USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of Perry County, Pennsylvania, including descriptions of Indians and pioneer life from the time of earliest settlement, sketches of its noted men and women and many professional men > Part 70
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Of his meritorious military record let us give the words of "Minnesota in Three Centuries," edited by a historical commis- sion of that state, which says :
"Colonel Miller's military career is resplendent with chivalrous actions and acts of bravery. He commanded the right wing of his regiment at the first Battle of Bull Run. He was in personal command of the regiment during many battles of the Army of the Potomac of Eastern Virginia. He was engaged with the enemy at Yorktown, West Point, in the two Battles of Fair Oaks, at Peach Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Nelson's Farm and Malvern Hill. He was on the rear guard on the retreat to Harrison's Landing and held in reserve at the Battle of South Mountain. On August 24, 1862, he was commissioned Colonel of the Seventh Minnesota Infantry, and was transferred to that regiment just before the Battle of Antietam. On account of an accidental fall from his horse, the result of which was serious, he was obliged to rest awhile at home before taking command of his new regiment. Therefore he was not in personal command during the two Indian campaigns in which his regiment took part. He, however, assumed command at Camp Release. He was subsequently the commander at Camp Lincoln, near Mankato, and had charge of the three hundred Sioux Indians, also was entrusted in De- cember, 1862, with the execution of the thirty-eight that paid the penalty for their crimes."
Colonel Miller received his appointment as a Brigadier General of Volunteers, October 26, 1863, but resigned that position to as- sume the office of governor.
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At the Republican State Convention held in 1863. General Mil- ler -- still a Colonel at that time-was nominated for the office of governor, and at the fall election was elected, receiving 19,628 votes to 12,739 cast for his opponent, Henry T. Welles, the Demo- cratic candidate. He was inaugurated on January 11, 1864, and served one term, which expired January 18, 1866, not being a can- didate to succeed himself. In his inaugural address he expressed profound gratitude to the Deity; dwelt upon the improvement of the schools and university ; showed a thorough knowledge of the matter of railroads, in his judgment there being nothing more certain than the construction of a northern line of railroad to the Pacific Ocean-a fact long since realized ; commended the citizens on the improved condition of Indian affairs, and complimented them on the glorious record they were making in helping keep in- violate the Union.
In 1871 he removed from St. Cloud to Worthington, where he was connected with the St. Paul & Sioux City Railroad Company. as general superintendent of their large land interests in southern Minnesota. In 1872 he was elected and represented his district, the six southwestern counties, in the state legislature.
Again let us quote from the pages of "Minnesota in Three Cen- turies": "Governor Miller was a rough and ready speaker, with remarkable wit, originality of style, and a somewhat brusque man- ner on the rostrum. No man's private character stood higher in all respects, with amiable domestic affections and strongly reli- gious convictions. He was a man of moderate means, never a money-maker, and his last days were somewhat clouded by com- parative poverty, but his rugged honesty and manly principles were never questioned." He died at Worthington, Minnesota, August 18, 1881.
In 1839 Stephen D. Miller had been united in marriage to Miss Margaret Funk, of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, becoming the father of four children. Of these Wesley F. Miller, a lieutenant in the Union Army, fell at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, while bravely fighting; Stephen C., a second son, was a captain in the commissary department, and Robert D. resided in Pennsylvania. A daughter died in infancy.
'The execution of the thirty-eight Indians responsible for an up- rising, of which Governor Miller, then a Colonel, was in charge. was probably the greatest number of human beings ever executed at one time in the United States. The scaffold from which they were all hanged at the same moment was erected in the open and was surrounded at some distance by a column of infantry, at a further distance by another column of infantry, and at a still greater distance by a column of cavalry. Outside of this cordon of military protection was the populace, prairie schooners, "dead"
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wagons, etc .- a scene never to be forgotten. A military commis- sion had convicted 303, but President Lincoln commuted the death sentences of 264, and one proved an alibi.
Governor Miller was a man of considerable literary ability and was the author of a number of poems, many of which were of a serious or meditative nature. In 1864 there appeared from the press of a Chicago publisher, a volume entitled "The Poets and Poetry of Minnesota," by Mrs. J. W. Arnold. She dedicated the volume "to the Honorable Stephen Miller, Governor of Minnesota, the Soldier, the Patriot, the 'True Friend." Speaking of his poeti- cal works the author said: "Ilis verses are remarkable for the beauty and truth with which they express the reflections of the general mind, and emotions of the heart. Their tone is grave and high, but not gloomy nor morbid. The edges of the cloud of life are turned to gold by faith and hope. Making him, therefore, the Chancer of our 'goodly companie,' he must lead the van of "The Poets and Poetry of Minnesota.'" Accordingly; nine poems from the pen of Governor Miller, with a sketch of his life, occupy the first few pages of the volume. From them we have selected the following poem for the history of his native county :
SOW IN TEARS AND REAP WITH JOY.
Thine is the lot, 'mid stormy scenes, To sow the seed in tears, And watch-with disappointment, oft- For fruit in following years. Perchance it by the wayside falls, Where friendless birds devour ;
Or blooms upon the stony ground, To wither in an hour ; Or thorns may choke the tender blade, And prospects pass away; And toil, the hope of months and years, May perish in a day.
But, written in the book of God, Behold the great command : "At morn and eve dispense the seed, Nor once withhold thy hand." When bird, and storm, and thorn shall die, And stones and earth decay, "Some shall bring forth a hundredfold" On that great gleaning day. Then scatter seed, and deeds, and tears Where'er thy feet may roam, So shall thou shout, with angel bands, A blessed harvest home. -
The remains of Melchoir Miller, the ancestor, rest in the church- yard at Snyder's Church, in Wheatfield Township. The gover- nor's mother Rosanna Miller, lived to be well up in years, and re-
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sided in Duncannon for a long time prior to her death, in the house located where Abraham Spence long had a jewelry store, now owned by Thomas Hunter. She is still remembered by some of the older people there, who recall the visits of her noted son.
GOVERNOR JAMES A. BEAVER.
Thirty-three miles west of Harrisburg, the State Capital of Pennsylvania, is Millerstown Borough, Perry County, plainly in sight of passengers from the opposite side of the Juniata River. as they travel via the Pennsylvania Railroad-that great trans- continental artery of traffic which crosses half the continent. It was there that James A. Beaver, later to be Brigadier General of the United States Army and the twentieth governor of Pennsyl- vania, was born, the James G. Brandt property, very recently pur- chased by Lewis G. Ulsh, now occupying the site of his birthplace.
lle came of staunch stock, of the Huguenots of France, but of the German strain of that frontier province of Elsass (Alsace )- on the paternal side, and of the famous Addams family, which gave to the Union a commander of one of the two Pennsylvania brigades rendezvoused at York during the Revolution (Colonel John Addams), and a member of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses of the United States (William Addams).
George Beaver, the progenitor of the Beaver clan in America, about 1740, for a faith condemned in France at that time, left Elsass (Alsace) shortly after that province was torn from Ger- many by France, to be restored by conquest in 1871, and again to be returned to France at the conclusion of the great World War in 1918. He settled in Chester County and became a farmer. Of the second generation his son George fought in the Revolution, and later settled in Franklin County, marrying a Miss Keifer, where his son, Peter Beaver, grandfather of the governor, was born. Peter Beaver was of the third generation and established himself as a tanner in Lebanon County, later becoming a mer- chant. He was also a local Methodist minister and preached over Berks. Lebanon and Dauphin Counties, being ordained at Elkton, Maryland, in 1809, by Bishop Asbury. He married a Miss Gil- bert, of the substantial family of that name, many of whose de- scendants now live near Millersburg, Dauphin County. He died August 25, 1849, in Pfoutz Valley.
The father of the governor, Jacob Beaver, was born in Lebanon County, in 1805 (of the fourth generation in America), was one of six brothers, all of more or less importance; two of them, George Beaver and Jesse Beaver, were representatives in the State Legislature. Thomas Beaver, another brother, was a pioneer wholesale merchant in Philadelphia, and later became an iron mas- ter at Danville, Pa. It was the grandfather, Peter Beaver, who
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emigrated to Perry County, when the governor's father, Jacob Beaver, was but a few years old, and where he later went into business at Millerstown with his brother, cited above. To their general line of merchandising they added the grain business. That great pioneer highway, the Pennsylvania Canal, was being built
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GEN. JAMES ADDAMS BEAVER, Twentieth Governor of Pennsylvania. Born at Millerstown, Perry County.
about this time, and Millerstown was a great mart of trade in canal days.
Jacob Beaver's marriage to Miss Ann Eliza Addams, April 9, 1833, added to the strain of the Keifers and the Gilberts, of the preceding two generations, had much to do, one is inclined to be- lieve, with the sterling character, bravery and stability of the future
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governor. Her father, Abraham Addams, a merchant, had come from Berks County to what is now Perry County, in 1811, and purchased a tract of land, upon part of which Millerstown is now located. The stone farmhouse on this farm was built by him in 1817, and in it the mother of the future governor was born, Janu- ary 30, 1812.
One of a family of two sons and two daughters, James A. Beaver was the third child and the first son, having been born on October 21, 1837, just three years before his father died, August 17, 1840, leaving four small children and their young mother, who was a good woman, of noble character and great intelligence, and who, March 4, 1844, was united in marriage to Rev. S. H. Mc- Donald, a Presbyterian clergyman. During the first seven or eight years James A. Beaver knew no authority but that of this noble and godly woman. In April, 1846; the family removed to Belleville, Mifflin County. Most of the year of 1849 young Beaver was back in Millerstown, where he attended school. He was a gentlemanly, high-principled boy, peaceably inclined, yet a boy who would stand no affront. His grandfather died at the close of that year and he returned to the Presbyterian manse at Belleville. This again brought him into daily contact with the counsel and encouragement of his mother and under the influence of an exemplary Christian stepfather. For a period of over three years he studied under their guidance.
In 1852 he entered the Pine Grove Mills Academy. His progress was so rapid that before he was seventeen he was able to enter the junior class of Jefferson College (consolidated with Washington in 1869) at Canonsburg, Pa., where he graduated in 1856, before he was nineteen years old. The Class of '56, by the way, had ex- actly fifty-six graduates, of whom twenty-four entered the min- istry, seventeen studied law, three medicine, and seven became teachers. A fellow classmate, Rev. Dr. James A. Reed, in a his- torical sketch of the class once wrote: "James A. Beaver, better known in his college days as 'Jim Beaver,' was a little bit of an enthusiastic fellow, full of fun and pun and pluck and frolic, who never did anything bad and always looked glad. James has been growing bigger and bigger ever since he was born."
Leaving college he settled at Bellefonte and entered the law offices of H. N. McAllister, who died while a member of the con- vention which framed the present Constitution of Pennsylvania. He was admitted to the bar when barely of voting age. Recog- nizing his ability his preceptor took him into partnership.
While preparing himself for the bar young Beaver had joined the Bellefonte Fencibles, whose captain was Andrew G. Curtin, soon to become Pennsylvania's great war governor. The reader will note that the two governors of Pennsylvania born in Perry
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County-Bigler, the Democrat, and Beaver, the Republican --- were both closely associated with Andrew G. Curtin, the three men be- ing elected to the highest office in the commonwealth, their admin- istrations and intervening ones covering a period of thirty-nine years. Beaver took such an interest in this military company that he was made a second lieutenant, a vacancy occurring.
The slavery agitation was at its height, and murmurings of secession were wafted across the Mason and Dixon line. Young Beaver's friend, the captain of the fencibles, had been swept into the governor's chair on the very question of an inseparable Union. From him the young second lieutenant had a promise that if troops were needed to save the Union this should be the first company called from Pennsylvania. A week before Governor Curtin took the chair Beaver wrote to his mother a significant letter :
"BELLEFONTE, January II, 1861.
"My Dear Mother: The fencibles decided a day or two since to attend the inauguration of Governor Curtin on the 15th. So my hopes of staying at home and escaping the crowds, long marches and tiresome standups are pretty much blasted. You will see in your Press of this week, under 'Extraordinary War Preparations,' that we may have a longer march than to Harrisburg. Governor Curtin assures me that if a requisition is made upon this state ours will be the first company called out. Necessity for soldiers, however, is growing less and less, so that our chances for active service or a life of inglorious ease at Washington are not very flattering.
"Since writing the above I have been to the telegraph office. A dispatch from Washington says that hostilities have actually begun. The South Carolinians fired upon the 'Star of the West,' which contained supplies for Major Anderson. If this is true, which God forbid, war has actually commenced. Where will be the end? The nation must be preserved. And who can mistake his duty in this emergency? I have prayed for direction, guidance and clear revelations of duty, and I cannot now doubt where the path of duty lies. If required, I will march in it, trusting God for the result. There are few men situated as I am. No person dependent upon me, and a business which I will leave in able hands. If we have a nationality, it must be continued, supported, upheld. If we are ordered to Washington or elsewhere, I will see you before we go. God bless you, my mother.
Your son,
"JAMES A. BEAVER."
The firing on Fort Sumter was of no immediate benefit to the South, while in the North it had the immediate effect of arousing loyalty. President Abraham Lincoln issued his call for 75,000 volunteers to defend the nation, and the ink was hardly dry on the call before the fencibles were on the way, with Beaver now a first lieutenant. In the prevailing excitement of leaving he found time to write to his mother this calm, characteristic letter :
"BELLEFONTE, PA., April 17, 1861.
"My Own Dear Mother: Oh, how I long to see you, if for but one brief moment ! This boon denied me Hinust trust to a lame medium the ex- pressions of my feelings. You have doubtless anticipated the action I have taken in the present alarming condition of our national affairs, and
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I hope I know my mother too well to suppose that she would counsel any other course than the one which I have taken. I can almost imagine that I hear you saying, 'My son, do your duty,' and I hope that no other feeling than that of duty urges me on. If I know my own heart, duty-my duty first and above all to God, my duty to humanity, my duty to my country and my duty to posterity-all point in one and the same direction. Need I say that that direction points to the defense of our nation in this hour of her peril? We march to-morrow for Harrisburg; remain there until or- dered into actual service, thence to whatever part may be assigned us. I have little fear of any hostilities between the different sections of our country for the present. Should the worst we fear come upon us, how- ever, and in the providence of God my life be yielded up in the service, I feel and know that the sacrifice would be small when compared with the sacrifices, trials, and anxieties which you have made and undergone for me; and my mother, can I better repay them than by going straight for- ward in the path of duty? In reviewing my life, oh, how much is there that I would blot from memory's pages-how much for which I would atone at any cost! It may perhaps be as well than I am not able to see you now. It will spare us both some pain, but rob me of much pleasure. "Affectionately your son,
"JAMES A. BEAVER."
Ilis mother's response to this letter commended his prompt ac- tion and cheered him with her blessing. The fencibles proceeded to Harrisburg and were quartered at Camp Curtin. On April 21 the second regiment of Pennsylvania volunteers was organized and the fencibles became Company H. On the evening of the same day this regiment was despatched by rail for Washington. Arriving at Cockeysville, Maryland, the next morning, the Con- federates, as the rebellious South termed themselves, had de- stroyed the railroad bridge, barring further passage, and necessi- tating the protection of railroad property by force. It was Sun- day, and after a busy day, Lieutenant Beaver wrote to his mother : "The whole country round about is in commotion and the authori- ties seem determined to prevent the passage of more troops through Baltimore. This has been anything but a quiet, pleasant, Christian Sabbath, which like other blessings, is never fully appre- ciated until we are deprived of it. I hope that I am prepared to meet calmly anything which Providence may have in store for me."
After an encampment of forty-eight hours the regiment was ordered back to York and a military training camp established, known in that day as a camp of instruction. Observing all re- straint gone with the call to arms, Beaver wrote his sister: "Of one thing I am more than ever convinced, that the army is terribly demoralizing to those who place confidence in their own strength Oh! how many will stumble and fall in this trying ordeal?" While in camp at York a special order came detaching him from his company and making him adjutant of the seventh regiment. The men of the company were opposed to the change, and, wanting to remain with them, he hurried to Harrisburg "to endeavor to be
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excused from having the promotion thrust upon him," as he put it. This request was granted and he went with his company to Cham- bersburg, where they remained from June Ist to June 16th, after which they encamped at Funkstown, near Hagerstown. In a letter from that place to his mother he made this prediction: "The only real result of this rebellion will be to establish this government upon a foundation which cannot be moved by the too violent up- rising of factions and designing demagogues, and in view of it, I doubt not that this movement on the part of the South will dem- onstrate itself to be the most important and fortunate in its results which could possibly have happened. The government will have proved itself self-sustaining."
The call having only been for three-months' men, the time soon sped, and on July 26th the regiment was sent by rail to Harrisburg and mustered out. Lieutenant Beaver was barely out of the serv- ice before he was preparing to go back. With two other men he raised another regiment-the Forty-Fifth-from Centre, Lancas- ter, Mifflin, Tioga, and Wayne Counties, and on October 18th it was mustered in and Lieutenant Beaver became Lieutenant Colonel Beaver. Of the succeeding movements of this regiment much could be written, but the object of this chapter is to give a pen picture of James A. Beaver, the boy, the man, the officer, and the governor.
In December, 1861, we find him in command at Bay Point. South Carolina, an island on the one side of which were great quantities of cluster oysters, covered only during high tide, and consequently poisonous. A soldier ate some, against orders, and was found dead in his bunk on a Sunday morning. Under a palmetto tree a grave was prepared and at sunset the first military funeral of a member of the regiment occurred. As the soldiers surrounded the grave, the surf rolling on the beach, and the wind sighing through the palmettoes gave the occasion an added solem- nity. The coffin was lowered and the officer in immediate com- mand was about to call on the sergeant to offer prayer when the stern yet musical voice of Colonel Beaver said, "Let us pray !" A fellow officer further described the scene: "We stood awed and enraptured as we listened to his prayer. Never before or since has it been my privilege to listen to such a prayer. Colonel Beaver had been a strict disciplinarian and was liked by his command, as officers generally were in the volunteer service. But that evening he captured every heart present. The boys made up their minds that he was a good man, and they have never had reason to change the opinion formed at the grave of our comrade, under the pal- mettoes of South Carolina."
The fortunes of war brought back to Virginia Lieut. Colonel . Beaver and his men. Here he had eight companies guarding rail-
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roads, a duty which he rather despised, as he longed for active, even hazardous service, which without his knowledge was already on its way. President Lincoln had called for 600,000 volunteers for the period of the war, and, as ever, Pennsylvania was leading in the response. Beaver was promoted to colonel and given charge of a regiment composed almost entirely of Centre Coun- tians, men from his adopted home, at the request of both the men and officers. On September 6, 1862, he took command at Harris- burg, and badly as he wanted to see his mother, the necessities of war forbade. In three days he had his regiment-the One Hun- dred and Forty-Eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers - organized. equipped, and on the march.
Lee's army was in Maryland threatening Pennsylvania, his cav- alry endeavoring to cut the lines of railway communication. The new regiment was assigned the duty of guarding a twelve-mile section of the Northern Central Railroad. Onward came the scourge of war to the North, and with Lee's army in Maryland and the Union forces approaching, Antietam was soon to see that bloody battle in which 200,000 men engaged and 30,000 were killed upon the field. Colonel Beaver's regiment was still guarding this great artery of communication southward and within sound of the guns when the Battle of Antietam was fought. There, in a desperate charge for the famous stone bridge, Hartranft's regi- ment suffered severely, and among the brave young officers to die was another lad born in Perry County, Colonel Beaver's only brother, Lieut. J. Gilbert Beaver, who was killed instantly at the head of his company. Colonel Beaver remained with the 148th along the Northern Central until December 10, 1862, training the new regiment so thoroughly during the first three months of its service that veteran officers in passing mistook it for a camp of regulars. The regiment was then ordered to the front, but before it could join the Army of the Potomac the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg had been fought. Lee had driven Burnside back across the Rappahannock, making the reorganization of the army almost a necessity. It was at this time that Colonel Beaver arrived at the front with his regiment and reported for duty to General Winfield Scott Hancock. He was not yet twenty-four years of age. With the pale, beardless face of a boy he resembled a student more than a warrior, yet his soldierly bearing and instincts made an instant impression as he said, "General, while I would not pre- stime so much as to suggest the disposition that is to be made of my regiment, I should be glad if it could be placed in a brigade of your division where the men can see a daily exemplification of the good results of the soldierly discipline I have endeavored to teach."
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