Jacob Miller: A War-Scarred Survivor
The Battle of Chickamauga was fought in northwest Georgia, near Missionary Ridge, on September 19–20, 1863. The Union Army of the Cumberland was making an offensive maneuver and was attacked by the Confederate Army of Tennessee. The battle resulted in Union defeat and involved the second highest number of casualties in the Civil War following the Battle of Gettysburg.
During the conflict, Jacob Miller, a private in the Union army, sustained a bullet wound to the forehead. He survived and carried the bullet in his head for many years afterward. The following is adapted from an interview Jacob gave to his local newspaper in 1911:
“After being shot,” Jacob says, “I was left for dead when my company fell back from that position. When I came to my senses some time after, I found I was in the rear of the Confederate line.”
Determined not to become a prisoner, Jacob got up using his gun as a staff and made his way through the Confederate troops and off the field of battle. “I suppose I was so covered with blood that those that I met, did not notice that I was a Yank.”
Jacob continued walking until he struck an old by-road, which he followed. “By this time my head was swelled so bad it shut my eyes and I could see to get along only by raising the lid of my right eye with my finger and looking ahead, then going on till I ran afoul of something, then would look again and so on.” At length, he became so exhausted that he laid down by the side of the road. Some bearers passings by, saw him, put him on a stretcher and carried him to the field hospital. Jacob remembers laying in the hospital tent, “A hospital nurse came and put a wet bandage over my wound and around my head and gave me a canteen of water. The surgeons examined my wound and decided it was best not to operate on me and give me more pain as they said I couldn’t live very long, so the nurse took me back into the tent. I slept some during the night. The next morning, the doctors came around to make a list of the wounded and said they were sending all the wounded to Chattanooga, Tennessee. But they told me I was wounded too bad to be moved.”
The doctors assured Jacob that if he was left behind and taken prisoner, he could be exchanged later. The very thought of being a prisoner of war motivated Jacob. “I made up my mind, as long as I could, to drag one foot after another. I got a nurse to fill my canteen with water so I could make an effort in getting as near to safety as possible. I got out of the tent without being noticed and got behind some wagons that stood near the road till I was safely away — having to open my eye with my finger to take my bearings on the road. I went away from the boom of cannon and the rattle of musketry. I worked my way along the road as best I could. At one time, I got off to the side of the road and bumped my head against a low hanging limb. The shock toppled me over, I got up and took my bearings again and went on as long as I could drag a foot, then lay down beside the road.” Jacob hadn’t lain long, when wagons taking the wounded to Chattanooga began to pass by. “One of the drivers asked if I was alive and said he would take me in, as one of his men had died back aways, and he had taken him out.” Once inside the wagon, Jacob lost consciousness.
The next day, Jacob awoke to find himself in Chattanooga. He was inside a long building, “lying with hundreds of other wounded on the floor almost as thick as hogs in a stock car. Some were talking, some were groaning. I raised myself to a sitting position, got my canteen and wet my head. While doing it, I heard a couple of soldiers who were from my company. They could not believe it was me as they said I was left for dead on the field. They came over to where I was and we visited together till an order came for all the wounded that could walk to start across the river on a pontoon bridge to a hospital. We were to be treated and taken to Nashville. I told the boys if they could lead me, I could walk that distance.”
Jacob and his companions made their way to the bridge, but found a long line of troops and artillery crossing it. It was almost sundown before they were able to go over.
“When we arrived across, we found our company teamster, who we stopped with that night. He got us something to eat. It was the first thing I had tasted since Saturday morning, two days earlier. After we ate, we lay down on a pile of blankets, each fixed under the wagon and rested pretty well as the teamsters stayed awake till nearly morning to keep our wounds moist with cool water from a nearby spring.
“The next morning, we awoke to the crackling of the camp fire. We got a cup of coffee and a bite of hard tack and fat meat to eat. While eating, an orderly rode up and asked if we were wounded. If so, we were to go back along the road to get our wounds dressed, so we bid the teamsters good-bye and went to get our wounds attended to. That was the first time my wound was washed and dressed by a surgeon.”
After this, Jacob and his companions received supplies, “a few crackers, some sugar, coffee, salt and a cake of soap.” Then, they were sent by wagon to Bridgeport, Alabama. Jacob remembers the wagon ride being painful. “The jolting hurt my head so badly I could not stand it, so I had to get out. My comrades got out with me and we went on foot.” They walked sixty miles to Bridgeport, taking four days to get there. During the journey Jacob was finally able to open his right eye without using his fingers.
They arrived in Bridgeport and caught a train to Nashville, Tennessee. The exertion of the journey and the pain from the wound had finally taken their toll on Jacob. He remembers laying down in the train car in a state of utter exhaustion. “The sand had run out with me for the time being,” he says.
The next thing Jacob remembers, he was sitting in a tub of warm water in a hospital in Nashville. He was transfered from there to a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Then, to another in New Albany, Indiana. Jacob wanted the bullet to be removed. “In all the hospitals I was in, I begged the surgeons to operate on my head but they all refused.”
After nine months of suffering, Jacob finally got two doctors to agree to operate on his wound. They took out the musket ball and Jacob remained in the hospital until the expiration of his enlistment on September 17, 1864.
There was more than just a musket ball in Jacob’s forehead. “Seventeen years after I was wounded,” he says, “a buck shot dropped out of my wound. And thirty one years after, two pieces of lead came out.”
When asked how he can relate, in such detail, the story of his getting wounded, after so many years. Jacob’s answer is, “I have an everyday reminder of it in my wound and constant pain in the head, never free of it while not asleep. The whole scene is imprinted on my brain as with a steel engraving.”
Jacob wants readers to know that he hasn’t given this interview to complain about his suffering all these years, or to blame anyone else for his misfortune. He says, “The government is good to me and gives me $40.00 per month pension.”
This story was adapted from The Daily News — Joliet, Illinois. Wednesday, June 14, 1911.
