John W. McMillan

John W. McMillan enlisted in Company G, Twenty-Fourth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, as a sergeant on July 24,1862. He mustered in on August 13, 1862. At the time of his enlistment, he was 21 years old, and lived at 108 Adams Avenue West in Detroit. He made his living as a salesman.

John was wounded in the thigh, just above the right knee on July 1, 1863 while fighting at Gettysburg. His leg was amputated, just above the right knee, at Gettysburg on July 4, 1863. He was then sent to the hospital in Philadelphia and was discharged from there on November 30, 1864. At that time, according to the surgeon's certificate of disability for discharge, he was unfit for the Veteran's Reserve Corps. On February 18, 1865, according to an affidavit submitted by his mother, John was a Quartermaster's clerk at Cumberland Gap.

On August 4, 1886, Congress passed an act which increased the pensions available to soldiers and sailors who had lost an arm or a leg as a result of their wartime service to the Union. On March 1,1889, John applied to have his pension increased from $36.00 per month to the $45.00 per month provided for in the act. At that time he claimed through his doctor, John E. McIlraine who had been an assistant surgeon with the 68th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, that the "stump is tender and sensitive and not sufficiently sound to warrant him in the constant use of an artificial leg, the wearing of which I know has been painful and difficult to him and has greatly conduced to his ill health. I have frequently advised him, professionally, to discard his leg and resort to crutches as a medical expedient." According the affidavit,

John was living at the National Home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at that time. His application for an increase had been denied previously and there is no indication whether this second attempt at an increase was approved or denied. John died on July 28, 1892 and is probably buried near the National Home in Milwaukee.

Information courtesy of Mike McMillan, suvmwm@alpha.shianet.org