This photo shows Col. Madison Miller of the 18th Missouri Infantry, a Union regiment. The 18th Missouri served in its own state until March 1862, when like many other Tran-Mississippi units, both North and South, it was transferred east of the river, where it stayed until the end of the war. Miller was declared missing at the Battle of Shiloh. Considering the carnage of that battle, he was probably killed and his body never recovered.The man holding his horse may have been a slave. Since Missouri was not considered a state in rebellion, Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation didn’t apply to it. Slaves were not freed in Missouri until a state convention freed them on 11 January 1865. Despite this, Missouri formed its first Negro regiment in 1863, made up of free blacks and runaways from Arkansas. A total of 8,300 blacks served in Missouri units, although it's unclear how many of them were actually Missourians.
Col. Madison Miller was captured as a prisoner at the Hornet's Nest. He twice tried to give his sword away to Confederate officers, but they both told him to keep his sword.
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