Robert Ashley Milam

Robert Ashley Milam
(1840 – 1914)

ROBERT ASHLEY⁶ MILAM

(JEFFERSON⁵, ARCHIBALD⁴, MOSES³, THOMAS MILAM OF BEDFORD² COUNTY, UNK FATHER OF VIRGINIA¹ MILAMS) was born January 08, 1840 in Hickman's Prairie, Red River County, Texas, and died October 14, 1914 in Houston, Harris County,Texas; buried Glendale Cemetery.

He married LUCY D. WEBB RHEA October 10, 1869 in Harrisburg (now Houston), Texas. She was born August 13, 1844 in Winterburnbassett, Wiltshire County, England, and died October 27, 1927 in Harrisburg, Harris County, Texas.

Robert Ashley Milam was the sixth child of Jefferson and Eliza (McKinney) Milam. He was the first of twin sons born on January 8, 1840 at his fathers headright on Hickman's Prairie, Red River County (now Bowie) Texas. This is located about 30 miles southwest of the present day Texarkana, Texas near the present town of Maude.

His father died when Rob was four years old and his mother decided to relocate with the rest of her family to Grayson County Texas. Her new home was located on Sister Grove Creek about 5 miles south of the present town of Van Alstyne, Texas. It was here that Rob and his eight siblings grew to adulthood.

When the war clouds of the great civil war gathered, his grand father, Collin McKinney, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico, then about 90 years old gathered all his grand sons about him and advised them to vote against secession from the United States in a general referendum held in Texas during this time. Rob was the only grand son to heed his grandfather's advice. However he was one of the first to volunteer for the army of the confederacy. He along with many of his neighbors joined Capt. T.H. Bowen's company which became part of Hood's famous regiment of General Sul Ross' brigade of Texas cavalry.

The story is told that prior to going off to the civil war, Rob's rifle discharged while he was cleaning it and the ball lodged in the Mantle of the fireplace. The bullet hole is still there today.

His own telling of his civil war experiences is recorded in a family collection and follows:

…"I joined the Confederate Army in 1861 . . . enlisted under Captain Bowen and joined the Sixth Texas Cavalry . . . mustered into service the 10th of September." A later "I was left wounded on the battlefield (at Corinth, Mississippi). At 10 A.M. on the 9th, a bomb exploded close to my knee – so close that my trousers were blackened by the burning powder just over the knee. I had a premonition then that in the next charge which was made on the 10th, I was wounded. A ball entered my knee throuyght this very blackened spot, disabling me completely.

This was during the last charge in the thick of the fight, and 200 yards from our breast-works in a open place midst the fallen timber. My leg failing me, I laid down, and presently experienced a severe burning sensation in this wounded leg.

I lay on the battlefield till four p.m. Fortunately I had two canteens of water with me. While wounded and when the firing was heaviest, I crawled for the shelter and protection of a fallen log. I placed my head upon a bend in the log and rested there. Then a solid cannon ball struck the log, smashing it away from me, and driving the log away from my head.

At four p.m. the Yanks came near and called me to come out from there. I replied, "I would like to see myself coming out" - I was badly wounded. They then came and lifted me. This made me so sick they eased me to the ground and secured a litter to take me off the field. They were very kind – carried me then to the center of the field among the other wounded. There were 2000 wounded, all told, so the Yanks said. I was kept in the open field about a week. My wound, a shivered knee, was from a minnie-ball. The surgeon attending me the day after the fight said there was danger of my having to have the leg amputated. He was an old fatherly fellow from Indiana, and told me I would be able to decided this by whether the purple color of the leg wound turned darker. If it did turn darker, the quicker amputated, the better. Wounded and lying on the ground I was glad to discover by the fifth day that such operation would not be necessary. However, I was confined to the hospital from the 10th of October to the 4th of December. I was then sent to Vicksburg and exchanged at Edwards Hospital. In April, I was given a passport to Springhill, Tennessee, where the Sixth Texas camped. From here I was sent to Chatanooga and from there to Atlanta, Georgia. Procured furlough for sixty days and went to Mobile and from there shot out for home, by way of Montgomery, Selam, Meridian,Mississippi, Jackson, and Natchez; crossed river and went to Trinity, and took steamer for Shreveport, where I met my old neighbor, Milt Steele, riding a mule, and on the business he told me, of bringing Bob back.'

Steele footed and I rode his mule thirty miles and we then borrowed a buggy. The first night out from Jefferson, we came to old Judge Ocultree's who showed us great hospitality."

Following the civil war Rob and his brothers spread out over Texas. Rob and his brother headed for Galveston, Texas. Here Rob started a brickyard and manufactured bricks. Robert and his family eventually moved to Harrisburg, Texas where he became a Justice of the Peace and served in this office for 15 years.

Robert Ashley Milam married Lucy Webb Durham. They raised seven children. Robert Ashley Milam died on the 12th of October, 1914.