The Battle of Chickamauga was fought for three days in September of 1863 during the
American Civil War. It was the Union’s most significant defeat in the Western Theater
and the second battle with the highest number of casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg.
More than 35,000 men lost their lives, while around 100,000 troops were engaged in battle.
Private Jacob C. Miller was one of them.
During the gruesome battle, the soldier was shot in the face and left behind during a
perilous charge. But to all the witnesses’ disbelief, he rose from the battlefield with
a hole in the middle of his forehead and made it back to Union lines with quite a story to
tell. A
Medal of Honor
Private Jacob Miller served with the Union’s Company G, 113th Illinois Infantry, and was one of
a few men who volunteered for a special operation months before the infamous battle took place.
In May of 1863, Union forces surrounding Vicksburg sealed John Pemberton’s army inside.
General Ulysses Grant believed that the military should lead a large assault
before settling in for a siege. If the assault was successful,
Grant could finish the campaign once and for all. But if the attack failed, Grant knew that his
men would be satisfied enough and remain put to starve the Confederates until they surrendered.
On May 21, a group of volunteers was selected for a special mission.
Their objective was to bridge the moat and plant scaling ladders against the wall.
Of the 300 men who volunteered, half were chosen to storm the battlefield the next day. Under the
incessant fire of a naval barrage, Private Jacob Miller bravely charged along with his companions.
The men were instantly pinned down by the Confederates and beaten back on multiple
occasions. Miller’s group was able to sneak back to the Union camp until midnight.
Half the troops lost their lives, but Miller survived and earned the Medal of Honor for his
actions on May 22, 1863. Dead Man Walking
On September 19, 1863, Private Miller was shot in the face during the Battle of Chickamauga.
He was hit in the middle of the forehead by a Smoothbore firing buck & ball ammunition.
Miller instantly fell to the ground. Soaked in blood, he was left behind by the rest of his unit.
There was no way he could have survived, and his company retreated with the surviving men.
The soldier would publish his firsthand account of the incident at the Joliet Daily News in 1911.
He wrote (QUOTE): “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.”
Miller miraculously survived. He could barely feel his head or extremities,
but he still made his way back to the Confederate line using his rifle as a staff.
He continued (QUOTE): “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.”
After waiting for several hours, Miller was finally taken to a field hospital
where surgeons examined his wound and decided it was best not to operate on him.
Refusing to be left behind or to be captured by the enemy, the headshot survivor marched with the
wounded until he was spotted by fellow members of his company. They were all in disbelief.
Miller attended several hospitals and begged doctors to operate on him, but they all
refused. The pain was unbearable, but they feared extracting the bullet would be the end of him.
Miller wrote (QUOTE): “I suffered for nine months.
Then I got a furlough home to Logansport and got Drs. Fitch and Colman to operate on my wound.
They took out the musket ball. (...) After the operation a few days, I returned to the
hospital at Madison and stayed there till the expiration of my enlistment, September 17, 1864.”
The soldier would continue suffering the physical consequences of his service for years to come.
17 years after being operated on, a buckshot shell dropped from his wound,
and 14 years after that, two pieces of lead came out. He lived to 80 years old.
Miller finished his account by saying (QUOTE): “Some ask how it is I can describe so minutely
my getting wounded and getting off the battlefield after so many years. My 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.”
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