Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Dr. John G. Miller

Surgeon, 11th Iowa Infantry

He was born July 31, 1820 near Gettysburg, Adams County, Pennsylvania. He spent the early years of his life in Pennsylvania, residing in Adams, Bedford and Franklin counties until 1835 when he moved with his father, Jacob Miller, to Columbiana County, Ohio where in 1841 he attended Jesse Holms’ High School in New Lisbon. Mr. Miller began his college career in 1842 at Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania and in 1843 & 1844 continued his education attending college at Oberlin, Ohio, after which he taught school in Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio.

He studied medicine in the office of Dr. Abel Carey, of Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio, and attended a course of medical lectures at Cleveland, during the winter of 1848-'49. The following summer he moved west and practiced medicine in Miami County, Indiana, Red Rock (on the Des Moines River), Marion County, Iowa and Maysville, DeKalb County, Missouri.

In 1853 he attended lectures and graduated from the Castleton Medical College in Vermont. In 1854 he attended lectures and hospitals in New York city, and again graduated in medicine, this time at New York Medical College. After visiting Philadelphia, Pa., and attending medical lectures and hospitals there, he practiced his profession in North Georgetown, Columbiana Co., Ohio, Pella, Marion Co., and Osceola, Clarke County, Iowa, until 1857 when in the spring he went to California, traveled extensively over the state and spent some time in San Francisco.

Dr. Miller returned from California in 1858 & settled in Leavenworth, Kansas where he formed a professional partnership with Dr. Hathaway. In 1860 he moved to Woodson County, in the southeast corner of the Kansas, but on the account of the total failure of the crops in that portion of the State, he left in the same year and relocated himself in Knoxville, Marion Co., Iowa where he resided when Iowa Governor, Samuel J. Kirkwood, appointed him as an Assistant Surgeon of the 11th Iowa Infantry on June 4, 1862.

Dr. Miller was mustered in on July 5, 1862 and was promoted to Surgeon of the regiment on March 5, 1863. During the fighting around Atlanta, Georgia he had charge of the Seventeenth Army Corps, Field Hospital, at Marietta, Ga. On Sherman's march to the sea, and until the army reached Washington, he had charge of the Moving Hospital of the Sixth Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps. Dr. Miller was mustered out of the service with his regiment at Louisville, Kentucky on July 10, 1865.

After the close of the war he spent eighteen or twenty months in the Pennsylvania oil regions, practicing medicine and dealing in oil. In 1867 he located in Pleasant Hill, Cass Co., Mo., where he practiced his profession successfully until the fall of 1872, when he removed to Atchison, Kan. In the spring of 1873, the Ad Eundem degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred upon him by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Kansas City, Mo.

He went to the Black Hills in the Dakota Territory in December, 1876, where he remained for four years, except one winter spent in Atchison, Kansas. While in the Black Hills, he was physician and surgeon for the Homestake Mining Company and had charge of the Hospital of the Holy Cross, controlled by the Sisters of Mercy.

Dr. Miller spent the summer of 1881 in Gunneson mining region, and in June, 1882, was once again practicing his profession from his office in Breman's Drug Store, at 421 Commercial street, Atchison, Kansas, where he also resided at 721 North Fifth Street.

John G. Miller was married at Brownsville, Fayette County, Pennyslvania., in 1854, to Annie Bennett, daughter of Capt. Isaac Bennet. They had two children, both daughters - Lillie, wife of W. W. Hetherington of Hetherington Exchange Bank, and Mary, who married J. Levin, Manager of the Western Union Telegraph office at Atchison.

Sources: Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System; Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers During the War of the Rebellion, Vol. 2, p. 285; Cutler, William G., History of the State of Kansas; 1880 Federal Census, Lead City, Lawrence Co., Dakota Territory.

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