Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.

By the summer of 1862, the Union Army was wearing thin, worn down by death, disease and the need to occupy extensive tracts of rebel territory. To make things worse, the Army’s one-year enlistments were about to expire, sending thousands of men home.

In response, President Abraham Lincoln issued an executive order calling for 150,000 volunteers to reinforce the ranks. In communities across the loyal states, civic and business leaders aided by up-and-coming young patriots rallied the citizenry with great hoopla.

Such was the case in the Indiana town of Warsaw, about a day’s ride on horseback from Fort Wayne. That is, with one exception: Andy Milice, who helped lead the push for volunteers, was young but hardly up-and-coming. A bookseller and stationer with a shock of curly hair, Milice had recently returned from a miserable stint in the Army that left him disgraced. Lincoln’s call, he must have figured, was a chance for him to resurrect his reputation.

Days after the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Milice was the first man in town to enlist in a new infantry company. The recruits voted for officers, a common practice in the volunteer army, and elected a captain, first lieutenant and second lieutenant. They also voted for a third lieutenant, or ensign, and Milice was the soldier’s choice to fill this slot.

Unfortunately for Milice, third lieutenants were rarely needed. After he and his comrades joined the 12th Indiana Infantry, they learned that no provision had been made for this rank; company commanders stripped Milice of his shoulder straps and bumped him to fourth sergeant.

Soon after Milice was unceremoniously downgraded, changes in the senior leadership of the regiment resulted in a vacancy for second lieutenant of the company. The rank and file voted for a replacement. Milice was on the ballot. So was the most popular private in the company, Jim McGuire. A Mexican War veteran dogged by alcoholism, he had enlisted as first sergeant, but hard drinking had cost him his stripes. But his personal issues seemed to only endear him to his comrades.

McGuire “was elected by a good majority, but by a little underhanded work, the vote of the Company was set aside” in favor of Milice, explained the company historian. “This caused considerable dissatisfaction, as the choice of the company was clear and the determination on the part of certain persons to disregard their wishes with regard to promotions gave just grounds for complaint.”

The company historian did not elaborate. Those who overturned the election may have felt that Milice deserved a second chance as an officer, or that McGuire’s alcohol problem raised concerns about his capacity to command. Whatever the reason, the reversal broke McGuire’s spirit. The rank and file directed their anger toward Milice.

Meanwhile, the regiment had moved east, where an unlikely source — the Confederate Army— provided Milice an opportunity to stem the tide of resentment rising against him. On Dec. 11, 1861, a squad from Milice’s company fell into enemy hands while on patrol along the Potomac River on the Maryland-Virginia border. One of the captured soldiers was the company captain, Reuben Williams, a peacetime newspaper editor respected by all.

From “Progressive Men and Women of Kosciusko County, Indiana,” scanned by openlibrary.org

Williams was marched off to a prisoner of war camp in Richmond, Va. Company command devolved to the first lieutenant, a roundly disliked man named Andrew Gallagher, and Milice, who still carried the stigma of the voided election. The men hesitantly gave their allegiance to Milice, whom they considered the lesser of two evils. But Milice failed to gain their trust. “He had a style about him that repelled rather than won, and yielded a reluctant obedience to his orders,” stated the company historian.

Three months passed before Williams gained his release from prison and returned to command. Milice was bumped back down the chain of command, and passed the remaining two months of his enlistment as a persona non grata. He mustered out of the regiment and returned to Warsaw.

Milice determined to rebuild his tarnished reputation. As soon as he heard of Lincoln’s call for more volunteers, he jumped into action, helping raise recruits for a company that joined the new Seventy-74th Indiana Infantry. The men elected him second lieutenant. “With the experience he had gained in the 12th he became a very efficient officer and was quite popular with his men,” noted the company historian.

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Milice made captain and company commander on Aug. 21, 1862 — a day long in coming. The memory of his failures receded into the shadows of history. Milice went on to become a capable combat leader.

He was at his finest at Chickamauga on Sept. 19, 1863. The 74th went into the engagement 376 muskets strong; Milice and the cadre of officers rounded out the number to an even 400. Throughout the morning, the men blasted away at rebels until their 60 rounds of ammunition a piece had been expended. They refilled their cartridge boxes and formed a line of battle with soldiers from two other regiments in the afternoon. About 2 p.m., the thin blue line advanced through a dense wood, engaged the enemy, and drove them back more than half a mile. At this critical moment Confederate re-enforcements arrived on the scene, and chaos descended as they counterattacked, pounding the federals with infantry and artillery fire.

Library of Congress

Lt. Col. Myron Baker of the 74th reported, “Being overpowered after a desperate struggle for the mastery of the ground, I ordered the regiment to fall back, and took position on a ridge about 300 yards in rear of where our advance was checked.” More than a third of the men in the company were killed or wounded, including Milice. During the thick of the fight, a bullet ripped into his left shoulder. The soft lead flattened as it tore through tissue and muscles, leaving a gaping exit wound in his back.

Milice was transported to a makeshift field hospital, where surgeons probed and prodded the wound. They found no broken bones, and ordered him evacuated to a hospital in Union-occupied Nashville to convalesce. There he came down with hepatitis and other symptoms that suggested typhoid. His condition rapidly deteriorated. Medical personnel believed his case fatal and sent him home to Warsaw to die.

Milice survived the trip home and miraculously recovered, although his arm was never quite the same again. He resigned his commission a few days before Christmas 1863. He married in 1864 and raised a family that grew to include two boys and a girl. After the death of his wife in 1879, he remarried, relocated to Riverside, Calif., and invested in an orange grove. He died on Sept. 21, 1919, two days after the 56th anniversary of his wounding at the Battle of Chickamauga. He was 80.

“Captain Milice served his country well during the war of the sixties,” noted his obituary in the Riverside Daily Press. “A gallant record of meritorious service to his country is the legacy of Capt. Milice to his children.”

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Sources: William S. Hemphill, “Journal of the Kosciusko Guards, Company E, 12th Regiment Indiana Volunteers”; 1860 Federal Census; Lemuel W. Royse, “A Standard History of Kosciusko County Indiana, Vol. I”; “Progressive Men and Women of Kosciusko County, Indiana”; Andrew S. Milice military service record, National Archives and Records Service; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; Andrew S. Milice pension record, National Archives and Records Service; Riverside Daily Press, Sept. 22, 1919.

Ronald S. Coddington is the author of “Faces of the Civil War” and “Faces of the Confederacy.” His new book, “African American Faces of the Civil War,” will be available in the fall. He writes “Faces of War,” a column for the Civil War News.