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I love history. It's so interesting, and at least some of it is true.
For the past three years I've been telling Miller family members that we are related to Will Pittenger, a participant in the Andrews Raid of Civil War fame. He was one of the first six recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Welllll, it seems we're not related. Probably. I'll explain below.
I gave a talk last week in East Liverpool about the raid, better known as the Great Locomotive Chase. "Here's your mule!" is the punchline of a comic story known throughout the South during the war: when a farmer brings chickens and eggs to sell in a rebel camp, his mule wanders off. The soldiers make sport of him, causing him to run to and fro as they call "Where's your mule?" and its false riposte, "Here's your mule!" from different corners of the camp.
A Southern newspaper's contemporaneous account of the April 12, 1862, raid gleefully reported that the pursuing conductor, William Fuller, shouted "Here's your mule!" at a pivotal point in the chase.
The raiders' hijacked locomotive ran out of fuel as they neared Chattanooga. They fled on foot. Fuller, personally outraged that Yankees has stolen "his" train, had chased them for seven hours on foot, by handcart, and on three different locomotives. When he jumped onto a farmer's mule to chase the fleeing raiders, his shout of "Here's your mule!" was a cry of heard throughout the South, not unlike Farragut's "Damn the torpedoes!" in the North.
OK, OK, the torpedoes thing was more dramatic. Still, consider Fuller's presence of mind to spike that moment with the perfect exclamation point. He had won the race and knew it.
Now, as to my purported family ties to Will Pittenger.
In researching Miller history in 2019 I stumbled upon an ancient (2005) email in a forgotten corner of my computer's memory. Sent to me by a history-minded relative, Jack Miller, it said that Will Pittenger and Morgan Miller were first cousins. Jack had since passed away, so I could not ask him how.
Delving into family trees, I found that Will's father, Thomas Pittenger, was born in the W. Va. Panhandle county of Hancock before marrying and moving to New Somerset in nearby Jefferson County, Ohio. He undoubtedly had been a neighbor and was well-acquainted with our family. The mother of Morgan H. Miller, my great-grandfather and also a Civil War Union volunteer, was a Margaret Pittenger who had a brother named William. Perhaps that was the source of the confusion. These two lines of Pittengers, as nearly as I can tell, run parallel but separate, tracing back to different patriarchs named Hendrick Pittenger in the Dutch immigrant community of Somerset County, N.J. If I'm related to Will Pittenger, the connection is back in the Netherlands.
Eyes glazing over? Genealogy does that.
Will Pittenger enlisted at Steubenville with the 2nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment on April 17, 1861, a mere five days after secessionists fired on Ft. Sumter, and only two days after President Lincoln called for the first 75,000 volunteer soldiers. (That the Andrews Raid occurred exactly one year to the day after Ft. Sumter was a coincidence.)
Two other Andrews Raid members from the Ohio 2nd Volunteers were awarded the Medal of Honor along with Pittenger. An online regimental history, however, lists four Civil War soldiers from the Ohio 2nd to receive that commendation. The fourth, to my surprise, was William H. Surles, East Liverpool postmaster and a state leader of the veteran organization Grand Army of the Republic. The Surles award was made in 1891, 49 years after his heroic act of stepping in front of Col. Anson McCook (of Columbiana's "Fighting McCooks") as a rebel soldier was about to shoot him at the Battle of Perryville, Ky.
Shortly before my talk that I found an article about Surles on the East Liverpool Historical Society website, written by local Civil War authority Timothy Brookes. I phoned my friend Tim to ask: Was the medal a surprise, or may have it been sought by Surles?
No answer; I left a voicemail.
What happened as a result was one of the funniest and most unlikely occurrences of my life. Days later I'm still chuckling over it.
Standing at a podium at the East Liverpool Community Center, I was giving my talk about Will Pittenger and was about to relate the Surles story when my cellphone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and was about turn it off, excusing myself by joking, "and don't forget to silence your cell phones," when I saw the name of the caller: Tim Brookes.
"Your timing is really remarkable," I told Tim. "I'm in the talk right now. I'm putting you on speaker."
The audience listened in on our conversation as Tim answered my question, saying Col. Anson McCook had become U.S. Congressman McCook and likely nominated Surles in a gesture of friendship.
When Tim continued talking, I interrupted, saying, "Thanks, Tim, but you're cutting into my time now. Bye."
Laughing, I swore to the audience that it had not been a set-up, which is the truth, but the timing was so perfect I can't blame anyone for doubting.
When the stars align and such a moment comes, you could do worse than to laugh out loud and shout, "Here's your mule!"
(A board game titled "Engine Thieves," based on the Andrews Raid, has been created by Wes Crawford and Gregg Pittenger. It is to be marketed in 2024 by Compass Games (https://magento.compassgames.com). My thanks to Gregg and his friend Susan for attending the presentation and showing the game. Thanks also to Lee Rubin, son of Hershel and Elsa, for informing me that the locomotive "The General" of Andrews Raid fame visited East Liverpool in 1963, and sharing his photos and newspaper scrapbook of the event for my talk.)