you call the Club. but i think the best name for it would be the Cowards retreat for i cant help but think that when men that think the war is a just one and pretend to want to see it finished take such a course as that to get out of doing their share of the duty that they care but very little about thier Country. and i have no doubt but what you all would like to see the war closed by those of us that are in the field . . . your friends of the club would be very much pleased and would pat us on the back and call us good fellows as long as you can stay at home and have some one else do the fighting marching and dieing. it is not pleasant i admit to be deprived of enjoyments of home and it does not seem funy to have bulletts sing close to ones ears and [it is] still more disagreeable when one of them brakes a leg or an arm. i know it is like tearing ones eyes out to leave wives and children . . . and endure the hardships of a soldiers life. still you wife is no dearer to you than mine is to me. i hope the government will make another draft and drop the commutation clasue . . . our reg[imen]t have got 276 conscripts or more properly substitutes for i believe there is not one drafted man among the whole lot of them. i guess you will think i am quite harsh but i have written just as i feel on the subject . . .
Bound to be a Soldier is an excellent portrayal of one family's ordeal during the American Civil War. Readers will find James Miller's letters not only touching but inspiring. That our region produced the quality of such men during this national crisis is a tribute to our ancestors and Northwest Pennsylvania.
* James was one of seven children. Another brother, Robert E. Miller, served with the ill-fated 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers, and survived the war.
