Early Life

Nelson Miles was born in Westminster, Mass. on 8 AUG 1839 on his family's farm.  Eager to jump into the real world, he worked as a clerk in a Boston crockery store at a very young age.  He attended night school, read deeply into military history, and mastered military principals and techniques.  He even had a French veteran teach him drill.

Civil War

On September 9, 1861, Miles entered the US Army as a volunteer fighting in several crucial battles almost from the beginning.  Miles rose through the ranks very quickly, earning a commission as a Lieutenant in the 22nd Massachusetts Infantry.  Less than a year later he was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the 61st New York Volunteers on May 31, 1862.  He was promoted to the rank of Colonel after the Battle of Antietam.  Several other battles he participated in included Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and the Appomattox Campaign. Wounded four times in battle (he was shot in the neck and abdomen at Chancellorsville), he received a brevet of brigadier general of volunteers and was awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry, both in recognition for his actions at Chancellorsville. He was advanced to full rank on May 12, 1864, for the Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House, eventually becoming a major general of volunteers at age 26.

Indian Wars

In July of 1866 Miles received a commission in the regular army as a colonel.  He was married on June 30, 1868 to Mary Hoyt Sherman whose uncles were Ohio Senator John Sherman and Army Major General William Tecumseh Sherman.  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.  In March of 1869 he became commander of the 5th US Infantry.

Miles played a leading role in nearly every phase of the Army's campaign against the tribes of the Great Plains. In 1874-1875, he was a field commander in the force that defeated the Kiowa, Comanche, and the Southern Cheyenne along the Red River. Between 1876 and 1877, he participated in the campaign that scoured the Northern Plains after Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn, forcing the Lakota and their allies onto reservations. In the winter of 1877, he drove his troops on a forced march across Montana and intercepted the Nez Perce band led by Chief Joseph that had defeated and/or eluded every unit sent against it over a 1,500 mile stretch from Oregon to the Canadian border. For the rest of Miles' career, he quarreled with General Oliver O. Howard over the credit for Joseph's capture.

In 1886, he replaced General George Crook as Army Commander against Geronimo in Arizona. Crook relied heavily on Apache scouts in his efforts to capture the Chiricahua leader, but Miles replaced them with white troops who eventually traveled 3,000 miles trailing Geronimo through the tortuous Sierra Madre Mountains. Lt. Gatewood with some Apache scouts finally succeeded in negotiating a surrender, under the terms of which Geronimo and his followers were exiled to confinement on a Florida reservation along with all other Chiricahuas who had worked for the army in violation of Miles' agreement with them. He denied Gatewood any credit for the negotiations.

In 1890, the last uprising of the Sioux, known as the Ghost Dance, on the Lakota reservations brought Miles back into the field once more. His efforts to subdue them once more led to Sitting Bull's death and the massacre of 200 Sioux, which included women and children at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. Miles reacted to these fights by asserting U.S. authority over the Indians, believing that all Lakota should be placed under military control.

Spanish American War

In 1894, Miles commanded the troops mobilized to put down the Pullman strike riots. He was named Commanding General of the U.S. Army in 1895, a post he held during the Spanish-American War. Miles commanded forces at Cuban sites such as Siboney, and after the surrender of Santiago de Cuba by the Spanish, he personally led the invasion of Puerto Rico, landing in Guánica. Miles was a vocal critic of the army's quartermaster for providing rancid canned meat to the troops in the field. He served as the first head of the military government established on the island, acting as both head of the army of occupation and administrator of civil affairs. He achieved the rank of Lieutenant General in 1900 based on his performance in the war. Called a "brave peacock" by President Theodore Roosevelt, Miles retired from the service in 1903 when he reached retirement age. Upon his retirement, the office of Commanding General of the U.S. Army was abolished by an Act of Congress and the Army Chief of Staff system was introduced.

Under the law at that time, only one person at a time was authorized to wear and hold the rank of lieutenant general---which was then the highest rank an officer could hold. President Theodore Roosevelt, anxious to rid himself of Miles (they detested one another), swore in General Samuel B. Young as the first Army Chief of Staff on the very last day of Miles' tenure of office. For approximately a period of an hour, the United States had (illegally) two men as lieutenant generals serving on active duty. This was remedied when Miles was notified of his retirement by way of bicycle messenger and escorted out of his office to make way for the new Army Chief of Staff.  Upon his official retirement, the President declined to send the customary congratulatory message, and the Secretary of War did not attend the retirement ceremonies.

After the Army...

General Miles retired quietly to Washington DC.  The end, at the age of 85, could not have been more fitting. In the spring of 1925, he took his grandchildren to the circus. The band played the National Anthem. Standing erectly at attention, rendering the military salute to the flag, he collapsed with a heart attack. He is buried in Section 3 in one of only two mausoleums in Arlington National Cemetery. Another connection with Arlington was that Miles was the Grand Marshall at the dedication of the Memorial Amphitheater, which was held in 1920.  On June 3, 1941 the Secretary of War issued an order that the newest state-of-the-art coastal fortification at Cape Henlopen, Delaware be named "Fort Miles" in honor of Lt. General Miles. 

Lt. General Nelson A. Miles
Painting by: Caroline Thurber

Lt. General Nelson A. Miles
Photo Credit: US Army Center of Military History


Gravesite of the Miles family.  General Miles is buried here along with several of his relatives.  This is only one of two mausoleums in Arlington National Cemetery.
Photo Credit: Arlington National Cemetery

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