Lexington is located in the more mountainous region of Virginia, and at the time of the American Civil War was not heavily populated with enslaved people. Levi Miller lived near Hayes Creek and Brownsboro. He was owned by the widow Anne McBride. Levi was raised a strong Christian by his parents Hannah and Samuel Miller—both enslaved persons—and he had a gift for oratory. At an early age, he began to preach to other slaves on the McBride farm and surrounding parts of Rockbridge County.
In 1861, Levi Miller went off to war with one of the widow’s sons, Capt. John J McBride, as his personal servant. McBride was in the 5th Texas Cavalry and saw action at the 2nd Battle of Manassas, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. At this engagement on May 6, 1864, Captain McBride had both legs broken and his wounds were considered mortal. Levi was working with the wagon train and did not know his master’s dire circumstance until May 10 near Spotsylvania Courthouse. He soon located the wounded McBride, but conditions in the immediate area worsened, and Levi made a decision that would change his life.
As Union forces showed signs they would attack, he asked for a gun and ammunition and was in line for the coming assault. Kevin M. Levin in an online story for Civil War Memory dated May 9, 2019, wrote, “Captain J. E. Anderson, who roughly forty years later, spoke of him as he had served as a soldier, [observed] ‘Levi Miller stood by my side and [no] man ever fought any better and when the enemy tried to cross our little breastworks, and we clubbed and bayoneted them off, no one used his bayonet with more skill and effect than Miller.” Anderson continued, “During the fight, the shout from my men was ‘Give ‘em hell, Levi!”
