From the Anthology
Pandemic Reflections: Five Years Later
Since 2018, I’d been challenging myself to reconstruct the life of a forgotten Civil War soldier—Wells Waite Miller of the 8th OVI—and I would give presentations about him at historical societies.
Then . . . my big moment arrived! A Civil War round table asked me to present my research on February 3, 2020. I needed to add more in-depth material for such a learned group, so I collected more information about the new-found appreciation of the 8th OVI and the ascending recognition of the central role they’d played. I beefed up geographical data (not my strong suit!) and added scattered bits of information collected about Wells’ older brother and fellow Civil War soldier, Lodowick G. Miller.
I got more time to prepare when I was asked to switch my presentation date from February 3 to March 9, 2020. That seemed fine. After all, what difference would a month make? Well, I probably don’t need to say this, but I will. On March 9, 2020—the date of my presentation—Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine signed Executive Order 2020-01D, “declaring a state of emergency in Ohio to protect the well-being of the citizens of Ohio from the dangerous effects of COVID-19.”
A Quincy Gillmore Civil War Round Table representative called to ask if I planned to cancel. I struggled to know what to do but decided that this evening event would be the last in-person one I’d do until the pandemic subsided (and it was!).
In pandemic preparation, I withdrew a relatively large sum of money to keep at home in case of . . . in case of what, none of us were sure, but we figured it could involve money. We got my flat tire fixed, went grocery shopping to buy two overflowing carts of food, and bought a new coffee pot. We ordered board games online, and then I needed to get ready for my presentation. I felt nervous when people shook my hand at the presentation, but it all went well. I drank coffee, ate a chocolate chip cookie, won the 50/50 raffle, used the proceeds to join the group, and then went home.
So, now what? Both my husband and son Ryan were considered essential workers, and I wrote from home, anyhow. So, in many ways, we did the exact same things—only in terror of becoming deathly ill. Ryan became the only cashier at the turnpike plaza store where he worked. He wore a mask and shield and rang up purchases behind a plastic barrier; he sanitized keypads, freezer handles, and more after each of the very sparsely-numbered customers left—typically a truck driver or state highway patrol officer.
On March 13, a roundtable member and graves registration officer emailed me. Bill’s job? He helped to account for burial places of soldiers who fought for the Union. In other words, to eliminate the description of “Unknown Soldier” for them.
One of them existed at Shiloh National Military Park, being the only still unidentified one there from the 72nd OVI, and my presentation made Bill suspect it was Lodowick. Bill asked whether I’d seen “Lodowick” handwritten in a way that looked like it started with “S.” Well, one census listing of his looked like “Sedgewick.” Had I walked through the Miller family’s section of Castalia Cemetery? I certainly had—multiple times. Was Lodowick buried with them? He wasn’t.
Ultimately, what I knew, what Bill knew, and what a friend of mine (the late Billy Molina) had found, Bill determined that the unknown soldier at Shiloh was indeed Lodowick G. Miller, and he created a service record for Lodowick in the Union Veteran Graves Registration Database. So, although I was fully cooped up at home, still afraid to have delivered packages brought into our home without sanitizing them, we’d given a soldier who deserved recognition new life. Let’s honor his legacy!
Born in 1830 in Enfield, New York, Lodowock G. Miller was named after his recently deceased uncle, Lodowick Graves, who had died shortly after his twentieth birthday. In 1841, all three of our Lodowick’s siblings died within a week: six-year-old Delia, five-year-old Helen, and three-year-old Amos, Jr. Others in the community died then, too, suggesting infectious disease. (Wells was born in 1842.)
In 1850, Lodowick farmed, likely for a neighbor since his parents—Amos and Emily—didn’t have one. The family moved to Castalia, Ohio in 1852 where Amos did buy a farm. Lodowick worked erratically, according to records, which might have referred to side jobs. Lodowick “solemnized” a marital contract on March 6, 1861 with Mrs. Sarah Fleming, marrying her on May 18th . On January 7, 1862, Lodowick traveled a dozen miles from the Miller farm to Clyde where he enlisted in the 72nd OVI, Company A, one formed between October and December 1861. C.G. Eaton signed Lodowick up for three years but, less than three months later, he caught typhoid fever in a damp camp with close quarters. On March 30, 1862, Lodowick died of typhoid at age thirty-one—perhaps from the same disease that had killed his young siblings two decades before.
His military records describe him as a farmer, 5’8” inches tall with a light complexion, light hair, and blue eyes—someone who dutifully showed up for roll call.
Reverend G.R. Brown held Lodowick’s funeral on April 27 in a large barn with seating for five hundred in Castalia. Lodowick left behind a “wife, parents, and a large circle of relatives and friends to mourn his loss. He was widely known, and the members of this community will feel a most earnest sympathy for the bereaved ones, and a deep sense of the sacrifice which they and theirs have made for the cause which is dear to us all. And in this and every other such instance, let there be honor to the noble dead who, in camp and on the field, have cheerfully yielded up their lives for their country and for us.”
Kelly Boyer Sagert is a fulltime freelance writer, editor, teacher, poet, and playwright living in Lorain, Ohio. She has traditionally published eighteen books and has been commissioned to write six plays. She served as the scriptwriter for the Emmy-Award nominated documentary, Trail Magic: The Grandma Gatewood Story, that appeared on PBS and the scriptwriter and an associate producer for the film Victoria Woodhull: Shattering Glass Ceilings that recently appeared at the Cleveland International Film Festival and won the Indie Film Festival Award of Boston in January 2025.
