[X480-F] Miller, Theodore W. -- Death and Funeral
Item set
Title
Description
[This folder has not been completely edited. Approximately 30 documents have recently been added, and these documents do not have images or complete database information. In addition, the information in the folder target (editorial description) may not be up-to-date.]
These documents consist of telegrams, correspondence, and other items relating to Theodore Miller's enlistment in the Rough Riders and his death in the Spanish-American War on July 8, 1898. Most of the documents date from July 1898. Other items are from August-September 1898, 1899, 1900, 1902, and 1908. Also included is a 19-page typescript of Theodore Miller's diary during his service in the Spanish-American War. The diary, which covers the period May 26-July 1, 1898 (the day he was mortally wounded), was published in George E. Vincent, ed., Theodore W. Miller, Rough Rider: His Diary as a Soldier, Chapters V-VII (pp. 76-133). It was also published in the Akron Beacon Journal. In addition, there is a six-page typescript entitled "The Journey from Siboney to Akron," regarding the efforts of John V. Miller to recover his brother's body and bring it back to Akron. This account was published as Chapter IX of Theodore W. Miller, Rough Rider (pp. 146-155). Also included are remarks by Yale University President Arthur T. Hadley and Theodore's former classmate, George Parmly Day, at the dedication of the Miller Memorial Gateway in September 1899. The last item is a 1908 letter from Bettina Monae-Lesser, the nurse who tended to Theodore at the Army hospital in Siboney, Cuba, in which she notes that Theodore's wound left him paralyzed from the shoulder down "and required the care one would give to an infant." She also mentions a black soldier who visited him daily at the hospital and recalls that Theodore introduced him to her as his friend and brother, explaining ""we have fought side by side and you know that has made us all brothers." Among the correspondents are several men who served with Theodore in the Rough Riders, including W. Frank Knox, Republican candidate for Vice President in 1936 and U.S. Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Knox, who was the last man to see Theodore alive, recalls his final days in the hospital.