Jacob Miller’s Tough Nut

Jacob Miller was a soldier in the Union Army that fought against the Confederacy in the American Civil War. On 19 September 1863, during the Battle of Chickamauga, he was shot in the forehead. Given the rudimentary medical care available in the mid-nineteenth century, and the lack of facilities on hand, that should have been the end of poor Jacob. However, it seems that the young soldier had other ideas.

What happened next was described by Miller in his own words: “When I came to my senses sometime after, I found I was in the rear of the confederate line. So not to become a prisoner, I made up my mind to make an effort to get around their line and back on my own side. I got up with the help of my gun as a staff, then went back some distance, then started parallel with the line of battle. I suppose I was so covered with blood that those that I met, did not notice that I was a Yank, (at least our Major, my former captain did not recognize me when I met him after passing to our own side)”.

“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.” Eventually, exhausted from his toils, he laid down by the side of the road. Fortunately, some passing stretcher bearers saw him, put him on a stretcher and carried him to the field hospital. “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.”

Fearing that he would be taken prisoner by the Confederates if he were left behind, Jacob decided to take matters into his own hands. “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.”

Once again fortune was on Jacob’s side. The wagons of wounded heading for 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, he passed out.

Upon waking, Jacob found himself in Chattanooga, “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.”

“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.”

Shortly thereafter, the wounded were sent to Bridgeport, Alabama, by wagon. “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.” Astonishingly, given his condition, he walked the sixty miles to Bridgeport in four days. During the journey Jacob was finally able to open his right eye without using his fingers. From Bridgeport they caught a train to Nashville. So exhausted was Jacob by this time, that he passed out during the ride. When Jacob eventually regained consciousness, he found himself sitting in a tub of warm water in a hospital in Nashville. From there he was transferred to a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, and then onto yet another in New Albany, Indiana. Jacob desperately 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 found two doctors who agreed to operate on his wound. They removed the musket ball and he remained in hospital until he was de enlisted on September 17, 1864, almost one year after being shot. However, it seems that the doctors failed to remove all of the foreign debris from Jacob’s head. “Seventeen years after I was wounded, a buck shot dropped out of my wound. And thirty one years after, two pieces of lead came out.”

Many years later, when asked how he could recall the matter in such detail, he replied, “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.” However, Jacob was not one to complain, commenting, “The government is good to me and give me $40 per month pension.”

The above account is taken from an interview he gave to The Joliet Daily News, who published his remarkable story on June 14, 1911, almost fifty years after he sustained, what should have been, his fatal injury. Jacob Miller died in about 1917, aged approximately seventy-five. Not bad going for a man who spent around half a century with lead in his head.

Sources:

medium.com

wearethemighty.com