Private James Madison Miller

James Madison Miller was born on 7 April 1816, a son of Michael and Frances Welsh Miller Michael Miller. James married Frances Shehorn-Blakeney in 1835 and became the father of four sons and five daughters. He was executed in Lancaster County, March 2, 1865.

 A yankee soldier had been on foraging detail and entered the Kershaw County home of Gilliam Sowell. The yankee took the possessions of their recently deceased daughter, greatly distressing Mrs. Sowell. At gunpoint, the yankee abducted the family servant, Ephriam, along with all their meat and three horses. After the Union soldiers and Ephriam had traveled some distance, the Federal soldier stopped to sleep. Once the soldier was asleep, Ephriam could not resist the temptation to even the score for the sorrow caused to his mistress. With a lightwood knot, Ephriam struck the yankee three times upon the head, rendering him dead. He left the body over a log by the roadside midway between Jefferson and McBee, near where Buford church stands today. Other soldiers came along and found the body and buried it. He carried his master's horses and mules as well as the soldier’s horse back into the swamp, and they were all rescued.

 In retaliation, one hundred Confederate prisoners were lined up and forced to draw a slip of paper from a hat as they marched by. Those to be spared would draw a slip with a "G" on it. The unfortunate soul to be executed would draw a blank slip. James Miller drew the fatal lot. He was a man between forty-five and fifty years of age and had been captured a day or two before some distance west of Cheraw, while on his way home on furlough from Florence, S.C., where he had been engaged in guarding prisoners. He begged to be allowed to communicate with his wife and children, but this privilege was denied him. He then asked to confer with such of his neighbors and friends as were captives with himself. To those he gave directions for his wife, asking that she be told he was not coming home, and advising her about his farm and about the children, just as if he were going off on a journey to be absent for a time. He then made some requests of those who were about to shoot him. He asked, in the first place, that he be not bound either hand or foot, saying he was not going to run, that he was prepared, and not afraid to die. He then asked that he be not blindfolded, saying he wished to look into the eyes of those who were to shoot him. And lastly, he begged that he be not shot in the face, declaring that God had given him his face, and that in all his life he had never done anything of which he was ashamed. Colonel William C. Rhodes of the 30th Illinois (the dead soldiers unit) was ordered to command the firing squad.  Advanced in years, a Methodist minister, and father of nine children, the old prisoner claimed he had never seen a shot fired in combat, but was informed that he had "half an hour to prepare for death".  A federal private from Illinois recounted that "I spoke to the poor old man and he was quite resigned to his fate, but when speaking of his wife and seven children, the tears streamed down his furrow cheeks".  The Federal Colonel gave the gallant man of God a handkerchief to drop once he had finished his final prayers and was ready to "proceed". He was marched off a short distance and few moments later the firing squad made up of 12 men of the 30th Illinois had done their unenviable deed. Six bullets struck Miller, the other six being blanks. This was a protocol involved in firing squads to try and ensure that no man on the squad knew his bullet had been one of the fatal ones. James Miller was buried at Five Forks Cemetery. The funeral was conducted by Louis Scarborough. There is monument Five Forks in his honor.