--
Rev. John H. Miller,
Colonel of a regiment of
Mississippi State troops, was murdered near
Pontotoc, in that State, a few weeks ago while on his way to preach a Sabbath sermon at
Ripley, Miss.
The Southern
Presbyterian says:
‘
He received intelligence that the place was occupied by a regiment of renegade
Tennessee Union men, under the notorious
Col. Hurst, and knowing that he had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious to them by his zeal and services in the
Southern cause, resolved to return Accordingly, after dining hastily with one of the elders of the church,
Judge Rogan, who lived in the country, he left with a view of evading them.
But he unfortunately encountered two of them with two prisoners, about two miles south of
Ripley, and, being alone, and perhaps too near to escapes when he observed them, he was surrounded, overpowered, knocked off his horse, shot through the head and shot again through the body!
His family physician after examining the body on its arrival at his late home, pronounced the opinion that either wound would have proved fatal, and hence that he was killed by the first shot.
His person was robbed of fifty or sixty dollars, his gold watch, and a pair of gold spectacles, and his hat (which was a new and fice one) was warn by his murderer into the village of
Ripley.
They stole the very sermon he had intended to preach that day, and only gave it up to a lady on condition of her furnishing a copy.
They even took from his mouth a set of
artificial teeth, for the sake of the gold!
They left the remains of their victim lying in the road just where the hellish deed had been perpetrated.
Some negroes who were passing drew the corpse aside to a place of safety, where it lay until it was sent for from the villages.
The murderers proceeded to
Ripley and reported that they had killed a "
Secesh Colonel," and to justify themselves added that he had resisted when they arrested him. But the testimony of one of the men who witnessed the marder was, that he did not resist at all, but that he was murdered outright.
’
