Miller House & Spring House

Union troops passed by the Miller residence on their way south, but were halted when they encountered Confederate troops waiting for them in the Miller’s cornfield. An intense infantry battle followed. Soldiers in the Cornfield faced artillery fire from all directions. After approximately two hours of back and forth fighting, General Robert E. Lee sent reinforcements to aid Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s exhausted troops in the Cornfield. The Confederate reinforcements pushed the Union troops back to the northern edge of the Cornfield, but then the Union Twelfth Corps arrived on the field and counterattacked. Around nine in the morning, the fighting slowed. Thousands of bullets and lives were spent in the attempt to gain control over D.R. Miller’s cornfield. In four hours of combat, almost eight thousand Union and Confederate soldiers had been killed or wounded in the area of the Cornfield. After this day, Miller’s field was simply referred to as “The Cornfield” due to the horrendous fighting that occurred there.