My Story — A Closer Reading

Recurring Images of Uniform and Insignia

Throughout the excerpts, Mills returns repeatedly to the material symbols of military rank: brevets, medals of honor, uniform insignia. In a long 1892 protest letter reproduced in full, he argues against a Senate bill that would restore brevet "uniform" and "address," proposing instead that officers wear brevet insignia on the coat collar—red ground for gallantry in action, white for meritorious service not in action. He meticulously tallies the distribution of brevet generals among staff and line corps, noting that of 67 field officers holding brevets above their grade, only 24 belong to the line while 43 are staff, and that noncombatant corps "lead in honors." This fixation on the visual and hierarchical markers of recognition recurs in the appendix on his cartridge belt equipment, where detailed illustrations show the belt's construction. The uniform becomes a text in which Mills reads the army's values and his own place within them.

Movement Between Washington and the West

The table of contents reveals a pattern of oscillation between Eastern centers of power and Western frontiers. Chapters such as "Early Days in Texas," "El Paso Experiences," and "Western Experiences" alternate with "In Washington" and "In Washington Again." This back-and-forth is not merely geographic; it reflects a career spent lobbying for military reforms and infrastructure projects while stationed at remote posts. The excerpt from the 1892 letter is written from Fort Walla Walla, Washington, yet addressed to the Adjutant General in Washington, D.C. Mills's later work on the Rio Grande water rights and the Boundary Commission similarly shuttles between local fieldwork in the El Paso region and negotiations in the capital. The autobiography itself enacts this movement, with each Washington chapter serving as a pivot between Western adventures and national policy.

The Cartridge Belt as a Structural Motif

One of the most concrete recurring details is the cartridge belt equipment, to which Mills devotes an entire chapter and multiple illustrations. The index lists eight separate page references for the belt, suggesting it is a leitmotif of the third period. Mills invented a woven cartridge belt that became standard U.S. Army issue, and the autobiography treats this invention as both a technical achievement and a symbol of practical reform. The belt appears alongside other innovations such as the consolidation of the El Paso and Juarez street railways and the equitable distribution of Rio Grande waters—each representing a solution to a tangible problem. By giving the belt its own chapter and extensive visual documentation, Mills elevates a piece of equipment to the same structural importance as battles or diplomatic commissions, reinforcing the autobiography's emphasis on material progress and personal agency.

The Role of Appendices and Documentary Evidence

Mills supplements his narrative with three appendices: a lengthy treatise on the organization and administration of the U.S. Army, an address before the Society of the Army of the Cumberland, and an address before the Order of Indian Wars on the Battle of the Rosebud. These documents extend the autobiography beyond personal recollection into official record and historical argument. The inclusion of the full 1892 protest letter within the main text further blurs the line between memoir and archive. This documentary impulse suggests that Mills saw his story as inseparable from the institutional history of the army and the legal disputes over Western resources. Readers should be prepared for shifts between first-person narrative and reproduced official correspondence, a technique that gives My Story the texture of a collected papers volume as much as a conventional autobiography.

Because the excerpts cover only the table of contents, one extended letter, and the Project Gutenberg boilerplate, the full arc of Mills's life remains partially obscured. The autobiography's three-period structure and its alternation between personal and public chapters, however, are clearly established. Readers interested in military reform, Western infrastructure, or the material culture of the late nineteenth-century army will find Mills's detailed accounts of brevets, cartridge belts, and water rights particularly valuable. The work rewards attention to its documentary layers and to the way Mills uses official correspondence as a narrative device.

I remember when Anson Mills’s memoir first came to my desk, its grave accounting of campaigns and quiet Water Rights reforms. Yet nights later, I held Under England's flag — Themes and Context, and felt the same patient, unsentimental dignity—men shaping duty from harsh soil. Both whisper of loyalty, measured not in cheers, but in slow, deliberate service under distant skies.