Robert Miller Jr.

     Robert Miller Jr. was born on 29 April 1760 in Abbeville District, South Carolina.² He was the son of Robert Miller and Jean (Jane) Pickens.¹ He married Sarah Cole on 25 July 1790.³ He died on 20 September 1852 in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, at age 92.¹
     
     During the Revolutionary War, Robert Miller was a lieutenant in George Neal's Company, Upper Ninety Six Brigade, Long Cane Militia, Colonel Richard King's Regiment of loyalist militia in 1780, and later was leader of a band of Tory symphathizers who fought the Whigs in the Sourth Carolina backcountry during the 1781-1782 time period.⁴

     The fall of Charleston in April 1780 and the loss of the Southern army were severe blows to the republicans. It paralyzed their strength; and, for a while, South Carolina lay helpless at the feet of the oppressor. With an activity unusual for British officers in America, Clinton took immediate steps to extend and secure his conquests, and to re-establish royal authority in the South. With a mistaken policy he used harshness instead of conciliation toward the smitten and humbled inhabitants. He sent out three strong detachments to overrun the country and awe the people by a display of power. One of these, under Lord Cornwallis, marched up the course of the Santee River, to Camden; another, under Lieutenant-Colonel Cruger, was ordered to penetrate the country to Ninety-Six; and a third, under Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, went up from Savannah to Augusta.

     Dr. S.R. Evans recorded for his children in 1850 his recollections of what his father had told him of his experiences in the Revolutionary War as a soldier serving under General Andrew Pickens. He portrays both Bob Miller Jr. and Sr. as notorious Tories:

. . . it was about this time that Bob Miller [Jr.], Bill Cunningham and Ezech Polk of North Carolina did so much damage, committed so many murders and rapes, and plundered so as to astonish even the most profilgate of the Tories; previous to this such had been kept under, but now Gates army had been destroyed, all was confusion. Generals Marion and Sumpter were I think almost all that kept a small army together and attempted to raise the drooping spirits of their countrymen.

. . . As I mentioned before that as soon as Charleston fell in the hands of the British the Tories broke loose plundering the whole country as far as was in their power. This was the darkest hour for South Carolina. Those Tories were headed by three principal men: Robert Miller [Jr.] of Abbeville District, Uncle to the same Judge Miller of Pontotoc, William Cunningham of Lawrence District S.C., and Ezekiel Polk, grandfather to President Polk. It is evident their principal object was plundering, rape, and murder. No man, woman or child was safe in their hands for they destroyed property, burned houses, drove helpless women, and children to the woods while their husbands and fathers were with the army or out on scouting expeditions

. . . Bob Miller [Jr.] was at the head of all this and as he figured much at these times I think will not be amiss to give you a bit of his history. He was General Picken's nephew's sister's son [General Andrew Pickens' nephew; his sister's son]. His father [Robert Miller, Sr.] was a cecoder preacher but had been silenced, but as soon as the war came off both he and his son fought for the King. The older man went off with the British and on the retreat of the British from Ninety-six to Charleston, he was taken by some of the Whigs and hung up to a tree without judge or jury. I have often heard Father say he helped to hang him. Bob Miller [Jr.] stayed in the country at the head of a company of bandits, plundering everything they could lay their hands on, committing a great many murders. He at last had to run away with the British. He went to the Spanish in what is now Louisiana and there raised a family. About two years after the war was over he came back, but had to be concealed three months on the beams of his mother's house to keep from being murdered. Gen. Pickens frequently sent out scouts to drive his sister and her family out of the country. They always took pity on her and let her stay. She died on the same place.⁵

     At or near the end of the War, Robert Miller Jr. moved to the Natchez District of New Spain, and about 1808, he moved his family to Concordia Parish, Louisiana.⁴