Minor Millikin

As printed in 1894

COL. MINOR MILLIKIN.

OL. MINOR MILLIKIN. Though many years have passed since this valiant man fell upon the bloody battlefield of Stone River, his memory is still green in the hearts of family and friends. In the prime of many vigor he responded to his country’s call for aid, and, marching to the front with the earliest volunteers, he did brave service against the enemy until he died, a martyr to the cause he loved so well. As long as love of a united country shall well among men, so long will his name be held in reverence.

Colonel Millikin was the eldest child of May. John M. Millikin, of whom a sketch is given in another place, and was born in Hamilton, July 9, 1834. The school which he attended in Hamilton would even now be reckoned an excellent one; but after a course of study at home, he studied further at Hanover College, and then went to Miami University for two or three years. After taking his degree in arts at Miami he went to Harvard College, where he graduated in law. Soon after this he married and made a tour of Europe, at a time when a tour of Europe was a tremendous performance indeed. Returning, he settled upon a farm near Hamilton, and devoted himself to agriculture and to the editing and publishing of the Hamilton Intelligencer. He was thus happily engaged at the outbreak of the Rebellion, but at the first call for volunteers he dropped all work and pleasure and offered his services to his country. Assisting to recruit the first company of cavalry organized in Ohio, he was elected and commissioned its First Lieutenant.

It is an interesting fact that at this time our military authorities could not see that cavalry would be essential in the coming conflict. The enlistment of cavalry was distinctly discouraged by the War Department, and when Lieutenant Millikin ’s company was organized it was with the understanding that the Government would not furnish them horses; the men must furnish their own mount, and the Government would only pa_y for such horses as were lost in service. Inasmuch as few of the men could or would furnish their own mounts, the officers of the company were obliged to purchase almost all the horses needed. It was under these circumstances that they took their company into the three months’ service in West Virginia, to render invaluable service to Rosecrans in his early struggles with Lee.

When the brief term of his enlistment had expired, Lieutenant Millikin returned to his home; but before he had enjoyed any rest, the Governor sent him a commission as Major in the First Regiment of Ohio Cavalry. The young Major, though taken by surprise, hesitated not a moment, but promptly accepted and reported to Camp Chase, where the regiment was being organized. By the time the organization was complete the regiment was well drilled, and was quickly ordered to the front, by which period the young officer had been promoted to the colonelcy.

The last day of the year 1862 was a day of disaster to the army of Rosecrans fighting at Stone River. He was hard pressed by Bragg at all points, but most of all did the rebel general seek to press back our right wing, commanded by McCook. Aware of this, for it was well known to all intelligent men in the command, Colonel Millikin was startled to see that the rebel horse, led by those splendid cavalry general, Wharton and Wheeler, was working its way around McCook’s frank, endeavoring to get completely in his rear and attack his ammunition train. This effort, had it been successfully accomplished, would have resulted in hopeless disaster, for the Union army was nearly exhausted by days of fighting. The brunt of the day’s battle had fallen most heavily on McCook; and the supply of ammunition was not more than sufficient. Colonel Millikin quickly spurred away to point out the imminent danger to his brigade commander, a Colonel of cavalry like himself, and to suggest a charge against the rebel cavalry to throw them into confusion, and delay the movement. He got a curt answer, or, as some say with charity, an obscure one. It was virtually an invitation to Colonel Millikin to make the charge himself, if he thought it best. The answer was sufficient for that heart of fire. The First Ohio Cavalry saw its leader come galloping back in such wise that all knew he bore great news. Even before he reached the front of the regiment his bugle was at his lips, and his butler echoed his musical command to charge. By the losses of war and by the detachment of men to do escort duty, the regiment had been reduced to less than four hundred men, but without parley or delay they hurled themselves into a body of the choicest troops of the South, numbering near four thousand. They threw Wharton and Wheeler into confusion; they pierced the larger body of troops to the very center; they saved the ammunition train. But the little body of brave men was quickly overwhelmed, and many of them were yielding to the demands to surrender while the impetuous commander was still hewing his way through the mass of men about him. As all revolvers were empty, it became a matter of sword-play for a time, and it appeared that enough men could not come near him to cut him down, so swift was his sabre. The enemy gave him every chance to save his life, continually calling on him to surrender, but, adhering to a determination made deliberately months before, he continued fighting until a Texan rode up to the group and brought him down by a shot from his revolver. By this time the astonished brigade commander was swooping down with all his men to recover the field and complete the confusion of the rebel cavalry. The captured men of the First Ohio Cavalry were captured by their comrades, and the ammunition train was made doubly safe, but the young Colonel’s bugle never sounded again.

When this noble sacrifice was fresh in mind, Prof. David Swing, in a memorial sermon, said of his friend and college mate:

“The character of Colonel Millikin cannot be pictured at a stroke. His mind was many-side. To the taste for literature he added a love for the practical in ordinary life. He was philosophic and romantic, ready to lecture on reform, or to leave together such thoughts as might win for one the title of poet. He loved that progress which comes by better education, and he loved also that progress of ideas which comes through the sword. He was ready to teach kindly the little child, or to meet his foe with terrible force upon the battlefield. Talented, original, independent, brave, he was always affectionate and religious.

“He had some faults, but far more virtues, and the deformity of the former fades from our sight when we look upon the beauty of the latter, just as the spots upon the sun are not remembered while we stand in the fields of June.

In his work, “Ohio in the War,” Whitelaw Reid says of his collegemate: “I must not prolong this sketch. And yet I can not feel that I have done justice to the memory of my dead friend without adding the conviction that by no single blow during the war did the country lose among her younger officers one braver, more devoted, more unselfish, more cultured, pure in character, or loftier in honorable ambition. No one on the sad lists of the nation’s slain seems more nearly to resemble him than Theodore Winthrop. Like that lamented officer, he was in some respects of too sensitive and peculiar an organization for the rough ways of common life. But in the fire of our great struggle his true character phone out; and in the halo from Stone River that now surrounds the name, none, even of his enemies, fail to do tender justice to his worth, or to cherish as a sacred possession the memory of Minor Millikin.”

As printed in Memorial record of Butler County, Ohio, containing biographical sketches of representative citizens of the county together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States (1894). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.