Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1112

1040 the military service and continued in the field until Appomattox. The command of which he became a member was known as Lee's Rangers, and afterward as Company H of the Ninth Virginia cavalry. He enlisted as a private and was soon afterward promoted first sergeant, the rank in which he served during the remainder of the war. He has the remarkable record of honorable participation in fifty-three battles, in all of which the gallant trooper did his whole duty with heroic devotion to the cause of the Confederacy. After the war he was honored by the people of his native county by election to the office of sheriff, which he held from 1875 to 1887. At the close of his official term he removed to Richmond, where, in 1892, he was appointed to the position of deputy sheriff.

M. Erskine Miller, deceased, a native of Alabama and later a resident of Virginia, was reared in the State of Texas, where he enlisted in the military service of the Confederate States. He was born at Huntsville, Ala., February 10, 1843, and, in 1850, accompanied his parents to Texas, where they made their home near Seguin. In the fall of 1861 he enlisted in the service as a private in Terry's Rangers, a cavalry command which was subsequently employed almost entirely in scouting duty in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia. In this arduous and adventurous career he was engaged until February, 1862, when he was compelled to accept a discharge on account of ill health. In the following April, determined still to serve the Confederacy, he became a private in Hood's famous brigade of Texans, in the army of Northern Virginia, with which he served during the remainder of the war. At the battle of Seven Pines, he was twice severely wounded, receiving injuries which disabled him for service in the field until his brigade went with Longstreet to reinforce the army of Tennessee. During this period of disability he was able, however, to render valuable service as a recruiting officer at Wytheville, Va. In the western campaigns he participated in the battles of Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Returning to the theater of war in Virginia, he served with his brigade until the surrender at Appomattox. Subsequently he returned to Texas and was in business there four years. On December 15, 1870, he was married to Miss Harriette, daughter of Gen. John Echols, and, in 1871, he made his home at Staunton, embarking in the wholesale grocery trade. In 1875 he became interested in coal mining in West Virginia, and at the time of his death controlled five mines in the New River district. He was also a director in the National Valley bank of Staunton. In January, 1897, attacked by disease, he sought health in California, but died there June 6th, following. He was a man of remarkable business ability and strict integrity. Mr. Miller's father, James Mason Miller, Sr., is a native of Edenton, N. C. His mother, Margaret, daughter of Michael Erskine, was born at Lewisburg, W. Va. J. Mason Miller, brother of the foregoing, was born in Huntsville, Ala., in 1846, but his parents removing to Texas a few years later, he was reared and educated in the Lone Star State. Early in the war he enlisted in the Sibley brigade, but three weeks later was discharged at San Antonio on account of his youth. Still anxious to render service to the Confederate government, he enlisted a second time as a volunteer, in February, 1863, becoming a private in Company K of the Thirty-third Texas