I doubt greatly-or rather, I do not doubt at all-whether any public
functionary of the United States, either in the civil or military line, has
ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as myself. The
whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was at once settled, when I looked at them.
For upwards of twenty years before this epoch, the independ- ent position of
the Collector had kept the Salem Custom- House out of the whirlpool of political
vicissitude, which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile. A soldier,-
New England's most distinguished soldier,-he stood firmly on the pedestal of
his gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of the successive
administrations through which he had held office, he had been the safety of
his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heart-quake. General Miller was
radically conservative; a man over whose kindly nature habit had no slight influence;
attaching himself strongly to familiar faces, and with difficulty moved to change,
even when change might have brought unquestionable im- provement. Thus, on taking
charge of my department, I found few but aged men….
…
There is one likeness, without which my gallery of
Custom-House portraits would be strangely incomplete; but
which my comparatively few opportunities for observation
enable me to sketch only in the merest outline. It is that of
the Collector, our gallant old General, who, after his brilliant
military service, subsequently to which he had ruled over a
wild Western territory, had come hither, twenty years before,
to spend the decline of his varied and honorable life. The
brave soldier had already numbered, nearly or quite, his
threescore years and ten, and was pursuing the remainder of
his earthly march, burdened with infirmities which even the
martial music of his own spirit-stirring recollections could do
little towards lightening. The step was palsied now, that had
been foremost in the charge. It was only with the assistance of
a servant, and by leaning his hand heavily on the iron balus-
trade, that he could slowly and painfully ascend the Custom-
House steps, and, with a toilsome progress across the floor,
attain his customary chair beside the fireplace. There he used
to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim serenity of aspect at the
figures that came and went; amid the rustle of papers, the
administering of oaths, the discussion of business, and the
casual talk of the office; all which sounds and circumstances
seemed but indistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly to
make their way into his inner sphere of contemplation. His
countenance, in this repose, was mild and kindly. If his notice
was sought, an expression of courtesy and interest gleamed
out upon his features; proving that there was light within
him, and that it was only the outward medium of the intel-
lectual lamp that obstructed the rays in their passage. The
closer you penetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder
it appeared. When no longer called upon to speak, or listen,
either of which operations cost him an evident effort, his face
would briefly subside into its former not uncheerful quietude.
It was not painful to behold this look; for, though dim, it had
not the imbecility of decaying age. The framework of his
nature, originally strong and massive, was not yet crumbled
into ruin.
To observe and define his character, however, under such
disadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace out and build
up anew, in imagination, an old fortress, like Ticonderoga,
from a view of its gray and broken ruins. Here and there,
perchance, the walls may remain almost complete; but else-
where may be only a shapeless mound, cumbrous with its
very strength, and overgrown, through long years of peace
and neglect, with grass and alien weeds.
Nevertheless, looking at the old warrior with affection,-
for, slight as was the communication between us, my
feeling towards him, like that of all bipeds and quadrupeds
who knew him, might not improperly be termed so,-I could
discern the main points of his portrait. It was marked with the
noble and heroic qualities which showed it to be not by a
mere accident, but of good right, that he had won a distin-
guished name. His spirit could never, I conceive, have been
characterized by an uneasy activity; it must, at any period of
his life, have required an impulse to set him in motion;
but, once stirred up, with obstacles to overcome, and an
adequate object to be attained, it was not in the man to give
out or fail. The heat that had formerly pervaded his nature,
and which was not yet extinct, was never of the kind that
flashes and flickers in a blaze, but, rather, a deep, red glow, as
of iron in a furnace. Weight, solidity, firmness; this was the
expression of his repose, even in such decay as had crept
untimely over him, at the period of which I speak. But I
could imagine, even then, that, under some excitement which
should go deeply into his consciousness,-roused by a trum-
pet-peal, loud enough to awaken all of his energies that were
not dead, but only slumbering,-he was yet capable of flin-
ging off his infirmities like a sick man's gown, dropping the
staff of age to seize a battle-sword, and starting up once more
a warrior. And, in so intense a moment, his demeanour would
have still been calm. Such an exhibition, however, was but to be
pictured in fancy; not to be anticipated, nor desired.
What I saw in him-as evidently as the indestructible ram-
parts of Old Ticonderoga,already cited as the most appropri-
ate simile-were the features of stubborn and ponderous
endurance, which might well have amounted to obstinacy in
his earlier days; of integrity, that, like most of his other
endowments, lay in a somewhat heavy mass, and was just as
unmalleable and unmanageable as a ton of iron ore; and of
benevolence, which, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at
Chippewa or Fort Erie, I take to be of quite as genuine a
stamp as what actuates any or all the polemical philanthro-
pists of the age. He had slain men with his own hand, for
aught I know;-certainly, they had fallen, like blades of
grass at the sweep of the scythe, before the charge to which
his spirit imparted its triumphant energy;-but, be that as it
might, there was never in his heart so much cruelty as would
have brushed the down off a butterfly's wing. I have not
known the man, to whose innate kindliness I would more
confidently make an appeal.
Many characteristics-and those, too, which contribute
not the least forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch-
must have vanished, or been obscured, before I met the
General. All merely graceful attributes are usually the most
evanescent; nor does Nature adorn the human ruin with
blossoms of new beauty, that have their roots and proper
nutriment only in the chinks and crevices of decay, as she
sows wall-flowers over the ruined fortress of Ticonderoga.
Still, even in respect of grace and beauty, there were points
well worth noting. A ray of humor, now and then, would make
its way through the veil of dim obstruction, and glimmer
pleasantly upon our faces. A trait of native elegance, seldom
seen in the masculine character after childhood or early youth,
was shown in the General's fondness for the sight and
fragrance of flowers. An old soldier might be supposed to
prize only the bloody laurel on his brow; but here was one,
who seemed to have a young girl's appreciation of the floral
tribe.
There, beside the fireplace, the brave old General used to
sit; while the Surveyor-though seldom, when it could be
avoided, taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging
him in conversation-was fond of standing at a distance, and
watching his quiet and almost slumberous countenance. He
seemed away from us, although we saw him but a few yards
off; remote, though we passed close beside his chair; unat-
tainable, though we might have stretched forth our hands and
touched his own. It might be, that he lived a more real life
within his thoughts, than amid the unappropriate environ-
ment of the Collector's office. The evolutions of the parade;
the tumult of the battle; the flourish of old, heroic music,
heard thirty years before;-such scenes and sounds, perhaps,
were all alive before his intellectual sense. Meanwhile, the
merchants and ship-masters, the spruce clerks, and uncouth
sailors, entered and departed; the bustle of this commercial
and Custom-House life kept up its little murmur roundabout
him; and neither with the men nor their affairs did the
General appear to sustain the most distant relation. He was as
much out of place as an old sword-now rusty, but which had
flashed once in the battle's front, and showed still a bright
gleam along its blade-would have been, among the inkstands,
paper-folders, and mahogany rulers, on the Deputy Collector's
desk.
There was one thing that much aided me in renewing
and re-creating the stalwart soldier of the Niagara frontier,-
the man of true and simple energy. It was the recollection of
those memorable words of his,-"I'll try, Sir!"-spoken on
the very verge of a desperate and heroic enterprise, and
breathing the soul and spirit of New England hardihood,
comprehending all perils, and encountering all. If, in our
country, valor were rewarded by heraldic honor, this phrase-
which it seems so easy to speak, but which only he, with such
a task of danger and glory before him, has ever spoken-
would be the best and fittest of all mottoes for the General's
shield of arms (19-24).
