PLEASE NOTE: The photograph displayed is of John J. Miller, son of John C. Miller.

According to census records, John Miller was born in the German Republic about 1832. He emigrated to the United States some time about 1857, married twice, fathered seven sons and four daughters, served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and died in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1887.

His first wife was another Prussian immigrant, Catherine Klasen. They married in Buchanan County in 1858, though they had a son, William, born about 1857 in Europe before they emigrated. It is possible that they were married in Germany but chose to marry again once they settled in America. It's possible that John was married and widowed before he married Catherine, and that she was his second wife.

Less than a month before their marriage, the minister who performed their service had also done the same for a Maria Klasen, who was possibly Catherine's sister. John and Catherine had a daughter, Lena, born in 1858 after their American marriage.

John Miller served in the Civil War, enlisting as a private in Company "A" of the 13th Missouri Infantry in June 1861; it consisted almost entirely of German immigrants living in the St. Joesph vicinity. He participated in the Battle of Lexington, Missouri in September 1861, a Union defeat in which his unit was captured and then paroled.

He and the other men in his unit signed an oath not to take arms against the Confederacy as a condition of their parole as POWs, and such oaths were generally honored by both sides during the war. He was mustered out and returned home to St. Joseph and his family.

However, his entire company was then re-mustered by a Union officer in February 1862 and then became Company "A" of the 25th Missouri Infantry. He fought at the Battle of Shiloh Church (also known as Pittsburg Landing) in April 1862, sustaining wounds at the infamous "Hornet's Nest", a critical stand that bought time for the rest of Grant's forces, and was taken prisoner with his unit. After that, he was again paroled by the Confederates back to the Union side and then worked on fortifications near Corinth, Mississippi after the siege and capture of that city. He contracted malaria during that time, as did much of his unit.

He was assigned to Company "M" of 1st Missouri Engineers Regiment as an Artificer, which generally referred to duties of building and maintaining fortifications and railroad tracks. John's specific duties were as a blacksmith, which is what he did in civilian life. His military record refers to it as a promotion.

Returning to St. Joseph at the end of his service in June 1864, John rejoined his wife and children, and fathered two more children, Theresa, born in 1866, and John Joseph, born in 1868.

Catherine Klasen Miller died in May 1870, and John Miller married the widow Mary Elizabeth (O'Rourke) Augustine in July of that same year. She had a daughter from her first marriage, Mary Louise Augustine, born about 1863. Combining their two families, they had seven more children together: John, Catherine, Theodore, Paul, Lucy, George, and Herman, born between 1871 and 1883 in St. Joseph.

In one of those genealogical brain twisters we occasionally see, John's daughters by his first marriage, Lena and Therese Miller, married two of their step-mother's younger brothers, John and George O'Rourke, making John father-in-law to his brothers-in-law. and making him brother-in-law to his daughters.

John worked as a blacksmith and day laborer the remainder of his life, and never fully recovered his health after having been wounded at Shiloh and survived malaria later in the war. He died of a chronic heart disease on a hot August evening in 1887.

His obituary, from the St. Joseph News-Press, 12 August 1887:

"The funeral services of John Miller, who died yesterday of heart disease, will occur this morning at 8 o'clock at the family residence on Twenty-first street, between Edmond and Charles streets with additional services at the Immaculate Conception church on the corner of Tenth and Angelique streets. Deceased at the time of his death was 57 years old."

He was originally buried in Calvary Cemetery, in the south part of St. Joseph. John had a stone once marking his resting place, but it became worn and unreadable over time. The newer Mt. Olivet Cemetery was opened in 1895, and as old burials were gradually moved into it, Calvary became more and more neglected and subject to vandalism. It was finally closed some time in the late 1950s, and John's remains were among those reburied at Mt. Olivet in an anonymous mass grave.