Civil War History

In 1857, a free Black man named Abraham Brian—alternatively spelled as “Brien” in the 1850 census and “Bryan” in the 1860 census but “Brian” on his gravestone—bought twelve acres of property along Cemetery Ridge in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Brian couldn’t have possibly conceived the events that would transpire on his land just six years later and how they captured so much of the upheaval of the times. In fact, some of the biggest ironies of the war took place on his land (more about those in a bit!). Abraham Brian’s Family Born in Maryland in either 1804 or 1807—perhaps to enslaved

By the time the smoke cleared and combatants left the field after Longstreet’s Assault on July 3, 1863—popularly known as Pickett’s Charge—the carnage was horrific. All told during three bloody days in July, the Union Army saw an estimated 23,049 casualties: 3,155 killed, 14,529 wounded, and 5,365 missing/captured. According to the American Battlefield Trust, 1,500 Union soldiers were wounded or killed during the assault alone—and among them was twenty-one-year-old Captain Wells Waite Miller. Despite the severity of his wounds, unlike many of his comrades in battle, Wells survived. While there’s no way to definitively know why he did when so

Today, my husband and I went to Castalia Cemetery where we put a rose on Wells Waite Miller’s grave and decided to investigate the Soldiers Monument. The Soldiers Monument was created by Hughes Granite and Marble Company of Clyde, Ohio. This was, at the time, apparently a well known granite company with its records now stored at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum. The cost of Castalia Cemetery’s monument? $2,500. This didn’t account for the $500 needed to prepare the site and create the monument’s foundation, though, so the true cost was $3,000. The dedication took place in

I continue my research into forgotten Civil War hero Wells Waite Miller thanks to a book titled Margaretta Township and Castalia Village: Past and Present (Cold Creek Girl Scouts, 1976). You can find part one here where I fill in some gaps in my knowledge. Here’s the next set. Wells Waite Miller: Short Teaching Career After being seriously wounded at Gettysburg in 1863, Wells served in the position of captain in the Veteran Reserve Corp, effective April 1, 1864. He wanted to return to the regular Army but was denied the opportunity during the rest of the Civil War and

Today, I headed to the library in Sandusky, Ohio to read a reference book titled Margaretta Township and Castalia Village: Past and Present (Cold Creek Girl Scouts, 1976). Thank you, Girl Scouts! In this slim volume of history, I hoped to find pieces of information to further fill out my understanding of Wells Waite Miller, a largely forgotten Civil War hero from Castalia—and I’m happy to report that I did. In this post and its sequels, I’ll link to previously written posts and add more details to the stories. More Details About the Castalia Massacre I’d previously written about a

Oscar Schultz Kriebel Gets Married On June 30, 1891, Oscar Schultz Kriebel and Corinne Miller (daughter of Wells Waite Miller) got married. The couple apparently met while attending Oberlin College. As you notice, Wells needed to fill out the marriage license for his daughter and, thereafter, she’s referred to as Mrs. Oscar S. Kriebel, typical for the times. When considering the two main men in Corinne’s life (her father and her husband), I have to wonder what she thought about her father’s Civil War service. Schwenkfelders were often conscientious objectors of the war although some of them proudly served. In

In this post, I’ll go more in depth about the life of Oscar Schulz Kriebel, son-in-law of the Civil War soldier whose life I’m exploring: Wells Waite Miller. Young Oscar Schultz Kriebel Born and raised in Hereford, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 1863, Oscar got a glimpse of the bigger world when the Perkiomen Centennial express trains traveled through the area on their way to Philadelphia. He actually traveled to Philadelphia, a four-day trip where he spent his time “buying books, calling on friends, viewing manufacturing plants, crossing the Delaware, witnessing the spectacular parade honoring the war hero, General U.S. Grant.”

Oscar Schultz Kriebel and His Connection to Wells Waite Miller The photo of Oscar Schultz Kriebel shown above was used in his passport in 1921. Oscar became part of Wells Waite Miller’s life much earlier, though, perhaps as early as 1890. That year, Wells’s daughter, Corrine, was attending Oberlin College. Here’s a bit about her. Corrine Miller was born on April 24, 1865 in Marshalltown, Iowa. So, she was about twenty-five years old while living in a place where she met a fellow student named Oscar: the town of Oberlin, Ohio. When they met, he had two great passions in

Miller Family Overview So, let’s set the stage. It’s July 4, 1864 and Wells Waite Miller just married Mary Helen Caswell in her parents’ home in Castalia, Ohio. Wells Waite Miller He’d been badly wounded at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1863 and, on his wedding date, he was fairly new as a member of the Invalid Corps. In this corps, wounded soldiers could contribute to the war effort in “valuable capacities, such as in garrison, as military police, or on clerk duty. This freed as many able-bodied soldiers as possible for frontline service.” I’m still researching what he might

Miller Family Mystery After Wells Waite Miller was seriously wounded on July 3, 1863 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, there were initially big gaps in my research between that date and 1894 when he became the Secretary of Ohio’s Department of Agriculture. What was he doing, exactly? I’ve slowly filled in those gaps over the past couple of years, but something continued to puzzle me. Why did documentation for his two children (Corinne and Amos Calvin) say they were born in Marshalltown, Iowa? (Yes, I get that they say this because they were born there. I mean, why?) For a while, I