Miller, John F. (b. 1831)

John F. Miller, of San Francisco, was born in Indiana, in 1831, his parents being Virginians; he received an academical education at South Bend, and was fitted for college at Chicago, but did not enter; commenced the study of law in 1849, and graduated at the New York State Law School in 1852; commenced practice at South Bend, soon went to California, where he practised law for three years, when he returned to Indiana and resumed practice there; in i860 he was a member of the State Senate, but resigned to enter the Army as Colonel of the Twenty-ninth Indiana Volunteers, and was soon placed in command of a brigade, serving under Sherman, Buell, Rosecrans, and Thomas, and receiving severe wounds in the battles of Stone River and Liberty Gap; promoted to Brigadier-General; in the battle of Nashville he commanded the left division of 8,000 men, and was brevetted a Major-General for conspicuous bravery; at the close of the war he was offered a high commission in the Regular Army, but he declined it, and returned to California, where he was Collector of the Port of San Francisco four years, declining a reappointment; he was a Republican candidate for Presidential Elector in 1872, in 1876, and in 1880; he was a member of the California State Constitutional Convention in 1879; was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican, to succeed Newton Booth, Anti-Monopolist, and took his seat March 4, 1881. His term of service will expire March 3, 1887.

1. U. S. Congressional Directory, Washington, D. C., 1886, page 9.

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