(Anson Mills saw frontier service in Arizona and Kansas, w...)
Anson Mills saw frontier service in Arizona and Kansas, where he bravely fought against the Apache and the Cheyenne, respectively. As a battalion commander with the army, he played an important role in Reynolds's Powder River campaign of early 1876, and in the Great Sioux War later that year. His good fortune continued after his service, when he became a millionaire after inventing and improving military items.
https://www.amazon.com/Story-Frontier-Classics-Anson-Mills/dp/0811724816?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0811724816
(He was a combat veteran in the Civil War and the Indian W...)
He was a combat veteran in the Civil War and the Indian Wars, yet he advocated peace. He was a key figure in General George Crook's column during the 1876 Sioux War that ended the life of General George Armstrong Custer. Mills was detached to make an emergency provisioning trip to Deadwood and in the process discovered the camp of Chief American Horse at Slim Buttes. Mills led the attack on that village supported later by the rest of Crook's forces. The Battle of Slim Buttes was the first U.S. Army victory after the disaster at the Little Bighorn. In a captured teepee was found a 7th Cavalry battle flag from the Little Bighorn fight. He wrote of all of that in this autobiographical volume. He and his wife were supporters of women's suffrage and he wrote of the many different kinds of people he met: "My profession, and Nannie’s attachment to it and to me, led us to see more of humanity than falls to the lot of most. We lived in almost every State and Territory in the Union, and in several foreign countries, mingling with many races. We knew the negro, a short time as slaves, but for over fifty years emerged from bondage, as household help, as soldiers and as citizens. We learned their racial instincts, hopes, aspirations and ambitions. As closely, in service with and over them, we knew the wild Indians. We knew closely and intimately, both officially and in private life, the misunderstood Mexicans, and the Chinese and Japanese, who are so misunderstood by our own people. This intercourse with many races taught us that men in their instincts, hopes, ambitions, passions and dislikes are much the same the world over, and that no race or nation can claim any very great superiority over any other." In his own words is the story of a remarkable American life. The book almost didn't get written, as he nearly could not find the will to do it after Nannie died. Urged on by friends and even Lieutenant General Nelson Miles, we're fortunate that he added this volume to the important works of the period.
https://www.amazon.com/Anson-Mills-Beyond-Abridged-Annotated/dp/1519045395?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1519045395
entrepreneur inventor military surveyor
Anson Mills was born on August 31, 1834, on a farm near Thorntown, Indiana, where his father, James P. Mills, a descendant of a Philadelphian of Penn's time, had taken up land about 1830. There he had married Sarah Kenworthy, also of Quaker ancestry, whose family came to North Carolina in the eighteenth century. Anson Mills's boyhood was spent on the farm, where he became a practical carpenter and weaver, as well as farmer.
Mills entered West Point in 1855, but was unprepared to carry the course and was discharged early in 1857.
From 1857 to 1861, Mills spent in Texas, where, during his work as a surveyor, he made the original plat of the city of El Paso and gave the place its name. When the Civil War broke out, he cast one of the two antisecession votes recorded in the county, and started for Washington. In June 1861, he received an antedated commission (May 14, 1861) as first lieutenant in a regular infantry regiment just organized. His first battle was Shiloh, and until the end of the war he was in the field in the West, under Buell, Rosecrans, and Thomas, fighting in the Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Atlanta, and Nashville campaigns. He was promoted to captain in 1863. From 1865 to 1893 practically all of his service was on the frontier, involving much Indian fighting, notably the Rosebud campaign of 1876. He was transferred to the cavalry in 1871, was promoted to major in 1878, to lieutenant-colonel in 1890, and to colonel in 1892. In 1866, Mills had patented a cartridge belt which was much more satisfactory than the regulation box. It had certain faults, however, which he hoped to obviate by weaving the whole belt in one piece, without sewing. For years, he worked to perfect this invention. All difficulties were finally overcome, and the belt was adopted by the United States Army, the requirements of which in those days, however, were small. The war with Spain caused Mills and his associates to expand their factory so as to produce a thousand belts a day, but the early termination of the war "put us in a practically bankrupt condition, a hundred thousand belts on hand and no market for them, and a large indebtedness". Some of the belts were disposed of by presenting them to two Canadian regiments preparing to leave for the war in South Africa, and by June 1901 orders were received for equipping three thousand British troops. The success of the belt was assured. Military and hunting equipment of all sorts is now manufactured under Mills's patents. Mills himself, however, sold out his interest in 1905, having seen his invention a success and having made a fortune in his old age. In 1894, he was designated as the American member of the International Boundary Commission, charged with settling cases involving the boundary with Mexico. He continued as commissioner until 1914, although he had been appointed brigadier-general in 1897 and placed on the retired list. His autobiography, My Story, was privately printed in 1918. He died in Washington, where he had made his home since 1894.
(Anson Mills saw frontier service in Arizona and Kansas, w...)
(He was a combat veteran in the Civil War and the Indian W...)
On October 13, 1868, Mills was married to Hannah Cassel, daughter of William C. Cassel, of Zanesville, Ohio.
22 August 1808 - 22 April 1889
30 December 1810 - 4 September 1849
28 January 1844 - 28 September 1924
1841 - 21 Jul 1861
10 February 1836 - 10 February 1913
1846 - 1853
1849 - 1849
1837 - 1914
1 November 1839 - 22 July 1920
1847 - 5 August 1878
1846 - 1917
22 October 1881 - 16 November 1950
19 November 1878 - 25 February 1894
