[1] Frail health prompted the entrepreneur, of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, to leave home at age 42 and follow his friend Alexander Ramsey to Minnesota, where the climate reportedly was more congenial.

[2] During the Civil War, Miller, a middle-aged soldier with no previous military experience, advanced rapidly from the rank of private to colonel in the 1st Minnesota Infantry.

Four months later, Miller supervised, by order of President Lincoln, the mass execution of 38 Dakotas condemned for their part in the war.

Although lacking a college degree himself, he valued higher education and advocated generous appropriations to the University of Minnesota and to state normal schools, one of which evolved into St.

In his final address to the legislature, he strongly but unsuccessfully urged adoption of a black suffrage amendment to the state constitution.