Background
Miles was born on August 8, 1839 in Westminster, Massachusetts, on his family's farm.
( Theodore Roosevelt called him "a brave peacock." Pompou...)
Theodore Roosevelt called him "a brave peacock." Pompous, vainglorious, but extremely capable, General Nelson A. Miles served his country with distinction for forty-two years. During the Civil War he fought in almost every important battle of the Army of the Potomac, and by its end had been promoted to the rank of major general of volunteers. In 1869 Miles was transferred to the West, where he achieved his greatest fame fighting against the Sioux, Cheyennes, Apaches, and Nez Perces. These colorful memoirs, filled with historical figures and illustrated by Frederic Remington, were first published in 1897, near the end of his career. Volume 1 takes up Miles's early years in the East, his Civil War action, and his campaigns against the Indians on the plains, ending with chapters on the battle at the Little Bighorn and the surrender of Sitting Bull. Volume 2 shifts to the Northwest and Miles's role in the Indian wars there.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803281803/?tag=2022091-20
( Based on a wide range of sources, including materials o...)
Based on a wide range of sources, including materials only recently made available to researchers, this first complete, carefully documented biography of Miles skillfully delineates the brilliant, abrasive, and controversial tactician whose career in many respects epitomized the story of the Old Army.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803297750/?tag=2022091-20
(Preface By Sherman Miles. The Portrait Of A Great Frontie...)
Preface By Sherman Miles. The Portrait Of A Great Frontier General, As Distinguished As He Was Controversial.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1258279169/?tag=2022091-20
Miles was born on August 8, 1839 in Westminster, Massachusetts, on his family's farm.
He had a high-school education.
He marched off in 1861 as a First Lieutenant of Massachusetts Volunteers. Courage, leadership, professional knowledge, hard work and ambition brought the young officer to notice of his superiors, and he rose swiftly. By Appomattox, he had made himself a popular hero, four times wounded, veteran of every major battle of the Army of the Potomac except Gettysburg, successful regimental, brigade, division and (briefly) corps commander.
Promotion to Major General of Volunteers came in October 1865 and three brevet promotions covered him with further honors. Not only was he a genuine hero, he looked like one. Tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, well-proportioned, with intense blue eyes and a jaunty mustache, he made a dashing figure in his blue and gold uniform with starred shoulder straps and chest full of brass buttons.
He was 26 years old. He had found his calling. He wanted to be a career soldier and his record in the Volunteer Service assured him a commission in the post-war regular army. He sought a brigadier's star, a presumptuous goal in the shrunken peacetime army, even for one of his conspicuous attainments. The colonel's eagles that he accepted with bad grace represented a higher rank than others with even greater distinction and seniority could win. Even this distinction cam not solely in recognition of his wartime services.
Less than a year later, with the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant as President of the United States, Sherman became General-in-Chief of the Army. At once, Miles began to importune his wife's uncle for official favors. Until 1883, when he stepped down as leader of the Army, Sherman stubbornly fended off these efforts.
As early as 1888, California interests had advanced Miles' name for the presidency, and throughout the 1890s he doubtless had no more difficulty visualizing himself as President than he had in 1876, a frontier Colonel, as Secretary of War. In truth, neither major party ever seriously considered him a serious nominee. In 1895, he did attain the top command of the Army, successor to Washington, Scott, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, but his term was filled with frustration.
In the Spanish-American War, William McKinley denied him any real authority and relegated him to command an almost unnoticed expedition against Puerto Rico. Instead of glory, he gained uncomplimentary notice from a bitter public quarrel with the Secretary of War and a ruthless, unjust attack on the Commissary General of the Army in the scandal over "embalmed beef. "
Even his elevation in 1901 to the newly restored grade of Lieutenant General brought only small satisfaction. Almost at once he earned the displeasure of Theodore Roosevelt by taking sides in a feud between admirals and by criticizing U. S. policy in the Philippines. He also opposed the long-overdue reform of the War Department, which called for converting the Commanding General to a Chief of Staff. Finally, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 64 in 1903 and stepped down as the last Commanding General in the Army's history, the President declined to send the customary congratulatory message, and the Secretary of War did not attend the retirement ceremonies.
Promoted to Brigadier General in December 1880, he commanded the Department of the Columbia until 1885 and the Department of the Missouri in 1885-86, and in April 1886 succeeded General George Crook as the commander of the Department of Arizona, where he succeeded in September in finally capturing the elusive Apache leader, Geronimo. He commanded the Department of the Pacific at San Francisco in 1888-90, receiving promotion to Major General in April 1890. In the last uprising of the Sioux in South Dakota in late 1890, during which Sitting Bull was killed, he restored U. S. control over the Indians, but his reputation was permanently tarnished by the massacre of some 200 Sioux, including women and children, by troops under the command of Colonel James W. Forsyth (7th U. S. Cavalry) at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on December 29, 1890. In 1894, while commanding the Department of the Missouri, was responsible for the Federal troops employed in the suppression of the Pullman strike disorders in Chicago. Was placed in command of the Department of the East, with headquarters at Governors Island, New York in 1894, and on the retirement of John M. Schofield be became on October 5, 1895 the Army's Comander-in-Chief.
Nelson Appleton Miles served in the American Civil War, the American Indian Wars, and the Spanish–American War.
( Based on a wide range of sources, including materials o...)
( Theodore Roosevelt called him "a brave peacock." Pompou...)
(Preface By Sherman Miles. The Portrait Of A Great Frontie...)
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Society of the Cincinnati
On June 30, 1868, he married Mary Hoyt Sherman.
She was a daughter of Charles Taylor Sherman.
