KSGenWeb Digital Library Biographical Sketch of Delos E. Miller Atchison County, Kansas

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The following transcription is from a 750 page book titled "Genealogical and Biographical Record of North-Eastern Kansas, dated 1900.  These have been diligently transcribed and generously contributed by Penny R. Harrell, please give her a very big Thank You for her hard work!

Delos E. Miller, the proprietor of the Miller Hotel, Atchison, Kansas, is a native of Portage county, Ohio, born March 9, 1843, on the same farm on which his father was born, his parents being A. D. and Malissa J. (George) Miller.  Both the paternal and maternal grandfathers of our subject were pioneer settlers of the same neighborhood in Portage county, and it was there that the mother of Delos E. was born.

Her father was William George. A. D. Miller was by trade a shoemaker, which he followed for a number of years.  Both he and his wife passed their lives and died in Portage county.  Delos E. Miller spent his boyhood days on his father's farm, attending the common schools in winter, and in early manhood came west to Kansas.

In Shawnee county, this state, September 4, 1862, he enlisted and was mustered into the United States service at Leavenworth, Kansas, September 18, 1862, as a private of Company H, Eleventh Regiment Kansas Volunteers, under Captain Joel Huntoon and Colonel Thomas Ewing, Jr., to serve three years or during the war. 

The regiment having been armed, he moved with it October 4, 1862, from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Scott, arrived there October 9, and waited for supplies until the 15th; from there moved to Pea Ridge, as guard to an ammunition and supply train; reaching there October 19, he was assigned by General Schofield to the Third Brigade, First Division, Army of the Frontier, moving on the night of the 20th, under command of General Blunt, to Bentonville, Arkansas; on the night of the 21st to old Fort Wayne, attacking at daylight on October 22, and routing, three thousand rebels under the command of General Cooper.

Mr. Miller took part in the battle of Cane Hill, where his regiment led charge, routing the enemy and pursuing them six miles to where the battle of Boston Mountain was fought, followed by the battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas, where he was slightly wounded in the left hip by a gunshot.

A few days after the battle of Prairie Grove, the Eleventh Kansas marched south, down the Cove creek road, in pursuit of Hindman's rebel forces toward Fort Smith.  The first twenty miles of this road led through a gorge of the Boston Mountains and crossed Cove Creek road forty times in this gorge, it being a very swift mountain stream, through which the men had to wade, often waist deep, in the cold winter weather of the last days of December, finally reaching the Arkansas river at Van Buren in time to attack and capture a portion of the rear guard of the rebel army.

After the fall of Fort Smith, the regiment returned to Fort Scott, Kansas, where as a reward for its gallantry and bravery, on the order of General Schofield it was changed to a regiment of cavalry, and spent the summer of 1863 in almost daily skirmishes with bushwhackers and guerrillas who were under Quantrell, until he was driven from the sand hills of Missouri to Texas.

In the spring of 1864 it headed off the rebel cavalry raid on the Kansas border, which was under the command of General Joseph Shelby.  He took part in all the seventeen engagements fought during Price's invasion of Missouri.  After the Price raid he was sent with his regiment to guard the overland stage route through western Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming, during which time he took part in the two battles of Platte Bridge, June 3 and July 26, and of the Sand Hills July 20, 30, 1865.

Company H, to which he belonged, was detached from the regiment in the early spring of 1865, and with other troops, under the command of General Thomas Moonlight, formed the central division of General Sully's expedition against hostile Indians to the Big Horn and Wind River mountains, on which the train of supplies was captured by the Indians and the soldiers fed on rose-buds and roots to keep from starving on their return to Fort Laramie.

Mr. Miller was discharged with his regiment September 13, 1865, at Fort Leavenworth, on a special order of the war department, on account of the expiration of the term of enlistment.  He is a member of John A. Martin Post, No. 93, G. A. R., of Atchison, Department of Kansas.

At the close of his army service, in 1865, Mr. Miller engaged in the hotel business as the proprietor of the old Seneca Hotel at Leavenworth, Kansas.  Afterward he conducted the Holden, at Holden, Missouri, for a time and went thence to Lawrence, this state, where he also engaged in the hotel business.  His next move was to Atchison and he has ever since been in the same line of business.

For a short time he kept a restaurant, then he bought the Byram hotel, which he conducted five years, and after that established himself in what has since been known as the Miller Hotel, which he has since owned.

Mr. Miller was married, December 21, 1868, to Miss Mary Johnson of Pleasant Hill, Missouri.  Mrs. Miller was born in Liverpool, England, was brought to this country in infancy, and was reared chiefly in St. Louis, Missouri, moving from there to Pleasant Hill, Missouri, with her parents, and at that place was married.  They have two children, Katherine and Louise, the former the wife of H. H. Summers, of Lincoln, Nebraska; the latter the wife of Henry Bush, the manager of the Byram hotel, at Atchison.

Mr. Miller is a Republican, and has several times served as a member of the city council of Atchison.  He is identified with numerous fraternal organizations.  He is a member of Atchison Lodge, No. 158, F. & A. M.; Washington Chapter, No. I, R. A. M.; Washington Commandery, No. 2, Knight Templars; Mystic Shrine; Friendship Lodge, No. 5, I. O. O. F.; Hesperian Encampment; Knights of the Maccabees; Golden Cross, K. of P.; and Improved Order of Red Men.

Last update: Monday, January 09, 2006 01:03:00

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