Nelson Appleton Miles
Nelson Appleton Miles (born August 8, 1839 in Westminster , Massachusetts , † May 15, 1925 in the District of Columbia ) was an American officer and commander of the United States Army .
biography
youth
Miles was the youngest child of Daniel and Mary (Curtis) Miles. After finishing school in Westminster, he went to Boston , where he worked as a salesman in a pottery shop.
Civil war
Through self-study and training with a French veteran , he prepared in 1861 for combat in the American Civil War , which he entered with the rank of 1st Lieutenant of the 22nd Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment. He had his baptism of fire during the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31, 1862, when he served on General Howard's staff . After this battle he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the 61st New York Volunteer Infantry with rank of May 31, 1862 and finally took command of the regiment in the middle of the Battle of Antietam after the commanding colonel was wounded. He led it in the bloody battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville , where he was wounded. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery at Chancellorsville .
In the following years he was given command of the first brigade of the first division of the II Corps of the Potomac Army and was finally promoted to volunteer brigadier general with a patent from May 12, 1864 . As such, he commanded the first division of II Corps in the final battles of the war during the Appomattox campaign . On October 21, 1865, he was appointed major general. At times he commanded the second corps. Also known he was appointed as commander of Fort Monroe , Virginia , where the former president of the Confederacy , Jefferson Davis , was interned.
Indian Wars
In July 1866 he was promoted to Colonel and first posted to Fort Raleigh, North Carolina , to the Freedmen's Bureau. On June 30, 1868, he married Mary Hoyt Sherman, the niece of General William Tecumseh Sherman . This marriage resulted in two children. In 1869 Miles became the commander of the 5th US Infantry at Fort Hays, Kansas . In 1874/75, in the Red River War , Miles led a command of infantry and cavalry against Indians on the southern plains. After Custer's defeat at Little Bighorn , Miles went to Montana to fight the Sioux and force them to surrender. His troops defeated the Indians in October 1876 at Bad Route Creek and in December in the headwaters of the Red Water River. On January 8, 1877, he defeated Crazy Horse and his entourage at the Wolf Mountains and the Minneconjous at Little Muddy Creek on May 7 of the same year. Finally, in October 1877, he prevented Chief Joseph and the Nez Percé from escaping to Canada and placed them in the Bear Paw Mountains (see Nez Percé War ).
On 15 December 1880 he was promoted to brigadier general of the regular army and commanded the Military District Columbia, later the Military District Missouri until 1886, when he succeeded General George Crook was as commander of the Military District Arizona, where he in September of the same year the Apache leader Geronimo to Could force abandonment.
Further tasks
From 1888 to 1890 Miles commanded the Territorial Command Pacific ( Military Division of the Pacific ) and was finally promoted to Major General and Commander of the Territorial Command (later Military Division ) Missouri on April 5, 1890 . Four years later he was given command of the Defense Area East, and in 1895 he even became Commander-in-Chief of the American Army . In the war against Spain in 1898 he personally led a military expedition against Puerto Rico , and on June 6, 1900 he was promoted to lieutenant general. He retired on his 64th birthday and devoted himself to writing his memoirs. In the spring of 1925 Miles suffered a fatal heart attack while visiting the circus . He was buried in a mausoleum at Arlington National Cemetery.
Honors
- Medal of Honor
- Civil War Campaign Medal
- Indian Campaign Medal
- Spanish Campaign Medal
- Army of Puerto Rican Occupation Medal
- He is ranked 12th in the historical ranking of the highest officers in the United States .
literature
- Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles, University of Nebraska Press, University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 0-8032-8181-1 .
- Robert Wooster: Nelson A. Miles and the Twilight of the Frontier Army. Lincoln, NE 1993.
- Peter R. DeMontravel: A Hero to His Fighting Men: Nelson A. Miles, 1839-1925. Kent, OH 1998.
- Stefan Papp jr .: General Nelson A. Miles . Wyk on Föhr 1993.
- Virginia W. Johnson: The Unregimented General: A Biography of Nelson A. Miles. Boston, MA 1962.
- Brian C. Pohanka (Ed.): Nelson A. Miles: A Documentary Biography of His Military Career, 1865-1903 . Glendale, CA 1985.
Individual evidence
Web links
- Illustrated biography of Miles
- Nelson A. Miles in the database of Find a Grave (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Miles, Nelson Appleton |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American officer and commander of the United States Army |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 8, 1839 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Westminster , Massachusetts , Massachusetts |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 15, 1925 |
| Place of death | District of Columbia |