7. Recite the poem "Camp Nelson, Ky.," at the grave of Joseph Miller.

On Thanksgiving weekend 1864, the U.S. Army forcibly expelled 400 African American refugees from Camp Nelson. Soldiers burned the camp to ensure that they did not return, loaded women and children on wagons, and dumped them beyond army lines. Vulnerable to slave-catchers, the refugees wandered north on the road to Nicholasville. In the driving snow and bitter cold (16 degrees), 102 of them died.

 

Later that night, colored soldiers went looking for their wives and children. Joseph Miller, age 45, found his family in a church meetinghouse seven miles north in Nicholasville. But one of his sons had died in the process of being expelled. Joseph buried him.

 

Three days later, the devastated father told his story to a white Union officer. The officer in turn submitted the story to his military superiors in the form of a legal affidavit. That document in turn inspired a poem written 150 years later by former U.S. Poet Laureate of the United States Tracy K. Smith. It reflects the coldness of death and the hardness of war.

 

When you’ve found Joseph Miller’s grave, read the following poem out loud.

 

Camp Nelson, Ky. November 26, 1864.

 

The morning was bitter cold.

It was freezing hard. I was

Certain it would kill my sick child to take him out in the cold. I told

The man in charge of the guard

That it would be the death of my boy.

 

I told him that my wife and children

had no place to go and that I

was a soldier of the United States.

He told me it did not make any difference.

He had orders to take all out of Camp.

He told my wife and family that if they

 

did not get up into the wagon he would

shoot the last one of them. My wife

carried her sick child in her arms.

The wind was blowing hard and cold

And having had to leave much of our

Clothing when we left our master, my wife

 

with her little one was poorly clad. I followed

as far as the lines. At night I went in search.

They were in an old meeting house belonging

to the colored people. My wife and children could not get near the fire, because of the number of colored people huddling

 

by the soldiers. They had not received

a morsel of food during the whole day.

My boy was dead. He died directly

After getting down from the wagon.

Next morning I walked to Nicholasville.

I dug a grave and buried my child. I left

 

my family in the Meeting house—

where they still remain.

 

Joseph Miller’s youngest son was just the first casualty. Over the next month, Miller’s other children died too. Their names were Joseph Jr., Calvin, and Maria. They were followed by his wife Isabella. And then Joseph himself, just sixteen weeks before the end of the Civil War, succumbed to disease, lack of nutrition, and the traumas of the past month. Joseph had been the property of George Miller his entire life until he was emancipated at Camp Nelson. And then the Union Army—the Union Army—killed Joseph and his family.

 

There’s a sliver of redemption. Miller’s affidavit will go on make a big difference in the lives of the Camp Nelson refugees who survived. That happier story will come later in the Jessamine County Bucket List.