A Brief Synopsis of Sergeant Richard Millen, 18th Georgia Battalion “Savannah Volunteer Guards”

A month following Richard Millen’s 23rd birthday, in Savannah, Georgia, Millen enlisted in the 18th Georgia Battalion for a $50 bounty. Some three years later, on April 6, 1865, his battalion, known as the “Savannah Volunteer Guards”, was engaged in a vicious and desperate fight for survival along the banks and ridges south of Little Sailor’s Creek. The 18th Georgia stood ready in the middle of General Richard Ewell’s line that day and in the epicenter of a brutal contest that was about to unfold.

A few months earlier, in 1864, while serving in the trenches surrounding Petersburg, Sergeant Millen wrote a letter to his sister saying;

“It has been a long time since we have been together; a cruel war has devastated our once beautiful country, many changes have taken place since then, and many more will likely occur before we meet again; if we ever do meet again on this Earth. Come what may, I hope and pray that I may be able to say with a sincere heart, “O! God thy will, not mine, be done.”…

The 18th GA repulsed three separate attacks from the 121st New York Infantry by refusing their right flank. The battalion also fixed bayonets and counter attacked the New Yorkers twice, but the 18th Georgia still found itself in serious peril. Major William Basinger later wrote that the battalion colors were planted on the road side and at the center of the command. Basinger said, “Sergeant Richard Millen stood on the right of them, Sergeant Simeon Morton on the left of them, fighting like lions.”

Lions indeed. As the 121st N.Y. advanced, both Corporal Edwin Lewis and Alfred Coonrod, were killed trying to seize the Georgian’s colors. With a shot to his head, Coonrod fell “at his post doing his duty.” As Lewis began to move towards the flag, he too was shot through the head and dying instantly. Isaac Bassett, a 23 year old from Russia, New York, was struck down as he attempted to wrestle the colors away from the Savannah’s color guard. Two more New Yorkers, James Sherman and George Shay, were also killed in the exchange. Finally, Warren Dockum of Company H secured the 18th’s standard, one of six battle flags that the 1st Division, Sixth Corps, captured that day.

In a letter to former Confederate General G.W.C. Lee, Basinger detailed what happened next. As the Federal soldiers attacked once more, the Georgians were “overpowered by superior numbers.” “Though fighting to the last, all the rest of the command were killed, wounded, or taken. Sergeants R. Millen and S. Morton stood to the last before their colors, keeping at bay a party of about fifty men, and were the last to fall.” Basinger lamented, “Further resistance was obviously impossible.” Attaching his handkerchief to his sword, the Major displayed his token of surrender to the enemy and became a prisoner.

The losses reported in the 18th Georgia Battalion were 30 killed, 22 wounded, of the 85 engaged; in all, sixty-one per cent.

The dead were buried on the field and in ravines in the weeks following the clash, Sergeant Richard Millen was among them. His earthly remains were recovered later that same year, presumably by his family. On New Year’s Eve that year, Millen was laid to rest a second and final time in Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. The bodies of eighteen of the Guards who fell at Sailor’s Creek were recovered and brought to Savannah, only seven of which could be identified.

Millen’s emotional 1864 letter to his sister closed with,

“If it is God’s will that I am to be debarred the pleasure of again meeting on Earth, those who are dear to me, I look forward to a glorious union in Heaven, where all will will {sic} be peace and happiness.” A premonition that unfortunately came true on a muddy hillside overlooking Little Sailor’s Creek.