Jeffrey Dwight Miller

An 18 year old farmer on his father's place in Avon, he enlisted as a Private in Company A, 16th Connecticut Infantry on 4 August 1862.

He in action with his Company at Antietam on 17 September 1862:

I was nothing but a boy and didn’t know anything about war and fighting. Finally we got into the corn field and began to blaze away. First thing I knew I was all alone. The Eleventh [8th] Connecticut was a few yards away and I joined. Two wounded men said, 'Don’t leave us' and so I stood by. Then the southerners came up and I took at shot at them thinking I was going to die anyway. The two wounded men plead for their lives and an officer replied 'all right boys, we won’t hurt you.' I surrendered and just then a nearby confederate took a shot at me. I dropped and pretended to be dead. Then our reinforcements came.

He was captured at Plymouth, NC on 20 April 1864, was a prisoner at Andersonville, GA, and was paroled on 30 November 1864. He was mustered out on 24 June 1865 at New Berne, NC.

In 1880 he was a carpenter in Hamden, New Haven County, CT. By 1900 and to at least 1910 he was in Hartford, still a carpenter.

His service from the Record.1 His memories of Antietam from the Hartford Daily Times of 17 September 1915; thanks to John Banks. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860, 1880-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Emma Irene Beach (1836-1922) in about 1865 and they had 3 children.

01/09/1844; Simsbury, CT

12/12/1916; Hartford, CT; burial in Spring Grove Cemetery, Hartford,