110

Two letters by Iowa sergeant Joseph G. Miller, his portrait, and other family photographs and letters.

Various places, circa 1840s to 1894
24 items (14 letters and 10 photographs); condition varies but generally strong.

Joseph G. Miller (1836-1864) was born in New Jersey and came west to Iowa with his parents; he worked as a silversmith in Boonesborough. He enlisted as a sergeant in the 32nd Iowa Infantry in 1862. This lot includes two letters home to his sister Lydia Miller Winslow (1830-1917). 

The first is dated from Benton, Arkansas on 21 November 1863: "I have been hurried with watch work till I positively refused to take in any more. I can hardly get off that way as there is no one here to repair them, and I have as good a chance as anyone in the army. . . . Our train of wagons was captured a short time ago, ten in all, between here & Little Rock by the Rebs. They took all the mules, & as much clothing as they could put on their mules." A soldier named T.E. Dooley escaped, "being just from the hosp, was too feeble to ride as fast as they went & fell off, & found his way after night to a house where he was kindly cared for & brought to our pickets next day." Another comrade spent two weeks as captive with General Marmaduke's forces; "Price's army is fast dwindling down; their guns are all kinds and ammunition so scarce." 

He wrote again from Vicksburg, MS on 13 February 1864: "We got quite a number of prisoners. Some of them tell us that the conscripted Rebs will desert as they did, the very first opportunity, although they say they knew nothing of Abe's proclamation of pardon." In Vicksburg, "we cannot find a hill or bunch of earth however small but that there is a hole or holes dug into it for men to hide in, yes, & sometimes their families." 

Miller was soon captured at the Battle of Pleasant Hill in Louisiana, and died of disease at the Camp Ford prison in Texas, the largest west of the Mississippi. Soon after the war, Miller's sister received a letter from another Iowa soldier, announcing that he had Sergeant Miller's personal effects in his possession: "4 photographs of himself, 3 gold finger rings . . . memorandum book &c." He assured her that "his sickness which was somewhat lingering was borne with a great deal of patience & fortitude. . . . Sergt Miller was very much respected by his associates."  

The collection also includes a sixth-plate tintype of Sergeant Joseph Miller in his Civil War uniform; and two letters sent to him by his sweetheart Sue Reaper of Nevada, Iowa in October 1862, shortly after his enlistment. Also included in this lot are: 

9 family letters, most to Lydia Miller, most written from Iowa, 1862-1894.

3 other cased images of the Miller family, many of them identified by grandnephew Herbert Miller in 1940. A ninth-plate tintype apparently shows Keturah Morris Miller (1795-1866) in Quaker garb; she spent her early years in New Jersey, had been disowned by the Quakers, died in Polk County, Iowa, and was the mother of Sergeant Joseph Miller. A sixth-plate tintype shows Gilbert Miller (1793-1877), father of Sergeant Joseph Miller. A double sixth-plate portrait of Keturah and Gilbert Miller is the only one in poor condition. 

5 cased images of the Chandlers, who were Herbert Miller's mother's family; many were identified by him in 1940.  The earliest is a double sixth-plate image with facing portraits in one case, thought to show patriarch Charles Chandler (1804-1843), who died young in Yates County, NY; and his wife Mary Bishop Chandler (1806-1872). The images have been used on their Ancestry.com family tree pages. A ninth-plate daguerreotype shows Herbert Miller's grandfather George William Chandler (1831-1918), who went west to Iowa and owned the Moingona Pottery Works. A ninth-plate in a decorative black lacquer case is identified as "grandmother's sister?", a sister of Elizabeth Moore Chandler (1836-1906). A ninth-plate tintype shows aunt Jennie Chandler Slaughter (1834-1916). A sixth-plate daguerreotype shows "Gr Grandmother Chandler & daughter," Mary Bishop Chandler (1806-1872). 

Carte-de-visite portrait of an unidentified woman on an Akron, OH mount, thought in 1940 to be "probably one of the Winslows." 

Provenance: to Sergeant Miller's nephew Anthony Melville Miller (1858-1943); his son Herbert Miller (1890-1967) of Des Moines, IA, who identified some of the photographs with the help of his father in 1940; left behind in his home in Des Moines, IA after his 1967 death; then sold circa 1977 by the new homeowners to the consignor, who contributed extensive research notes. 

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