Jacob C. Miller

Into the Fire at Vicksburg’s Stockade Redan

Jacob C. Miller was born on August 4, 1840, in Bellevue, Huron County, Ohio. He came of age as the United States moved toward the crisis of the Civil War, and by 1862 he had entered Union service. On October 1 of that year, Miller was mustered into Company G of the 113th Illinois Infantry as a private, beginning the military service that would eventually place him in one of the most dangerous assaults of the Vicksburg Campaign.

The 113th Illinois Infantry became part of the Union operations directed against Vicksburg, Mississippi, a Confederate stronghold whose position above the Mississippi River made its capture strategically important. By May 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces had reached the defenses surrounding the city. After an unsuccessful Union assault on May 19, Grant ordered another major attack for May 22, sending troops forward against fortified Confederate positions along a broad front.

At the Stockade Redan, a powerful Confederate earthwork guarding the Graveyard Road approach, the attacking force faced an especially difficult obstacle. A volunteer storming party was organized to go ahead of the main infantry assault. These volunteers were expected to carry materials needed to cross the defensive ditch and help the following troops reach the fortifications. The assignment exposed them to intense danger before the main body of soldiers could close on the Confederate works.

Private Miller volunteered for this assault.

On May 22, 1863, the Union bombardment ended and the assault began. The storming party advanced toward the defenses as Confederate troops waited behind their fortifications. When the volunteers neared the works, the defenders opened a devastating fire. Despite the strength of the position and the violence of the resistance, members of the storming party continued forward. The larger Union attack was ultimately repulsed, and the failure of the May 22 assault helped convince Grant to abandon further attempts to take Vicksburg by direct frontal attack and instead continue siege operations.

Miller’s personal conduct during that dangerous advance was later summarized in the official Medal of Honor citation with concise but unmistakable language: gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party. He had entered the action as a private of Company G, 113th Illinois Infantry, and it was his conduct in that role at Vicksburg that became the defining military achievement of his life.

Recognition did not come immediately. More than three decades passed between the action at Vicksburg and the formal presentation of Miller’s Medal of Honor. On August 20, 1894, he received the United States’ highest military decoration for his gallantry during the charge of May 22, 1863. The long interval separated the battlefield action from the official recognition, but the award permanently connected his name with the volunteers who had gone forward against the Vicksburg defenses.

Miller remained in the Army after the Vicksburg action. His service with Company G continued through the remaining years of the Civil War, and his military standing advanced beyond the private rank he had held during his Medal of Honor action. When his service ended on June 20, 1865, he was mustered out as a sergeant. His rise from private to sergeant reflected the continuation of his military career after the event for which he would later receive the Medal of Honor.

The Vicksburg action remained central to his historical legacy. The assault of May 22 was one of the most severe attempts to break the Confederate defensive line before the Union army settled into the siege that ultimately forced Vicksburg’s surrender. Miller belonged to the group of volunteers who went ahead of the main attacking force and accepted the exceptional hazards of that assignment. His Medal of Honor therefore represents not simply participation in the campaign, but specifically recognized gallantry during the volunteer storming party’s charge.

Miller lived for more than half a century after the Vicksburg campaign and for more than two decades after receiving the Medal of Honor. He died on January 13, 1917, in Omaha, Nebraska, at the age of seventy-six. He was buried at Cedar Dale Cemetery in Papillion, Nebraska.

His story endures through a brief official citation that carries the weight of an extraordinary moment. As a private on May 22, 1863, he volunteered to advance at the front of a major assault against the fortified defenses of Vicksburg. As a sergeant, he completed his wartime service two years later. And in 1894, the Medal of Honor formally recognized the gallantry he had shown in the charge more than thirty years before.