The Nelson Miles European travel photograph album contains approximately 127 photographs documenting a trip to southern Europe undertaken by U.S. Army officer Lieutenant-General Nelson Appleton Miles and John Brooks Henderson, Jr., primarily in order to observe the Greco-Turkish War of 1897.
The album (28 x 37 cm) has green cloth covers with the word "Photographs" stamped on the front. The inside of the front cover bears the inscription "Personal Travel Album of General Nelson Miles" as well as a loose color print from 1888 depicting Lt. Gen. Miles in full campaign dress. Contents consist of images of Athens and Lamia in Greece, a shot of Lt. Gen. Miles and other officers at rest, a series of photographs that appear to have been taken through binoculars, and views of Castle Angelo and the Coliseum in Rome, Pompeii, an excavation site, the Doge’s Palace and San Marco Square in Venice, Vienna, and Corfu.
Nelson Appleton Miles (1839-1925) was born in Massachusetts and enlisted in the Union Army as a volunteer at the onset of the Civil War. He was promoted to colonel after the Battle of Antietam and received a Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at Chancellorsville before eventually obtaining the rank of major general of volunteers in October 1865 at the age of 26. After the Civil War, he entered the Regular Army as a colonel and became a key figure in the Indian Wars. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1880 and major general in 1890. On May 4th 1897, Lt. Gen. Miles travelled to Europe to observe the Greco-Turkish War and was hosted by Greek military officers. This trip is mentioned in his book Serving the Republic: Memoirs of the Military Life of Nelson A. Miles.
Lt. Gen. Miles retired from military service in 1903 at the mandatory retirement age of 64. However, about a month before he retired he completed a 90-mile journey on horseback from Fort Sill to Fort Reno, Oklahoma, in 8 hours in what remains the longest horseback ride ever undertaken by a commanding general of the U.S. Army. Following the entry of the United States into World War I, Lt. General Miles offered to come out of retirement to serve his country at the age of 77 but was declined by President Woodrow Wilson.
John Brooks Henderson, Jr. (1870-1923) was the son of U.S. Senator John Brooks Henderson and Mary Foote Henderson. He worked as a secretary for John W. Foster and later became an avid collector of marine shell life of the West Indies. He married Angelica Schuyler Henderson (1872-1907) in 1903.
