Exergue.—Battle of Erie, Aug. 15th, 1814.
GEN. JAMES MILLER.
James Miller, late Brigadier-General in the United States army, was born in the town of Peterborough, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire, April 25th, 1776. His grandfather, Samuel Miller, came from the North of Ireland, about the year 1720, and settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, accompanied by his wife, (whose maiden name was Mary Shearer,) and their eldest child. They had seven children; five sons, Matthew, James, William, Samuel and John; and two daughters, Mary and Jane; all of whom, except Matthew, the eldest, were born in America. The four younger sons subsequently removed from Londonderry to Peterborough and settled on a tract of wild land, which, as tradition states, had been purchased for them, and paid for in linen cloth and thread manufactured by their mother, a woman of great energy and industry. The purchase comprised an extent of four hundred acres, and includes some of the best land in Peterborough. The eldest son, Matthew, remained in Londonderry with his parents.
Of the four who went to Peterborough, James, the father of General Miller, was the twin brother of William, and for many years they improved their land in common and divided the produce. He married Catherine Gragg, the first child baptized in Peterborough. She was the daughter of Hugh Gragg, who also came to America from the north of Ireland, and settled in Groton, Massachusetts, but subsequently removed to Peterborough, when his daughter Catherine was a child of about eight or nine years of age. James Miller and his wife, Catherine Gragg, had four sons, Hugh, Samuel, James and Jacob; and three daughters, Jane, Mary and Catherine: of these, James, the subject of this memoir, was the third son. His earlier years were spent at home with his parents. Although he was of a robust constitution, and had a muscular and powerful frame, he was never a very valuable assistant in the agricultural labors of the farm, if we may be allowed to judge from the appellation by which he is said to have been familiarly designated in the family, and perhaps in the neighborhood, that of “lazy Jem.” The facilities for education in that part of the country were at that period very limited, but they were then, as now, free to all so far as the town or district schools were concerned. He attended one of these, such portions of the year as it was kept open; and it so happened that his earliest military as well as literary instruction was received there. One of the persons employed for a time as teacher of the school, had been a sergeant in the army of the Revolution, and had still so much of his former military taste remaining, as to render it quite as much a matter of pride and gratification to him to drill the boys (provided with wooden guns for the purpose) in the manual and company movements, at intervals between school hours and on holidays, as it was to preside over their literary progress in doors. He was, withal, a strict disciplinarian, and the event now to be related would not, in all probability, have happened during his administration. In the time of one of his successors in the school, the boys, incited perhaps by traditionary accounts of similar schoolboy doings in the old country, determined to gain a holiday, which had been refused them, by “barring out” the master and holding adverse possession of the school-house until their demand was complied with.
The plan was carried into effect by those who, from residing at a distance from the school-house usually remained at noon-time, (while the master and another portion of the scholars were temporarily absent,) aided by such as they had persuaded to stay with them and take part in the conspiracy. The door was accordingly shut and barricaded by those in the plot, but a window, which (in the scarcity of glass and window-frame, incident to a new settlement) was fitted only with a wooden shutter, could not be closed against the “executive” and “conservatives,” without at the same time excluding daylight; a deprivation to which the young conspirators felt a distaste very similar to that attributed by Homer to the Grecian Ajax. It was, besides, highly desirable that an avenue for negotiations between the parties should be kept open, through which, at the proper time, the terms of an accommodation might be settled. The defence of this important and assailable point was committed to young Miller, although one of the youngest of this juvenile band: and when at the exhortation of the master, (who, after all, was possibly at heart as little averse to a holiday as any of his pupils,) an assault on the fortress was made by the advocates of “law and order,” so resolutely did he maintain his post, that the storming party, headed by an older cousin of the young defender, were effectually kept at bay. A parley was now held, and the demand for a holiday having been acceded to on the part of the teacher, coupled with a stipulation for the entire immunity from punishment of all concerned, the door was once more opened and the affair terminated in a manner agreeable, doubtless, to all concerned, since all shared alike in the indulgence obtained.
He continued to attend the town schools during a portion of each season, until the autumn of his eighteenth year, when, desirous of greater facilities for education than his native town afforded, he left home for the purpose of attending the academy at that time established in Amherst, New Hampshire, some twenty-five miles distant from Peterborough. His outfit on the occasion was neither very splendid nor extensive; consisting of a bundle of clothes, not at all burdensome to carry, and the sum of one dollar and twenty-five cents in money.
The “credit system” was, in those days almost a matter of necessity, and although he had no personal acquaintance in Amherst, except with one or two of the students at the academy, he found no difficulty in making an arrangement for his board in the family of one of the townspeople, and his tuition at the institution. He remained at the academy for several months, and then left for the purpose of recruiting his finances and paying off arrearages by teaching; and having done so, was enabled himself to go to school again, and then open a new account with his boarding house and learning. He went on in this manner, alternately pupil and teacher, receiving knowledge by instalments, and disbursing it very fairly as it accumulated, until after years (when, having spent a short portion of the time as a student at Williams College,) he was qualified to commence the study of law, which he pursued in the office of the late James Wilson, Esquire, then of Peterborough, and latterly of Keene, New Hampshire, a gentleman at that time of extensive and successful practice in the law. Having completed the requisite term as a law student, he was admitted to practice in the state court, at the spring term for Hillsborough County, 1803.
He removed to the town of Greenfield, adjoining Peterborough, and continued the practice of the law there until, in the year 1808, he received from President Jefferson an appointment as major, in the Fourth Regiment of United States Infantry, the highest appointment made from New Hampshire under the act of Congress for increasing the army. He was in a great measure indebted, for this appointment, to the favorable opinion and influence of the late Governor Pierce of New Hampshire, himself a distinguished officer in the revolutionary army. James Miller had previously held a commission under the state government, as captain of artillery. His commission as major of the Fourth Regiment of United States Infantry, bears date the 3d of March, 1809, taking rank from 8th of July, 1808. In June, he joined his regiment, then commanded by Col. John P. Boyd, at Fort Independence, in Boston harbor, in the spring of 1809, where he remained (with the exception of a short interval, spent on duty at Springfield, Massachusetts, and on a march from there with a detachment of troops to Newport, Rhode Island,) until the spring of 1811, when he embarked with the fourth regiment, for Philadelphia—having shortly before been commissioned as lieutenant-colonel of the fiftieth regiment. The troops arrived at Philadelphia, on the 16th of May, and on the following day proceeded on their march to Pittsburgh, where they arrived on the 21st of June.