Cat on the roof – an untold story of hardship and adventure
- Steve Farrell
- Jun 6, 2024
- 32 min read
Updated: 6 hours ago
If you walk down embassy row in Washington DC on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 22nd Street, you‘ll find a magnificent mansion from D.C.’s gilded age. Look up to roof line and perched atop a third-story cornice near the rear of the house stands a stone cat. What’s with that? There's must be a story there.
It was in 1900, retired naval commander Frederick A. Miller commissioned the construction of this grand house, instructing his architect to include design elements that evoked his maritime experiences. The building is adorned with shells, tridents, and fish motifs, and most notably Miller placed a sculpted ship's cat high above the street, as a tribute to the cats he fondly remembered from his seafaring days.
On Navy ships back in the 1800s, a ship's cat was considered essential member of the crew. Being a natural explorer, with keen senses, and curiosity, a ship’s cat kept the vessel free of rodents that inevitably would sneak aboard while at docked at port. Some ship's cats were said to even sense pressure changes that could indicate upcoming storms. Like most sailors, Frederick Miller believed that a cat aboard brought good luck. In his Washington DC home, Miller hoped that the statue on the roof would portend a promise of safety and good fortune to all those who would dwell in his house.
But what is the story behind the story? I had a notion that there is a deeper richer tale here. That stone cat on the roof beckoned. Who was Commander Frederick A. Miller? What was he like? What did he do? I set my sights on finding out, and soon discovered the traces of an incredible life of hardship and adventure.
Frederick Agustus Miller
Young Freddy Miller
Imagine the 1850s. The township of Elkton Maryland is a bustling seaport along the banks of the Elk River near the northern waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Wharves line the riverfront, with merchants trading goods like salt, textiles, and spices. Elkton, a key stop along steamboat routes, connects Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other east coast cities.
A scrappy young boy, Freddy Miller, a local youth, was often seen roaming the streets and playing with his pals along the Elkton waterfront. Despite being small in frame and stature for his age, Freddy was a natural leader. Smart, bold and daring, he would play ship’s captain, commanding his pals as imaginary crew on their pretend steamship. As the ships rolled in and out of port, Freddy often dreamt of a stowing away to a romantic life of adventure on the seas, seeing the world!
More properly known as Frederick Agustus Miller, Freddy was born in Elkton in on June 12,1842. Born into sorrow; his grieving mother had become a widow two months before Frederick’s birth. Frederick's father, Agustus Miller, a young and prominent attorney practicing law in Elkton, had died suddenly and unexpectantly. Martha Abercrombie Miller, pregnant with their second child was just 23 years old.
Baby Frederick and his two-year-old sister were left without a father figure or family breadwinner. Martha, then a single mother of two very young children, dedicated herself to caring for and educating them on her own in their Elkton home. Martha had grown up in Philadelphia, a member of the prominent well-to-do Philadelphia Abercrombie family. She and the children would often make the sixty-mile journey to Philadelphia visiting loved ones. The young grieving family undoubtably received both moral and financial support from their Philadelphia family.
As Freddy grew up, he idolized the men on the merchant ships, the Seamen, Officers, and Ship Masters. Martha however had her sights set on her son following his late father’s path, into the law. At 16 years of age, benefitting from home schooling, and strong academics exam results, Freddy was accepted into Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. At his mother’s insisting, Freddy journeyed off to school, but his heart was at sea, not in Trinity’s scholarly lectures and books.
Freddy successfully completed his freshman year, and returned home to Elton for summer break, but he never to return to college. His quest for a nautical future led back to the shipyards, and it wasn’t long before Freddy signed on as seaman on a merchant steamship bound for South America, at the tender age of 17.
There’s little known about Freddy’s time on the merchant ship, but after two years at sea his ship returned to Elkton. It was August 1861, while Freddy was away the times had changed dramatically. In April of that year, the long simmering divide between north and south had exploded into an all-out civil war. Freddy felt the call to duty, to serve his country in a righteous cause. The nineteen-year-old, along with many of his shipmates set off to join the Union forces. On September 11, 1861, Frederick Miller enrolled in the United States Union Navy.
With his education, along with his experience at sea, Frederick qualified to join the Navy as a Master’s Mate, a rank that provided a path to becoming a commissioned officer. If he was steadfast and lucky enough, Freddy thought he just might be able to chart a career in the US Navy protecting his country, and all the while fulfilling those childhood dreams to sail the world.
Civil War Service Begins
With two years of sea experience, Frederick felt ready to step into the pivotal role of Master’s Mate overseeing ship operations, navigation, and crew coordination. Despite doubts about his slight build, the recruiters assigned Miller to the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. for ship's crew training. Undeterred by his small stature, Frederick met challenges head-on with a sharp wit and determined spirit. During his initial month of service, while drilling at the DC Navy Yard, a heavy howitzer cannon crushed Freddy's foot, leaving him with a lifelong limp. Nevertheless, he remained undaunted, embracing his first assignment aboard the USS Tuscarora, a newly built and heavily armed warship.
Special Mission to Europe
The USS Tuscarora was to immediately set sail for Great Britian under orders to capture or sink the Confederate warship CSS Nashville. The story of the CSS Nashville began when civil war hostilities first broke out. The 215 ft passenger steamer was seized in Charleston harbor by Confederate forces and outfitted as a war cruiser with light cannons to sail under the Confederate flag. In October of ‘61, the Nashville slipped through the Union Navy blockade and made her way across the Atlantic towards Great Britain. On board were a cadre of confederate officers and a ship purchasing agent with plans in place to acquire new ships under construction in England for the emerging Confederate Navy.
Young Frederick under the command of Captain T. A. Craven was delighted to finally go to sea for his country. The heavily armed USS Tuscarora was unlike any ship he had imagined. Rising proud and resolute, it was an imposing presence. Newly forged and meticulously crafted, the ship was a marvel of maritime engineering, a testament to the march of progress. Three towering masts pierced the sky, bearing the weight of billowing sails, a nod to tradition. But the true power of the ship was cutting-edge innovation of the steam engine. The enormous plume of steam billowing from its jet-black funnel truly signified its power. Heavily armed, bristling with 22 muzzle loading cannons, its sleek silhouette cut through the waves with precision. With every churn of its propellers, the USS Tuscarora pushed east towards Europe in hot pursuit of the Nashville.
Despite Frederick and the crew’s urgency, the Nashville’s head start was just too much. There was no trace of rebel ship. But fortunately, Union spies had tipped off that the Nashville was headed for Southampton, England. So, on December 15 the Tuscarora came to port, and as suspected, the Confederate ship was tied up at Southampton’s busy tidal dock. Tuscarora moored less than a mile away and thus began a tense game of cat and mouse. The British government was determined to maintain neutrality and the two ships were careful to avoid hostilities in the British port, with the powerful royal navy watching.
With superior firepower, Union Captain Craven was willing to sit and wait for the Nashville to depart. The Nashville was in essence trapped. The captain and crew of the Nashville, however, were just as content to stay put. The stalemate of two American ships, hostile towards each other, in port, had the town of Southampton on edge. Christmas and New Years came and went. As the days stretched to weeks, tensions between the crews on both ships continued to grow. With both crews being given occasional 'liberty' to spend time on dry land, a confrontation was inevitable.
The Bell Pub on the city’s cobblestoned French Street had become the favorite watering hole for the Union sailors. It was on the rain-soaked night of January 23rd in that pub that things came to a head. On that fateful evening, the smokey air in 'The Bell' was thick with the smells of whiskey and ale. The sailors from Tuscarora were well into a night of drinking, raucous laughter, swapping stories with the locals. All of a sudden, a cold wind blew in as a group of Confederate sailors entered the cramped confines of the pub. The dimly lit interior went quiet. The tension in the room was palpable. Outnumbered, the rebels ordered whiskey and found table in the corner. After a few more moments of uneasy silence, the buzz in the room returned as the two groups seemed to ignore one another. Eventually though, the proverbial match was lit.
A Confederate sailor, fueled by a mixture of bravado and whiskey, spewed a racial slur towards a black Union sailor, igniting a powder keg of anger that had been growing for weeks. Bitter words were exchanged, and before anyone could intervene, fists were flying. An all-out brawl broke out with punches delivered, tables turned bottles and glasses broken. And eventually pistols were drawn. The British barmen and a local constable hurriedly stepped in and calmed and cleared the pub before shots could be fired. Thus ended the first and only American Civil War confrontation on British soil.
After the incident the British Royal Admiralty intervened informing the ship’s Captains that the Foreign Enlistment Act was to be enforced. This meant that both ships were ordered to leave port, with the weaker of the two ships to depart first, to be followed by the second ship twenty-four hours later. On February 3, the Nashville was taken out of Southampton by a pilot who left her five miles out to sea. The Tuscarora left twenty-four hours later but did not pursue the smaller faster Nashville.
During the stalemate, while at port in Southampton, a small group of Confederate officers from the Nashville had slipped away and successfully purchased and launched two warships, the CSS Alabama and the CSS Florida. This was an important win for the fledgling Confederate Navy. Meanwhile the Nashville and her crew having accomplished their mission returned to Beaufort South Carolina.
On board the Tuscarora, Frederick and crew set off patrolling British and European waters in search of those newly commissioned hostile vessels launched from England. While on patrol, the Tuscarora called at various European ports. Frederick and his crewmates adventure to mainland Europe and Ireland, tying up at Gibraltar, Cadiz Spain and Queenstown (now Cobh) Ireland. Despite their best efforts, they never came across the Confederate vessels.
Life at Sea
Frederick's limited shore leave was filled with awe and discovery of unfamiliar languages, customs, and cultures. But it was time spent at sea that he was learning to cherished, a blend of hard work and boredom, interspersed with moments of danger, triumph, pleasure and camaraderie.
As the vast expanse of the ocean stretched before him, Frederick found solace and joy in the simple pleasures of shipboard life. The crisp salt air, the scent of the sea, invigorated the senses. At night, during calm seas and fair weather, gatherings on deck became occasions for storytelling and song, lifting spirits and uniting the crew. Tales of distant lands and daring adventures were shared, offering a welcome escape from the monotony of the open sea. During daylight hours, there was rhythm of shipboard life. Crew hoisting sails, the creaking of the ship's timbers, and the sight of the horizon stretching endlessly. At sea, Frederick was filled with a sense of calm, purpose and pride.
In March of 1863 Tuscarora finally returned home, empty handed, to port in Philadelphia. After landing in home port, Tuscarora's Captain Craven recommended Frederick Miller for promotion.
Second Battle of Donaldsonville
In the meantime, Civil War was still raging. In May 1863, now newly promoted twenty-year-old Lieutenant Frederick Miller was assigned to a new iron-hull gunboat, the USS Princess Royal. As part of the West Gulf of Mexico Blockading Squadron, the Princess Royal was tasked with halting all gulf shipping commerce. Preventing Confederate and merchant ships from supplying rebel troops on the Mississippi River and Western Gulf Coast.
On the night of June 27th, 1863, the humid air hung thick over the Mississippi River as the Princess Royal cut through the murky waters just upstream of New Orleans on the lookout for merchant vessels or any movement of enemy forces. Meanwhile a garrison of Union forces at Fort Butler on the banks of the river just outside of Donaldsonville Louisiana had settled in for the night. Under cover of darkness, three columns of Confederates troops quietly surrounded the fort. Soon after midnight, the stillness was shattered by a surprise attack. The awakened Union soldiers defended the fort valiantly, as the Confederates struggled crossing the wide ditches that the troops had dug as a defense around the fort.
The distant cracks of musket fire from the besieged Union fort echoed across the river, alerting those on board the Princess Royal. Young Frederick Miller and his crew sprang into action. Steering the ship quickly towards Fort Butler in the darkness.
On the deck, the howitzer cannons stood ready, as did Lt. Miller, eyeing the Confederate positions on the far shore. Smoke and chaos enveloped the Union fort, flashes of gunfire illuminating the night sky. The enemy was relentless, and the fort's defenders were stretched thin.
When the Princess Royal reached firing range, Miller barked orders to his men. "Swab the barrels! Prepare the charges!" The spongers, likely youths barely out of their teens, leapt forward, thrusting the long-handled sponges into the barrels, working swiftly, scrubbing away the residue of previous firings.
"Powder monkeys, to your stations!" Frederick commanded. Young sailors, nimble and quick, darted from the bowels of the ship, each clutching a powder charge close to his chest. They handed off their precious cargo to the loaders, who took the bags of gunpowder sliding them into the cannons, ramming them home with firm, practiced strokes.
"Load the shot!" came the next command. The loaders hefted heavy shells designed to rip through iron and flesh alike. They slid the shells into the cannons' barrels, ramming them down to nestle against the powder charges.
At the vent holes, the priming crew worked quickly, inserting friction primers and ensuring each cannon was ready to fire. The gunners took their places, eyeing the Confederate positions on the far shore.
"Clear the deck! Ready to fire!" The crew scrambled back, giving the gunners space. Miller, standing tall amidst the fray, took a deep breath, steadying himself. "Fire!"
With a pull of the lanyards, the friction primers sparked, igniting the powder charges. The howitzers belched fire and smoke, recoiling as the shells hurled towards the Confederate lines. The deck shuddered, and the smell of gunpowder filled the air, mingling with the river's damp scent.
The shells arced through the sky; their deadly paths marked by trails of smoke. Moments later, explosions ripped through the enemy ranks, tearing through men and material with brutal efficiency. The Confederate assault faltered, the surprise and ferocity of the Princess Royal's response buying precious moments for the fort's defenders.
"Reposition the guns! Reload!" Miller's voice cut through the din, rallying his men again. The crew sprang into action, as they dragged the cannons back into position, ready to repeat the process. They knew they had to keep firing, to maintain the pressure, to give the fort every chance to hold out. The steamship’s howitzers thundered again and again, until finally the shell-shocked Confederates retreated into the darkness. The cannonade from the Princess Royal inflicted heavy losses on the attackers, with over 300 Confederate soldiers killed or wounded, compared to only 23 Union casualties. Frederick having been on deck throughout the fight, suffered permanent hearing loss in his left ear. After the engagement which became known as the Second Battle of Donaldsonville, Frederick Miller was recommended for yet another promotion.
Fire Below Deck
Frederick’s next assignment was on the USS Arizona, an iron-hulled side-wheel steamship, the flagship of a squadron patrolling the gulf coast of Texas. On the evening of 27 February 1865 while underway 38 miles below New Orleans, a fire broke out in the Arizona’s engineer's storeroom. The flames spreading rapidly, Lieutenant Miller jumped to action. He and his crew courageously fought the blaze but to no avail. When no possibility of saving the ship remained, the captain ordered the ammunition magazine flooded and the crew to the lifeboats. The fiery vessel drifted to the bank of the river, grounded, and burned until just past midnight when she exploded in a terrifying and spectacular display.
Out of a crew of 98 on board four were missing. Frederick had escaped to a lifeboat, having suffered severe burns and lung damage due to smoke inhalation. Drifting downstream, exposed to the freezing winter winds, Frederick suffered tremendously that cold night. The next morning, he was brought to New Orleans and eventually put on board a transport ship to the Navy Yard in New York to recover from his injuries.
While Frederick was recovering in New York, on April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse and the bloody war between the states was over. Despite Frederick’s wounds and a weakened physical condition, the 23-year-old was determined to continue his Navy service. In August of 1865, because of his distinctive wartime service record, US Navy authorities granted Lieutenant Frederick Miller a commission as a career officer in the regular U.S. Naval Service.
Back to Europe on the USS Frolic
Having recovered from his burns, though bearing scars on his lungs that drained his endurance, Frederick was weakened but bound and determined to continue serving and pursuing his dream to explore the world's wonders.
In early 1866, Frederick received an assignment to join the crew of the steamship USS Frolic. Their mission was a series of ceremonial visits to ports across Europe, as part of the newly established US Navy’s European Squadron. Over the subsequent two years, ports of call included Flushing, the Netherlands; Naples, Italy; Lisbon Portugal; and several other Mediterranean ports not documented.
On a mission of good will, whenever possible, liberty was granted to as many ship’s officers as was practicable. Frederick and his fellow officers went on sightseeing trips; went hunting; visited in the homes of the influential people of the cities. The USS Frolic’s European tour whet Frederick’s appetite for travel and adventure. The young Navy Officer was geared up to see more and do more.
South America and Africa - Illness and Injury
In 1868 Frederick, now 25 years old, was ordered to the USS Quinnebaug a new 200-foot, three masted steam and sailing ship with 20 cannons; the mission was to protect US international trade along Atlantic coasts of South America and Africa. Frederick and his crewmates set to sea in search of pirates that were terrorizing US merchant ships. For nearly three years, Frederick’s seafaring adventures continued, as the Quinnebaug patrolled shipping lanes and set anchor in exotic ports of call including Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Montevideo, Uruguay; Cape Town, South Africa; Little Fish Bay, West Africa (current day Angola); and Monrovia, Liberia.
Unfortunately, Frederick’s journey was cut short. In 1870 while cruising along the coast of Africa, he was struck down with a sudden illness. A fierce fever came on quickly, his body convulsed in pain, wracked by chills that pierced to his core. Frederick became delirious, consumed by a desperate need for relief amidst brutal suffering at sea. Stricken with malaria, the young officer was unable to perform his duties. The ship’s Captain ordered Lt. Miller to return to home port, the New York City Navy Yard, via a merchant vessel.
After a difficult journey home and a surprisingly rapid recovery, Frederick received new orders. He was to join the steamship USS Mohican for patrol duties along the Central American coast. Frederick was delighted to be back at sea, but misfortune continued to shadow Fredrick. While navigating high winds and rough seas aboard the Mohican, a rigging broke loose striking Frederick, with a severe blow to the eye. The injury was debilitating, forcing him to disembark in Panama. Soon after, while recovering from his injury, illness struck again, Frederick faced a serious relapse of malarial fever, confining him to the Navy’s Panama Station Hospital for over a month. Once Frederick’s health improved enough to travel, he returned home to the NY Navy Yard in 1872, this time at his own expense.
New York, Peru, and Washington DC
Despite his setbacks, the now 30-year-old Frederick yet again found his footing this time as a land-based storage officer at the bustling New York Navy Yard. He served as a storage officer in New York for two years and then another two years in port at Callao Peru in charge of supplies and storage. With four years on solid ground, Frederick found good health, yet his heart still yearned for the sea.
On land worrying about supplies, equipment and logistics, Frederick anxiously waited, hoping for orders to a ship, back to sea. Finally, new orders came, Frederick was assigned to the USS Portsmouth, but not to sea. His assignment was to train new young Navy recruits at the Navy Yard in Washington DC. The three masted sloop-of-war gunship plied the waters of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, while Frederick’s instructed young officers on the ropes, and secrets of life on a Navy ship. Frederick’s time in Washington lasted three years, he enjoyed training young recruits, and for some reason, the swampy, sleepy capital city appealed to Frederick. Washington DC was place that he thought he just might return to someday.
Panic of 1873
In the early 1870s, as the trauma of the Civil War began to fade, the U.S. economy experienced rapid growth fueled by a boom in railroad construction. Over 35,000 miles of new railroad track were laid across the country. To finance this expansion, the banks backed by wealthy American and European investors issued railroad bonds and railroad stocks soared. But in September of 1873 the whole scheme came crashing down due to over-speculation in railroad construction. European investors began to unload their investments. This caused a panic and set off a chain reaction of bank failures and a stock market crash. The panic was disastrous for the economy with over 18,000 US businesses failed in two years' time. Unemployment in America rose to a frightening 16 percent. America and Europe were in a full-fledged economic depression.
By 1877 as hardships of depression were mounting, the U.S. Secretaries of State and the Navy collaborated on a plan to deploy a Naval ship on a commercial and diplomatic cruise around the world. Their vision was that an international trade mission would open new markets for U.S. manufacturers. The mission was to visit “unfrequented ports of Africa, Asia, the islands of the Persian Ocean, and the adjacent seas, particularly where there are at present no American commercial representatives with a view to the encouragement and extension of American commerce.”
Around-the-World Voyage of the USS Ticonderoga
In the meantime, while serving at the Navy Yard in Washington, Lieutenant Miller heard rumors about that exiting new undertaking, a peacetime trade mission around the world to dozens of exotic ports of call. This was more than appealing, such an important mission and undoubtedly a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. The young Lieutenant Miller could only hope and pray.
In 1878 the rumors were confirmed, and Frederick was thrilled to learn that Commodore Robert Wilson Shufeldt was chosen to lead the USS Ticonderoga on the global trade mission. Shufeldt was Frederick’s uncle, married to his mother’s sister. Lt. Miller was named to the crew. Was it because of Frederick’s exemplary service record? Or perhaps his familial connections? Or both? No matter, Shufeldt had chosen Miller to serve as a key Lieutenant.
Assigned executive reporting duties, Frederick was charged with keeping the U.S. government informed of the ports of call visited, and the diplomatic and commercial discussions that were being held. Frederick and his reporting team were to produce detailed daily mission logs that were to be summarized and periodically dispatched back to Washington to the Secretary of the Navy and the US State Department.
This was to be an epic voyage on Ticonderoga, a 237 foot, 2,500-ton sloop-of-war with three fully rigged masts and an 800-horsepower steam engine. She was to be a standard bearer of the United States government on a world mission to promote commerce, discover new markets, enhance diplomatic ties, extending America's reach into the Africa, Arabia, India and the Asia Pacific.
On 7 December 1878 the Ticonderoga sailed eastward from Hampton Roads, Virginia towards Africa on a two-year tour. As she entered ports with the American Colors flying, the Ticonderoga was typically welcomed in grand fashion. Local government officials and business leaders were eager to welcome envoys of the new and rising American power.
Ports of call included Madeira Island, off the Coast of Portugal; Monrovia, Liberia and Freetown Sierra Leone in Western Africa; Cape Town, South Africa; the Islands of Madagascar, and Zanzibar; Aden in today’s Republic of Yemen; Muskat Arabia, now the Kingdom of Oman; Basrah in today’s Iraq; Bombay, India; Penang, Malaysia; Singapore; Manila; Hong Kong; Nagasaki; and Honolulu.
One example of diplomatic work accomplished on the mission was a pact negotiated with the chiefs of the Malagasy and Sakalava tribes of Madagascar. The agreement provided security and protection of American trading and whaling ships, and a promise not to extract dues or duties from ships bearing the American flag, and to allow the storage of coal to be hidden on the beaches covered with brush for the use by US Navy vessels. In exchange, American whaling and trading ships will frequent Madagascar’s ports for safe harbor and trade.
For each major port of call, Miller's commerce reports were dispatched. These detailed reports included the types and quantities of goods imported and exported from each region, the size and nature of the populations, names and nationalities of major merchant companies, economic conditions and growth trends, existing alliances and rivalries, and preferences of the ruling governments and influential businesses.
As the trade mission traveled from port to port, they were quick to see that international commerce in and around the Africa and India was dominated by the British. Shufeldt's expedition was in many ways an attempt to find cracks or gaps in Britian's dominance, an attempt to jumpstart new American ventures. One of Miller's reports illustrated the point. "In 1879 ships and tonnage for trading nations that had called at Zanzibar was as follows: Britian sixty-nine ships, 761,265 tons; Germany thirteen ships 5,940 tons, United States ten ships 5,283 tons, France four ships 1,965 tons. "
Frederick saw in real time the world of global maritime trade, witnessing firsthand trade and diplomatic negotiations and gathering data directly from political and business leaders. Under Commadore Shufeldt’s lead, and Miller’s reporting, the United States government and business community received invaluable data and insights. Without a doubt, Frederick was in his element, learning valuable lessons, enjoying the journey, while fulfilling his lifelong dreams.
But as the voyage wore on, it seemed all was not well with Frederick. At times he fell into dark moods of sadness and despair. The rigors of service on board ship for so long a period took its toll on all of the officers and crew including Frederick. Sudden squalls, rough seas, or days of dead calm and oppressive heat constantly tested the crew. But Frederick difficulties in particular seemed to be mounting, his troubles were deeper rooted that just the fatigue of the long journey.
As the ship approached southeast Asia, Lt. Miller’s health began to seriously decline. He relapsed into malarial fever and chills and suffered bouts of debilitating arthritic and sciatica pain. His episodes of depression or “melancholy” became more frequent and greatly concerned Commodore Shufeldt. After Miller had an alarming confrontation with the ship's captain, while in port at Singapore, Shufeldt reluctantly relieved Miller of his duties and ordered now 37-year-old Lieutenant to return to his home port of New York to the hospital at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The Ticonderoga’s historic voyage continued on without Lt. Miller. Among many firsts, the USS Ticonderoga was the first American vessel and largest ship ever to sail up the Euphrates River and also the first steam vessel to circumnavigate the world. During the two-year mission, she visited over 40 ports and steamed in excess of 36,000 miles without a mishap.
Hospitalized in 1880
Soon after he reluctantly relieved Lt. Miller of his duties on the Ticonderoga, Commander Shufeldt wrote to Frederick's mother, Martha Abercrombie Miller, about Frederick's worrisome condition. Prompted by that correspondence, Martha and Frederick's sister Mary went straight to Brooklyn to prepare and wait for his arrival. The journey home for Miller was difficult, but at long last, the frail and demoralized 39-year-old man arrived safe and was admitted to the Brooklyn's Navy Hospital.
The hospital in the Brooklyn Navy Yard was a massive 450 bed facility filled with active and veteran sailors. It had opened at the start of Civil War and had become the main hospital in the United States Navy's hospital system.
After a thorough examination by the chief Navy Surgeon, Lt. Miller was given the diagnosis of 'Acute Neurasthenia' along with and degenerative damage to his lower back. Neurasthenia the name given to a condition characterized by fatigue, anxiety, headaches, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, and episodes of combative or depressed moods. By 1880 neurasthenia had become a common diagnosis for Civil War veterans suffering those or similar symptoms. In later wars, the same condition was referred to as 'shell shock', 'war nerves', or 'combat neurosis'. The term "post-traumatic stress disorder" emerged in the 1970s, primarily to diagnose U.S. Vietnam War veterans. No matter the name given, the affliction was real, and debilitating. Frederick's recovery would be a lengthy process.
Lt. Miller was under the care of Navy, but nonetheless Martha and Mary immediately took an active role in his care. The large noisy hospital wards lacked privacy; a difficult place for Frederick to heal his frayed nerves. Being a well-known officer with many years of service, and the Navy Yard in Brooklyn being the largest Navy facility, there was a parade of fellow officers, and past crew members coming by to bring their best wishes. Martha and Mary were determined to find him better care.
Back to Health
The Navy surgeons could patch up a torn muscle or set a shattered bone, but they had few remedies for a mind worn thin by war, fever, and years at sea. What truly began to mend Frederick was not medicine but the stubborn love of his family.
Martha and Mary rented a modest room within walking distance of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Every afternoon, as Frederick’s strength returned, Mary would arrive at the ward with a book or a newspaper and coax him outside, to sit under a tree on the hospital grounds or to walk along the gravel paths. Martha quietly lobbied the surgeons for privacy, better food, and shorter visiting restrictions. They were, in their own way, a two-woman campaign for his survival.
As weeks turned into months, the worst of the fevers ebbed. The nightmares came less often. The damaged lungs, the aching back—those remained. But Frederick could once again walk with ease and gaze on the East River and talk of something other than war.
It was on one of those outings that he first saw Alice Townsend.
Enter Alice Townsend – Recovery and Romance
Alice was not a nurse, but she might as well have been. At twenty-four, she was a fixture in a circle of Brooklyn and Manhattan society women who devoted several days a week to “visiting the sick.” Her father, Charles Townsend, was a prosperous shipping and insurance man with offices close to the piers. Alice, clever and restless, had been gently steered toward charity, music, and church work—the acceptable pursuits for a well-bred young woman.
The Navy Hospital had become one of her regular rounds. She arrived with armfuls of newspapers, a basket of fruit or biscuits, and a knack for asking questions that drew stoic sailors out of their shell. On a brisk afternoon in early 1880, a chaplain introduced her to “Lieutenant Miller, lately of the Ticonderoga.”
The first impression was not encouraging. Frederick was thin, the weight of his years at sea etched into the lines around his eyes. But when Alice asked about “Ticonderoga's world cruise,” something in him brightened. He straightened a little. With a halting voice at first, then with growing ease, he described the strange natives of Madagascar, the crowded harbor at Bombay, the evening light on the cliffs above Cape Town.
“Do you ever tire of the sea?” Alice asked, half curious, half teasing.
“Never,” Frederick replied. “Only of being kept away from it.” She laughed, and Frederick realized he could not remember the last time he had made a lady laugh.
Her visits became more frequent. Sometimes she came with a group of other young women, sometimes alone, under the pretext of donating books to the hospital library. He told her stories that were not in any book: a quarrel between a British consul and a Portuguese customs officer in Mozambique, a storm off Brazil that nearly rolled his ship over, a quiet night off Zanzibar when phosphorescence turned the ship’s wake into liquid stars.
For Alice, Frederick was unlike the young men she knew in drawing rooms and at musicales. They could speak of stocks and railroads; he could speak of monsoons and pirates and markets where American flags were still novelties. For Frederick, Alice was perfect: educated, perceptive, unafraid to ask blunt questions about politics, money, or fear.
When he was well enough to leave the base on day passes, Alice pressed her parents to invite him to dinner. The Townsends, cautious at first, found themselves charmed by the soft-spoken naval officer with impeccable manners and a quiet wit. Charles Townsend, shrewd judge of character, was impressed by the careful way Frederick described risks and opportunities in foreign ports. This was not a dreamer; this was a man who had seen the world and taken notes.
By the time the Navy release him from the hospital and formally declared him fit for shore duty only, the course of his Frederick's life seemed to be set anew.
A Grand Navy and New York–Brooklyn High Society Wedding
Their wedding the following spring was grand enough to make the Brooklyn papers.
Yesterday afternoon, as the reporters put it, Holy Trinity was the scene of a brilliant wedding. For weeks the engagement of “Lieutenant Frederick Augustas Miller, U.S.N., and Miss Alice Townsend, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Townsend, of Remsen Street,” had been stirring the social circles on both sides of the East River.
Naval weddings were rare in Brooklyn, and the combination of a popular officer with a well-connected merchant family guaranteed curiosity. From noon onward the streets around Holy Trinity filled with the rattle of carriage wheels. Coaches rolled up to the canopied entrance of the church to deliver ladies in satins and silks, officers in blue and gold, as well as merchants, clergy, and curious onlookers who had managed to secure the prized invitations.
Inside, the scene was almost theatrical. Gas lights twinkled along the walls and in the chancel, flooding the sanctuary with a warm, flickering light. Banks of flowers softened the stone and woodwork. Against this backdrop of perfume and petals, the uniforms of the naval officers stood out in sharp relief: deep blue coats, gleaming buttons, gold shoulder knots and sword hilts catching the light.
Shortly after one o’clock the bridal party arrived. As the first notes of the wedding march began, Frederick, in full dress uniform, took his place. Alice came up the aisle on her father’s arm, a vision in white satin. The papers noted every detail: a “rich white satin robe, with trimmings of Duchesse and Pointe lace, a veil of regulation tulle, fastened with lilies of the valley". Behind her came the bridesmaids. Miss Howe, Miss Barrett, and Miss Ludlow, dressed alike, wearing hats and carrying large bouquets that echoed the flowers banked around the altar.
At the rail they were received by the Rev. Charles Halland Bishop Littlejohn, who together officiated the rite. The vows were spoken in clear, steady voices; whatever Frederick had faced at sea, this moment seemed to steady him rather than shake him. When the blessing was pronounced and the couple turned to face the congregation as man and wife, a buzz of approval swept through the pews.
The groom’s party was as nautical as the bride’s side was fashionable. The groomsmen and users were were all in full dress uniform, their swords and epaulettes turning the aisle into a miniature quarterdeck.
Following the ceremony, the celebration shifted a short distance to the Townsends’ home on Remsen Street. There, the parlors had been transformed. The guest list read like a roll call of the Navy and New York–Brooklyn society. To the society writers, it was a brilliant naval wedding. To Frederick, it was something quieter and more personal: the moment when a life of storms, guns, and distant horizons finally met its harbor in the form of a woman who had first walked into a noisy hospital ward with a basket of books and a curious mind.
A Young Family
Married life softened some of the sharper edges of Frederick’s existence. The Navy, recognizing the toll that years at sea had taken on him, kept him on shore duty, where his days were filled with reports, inventories, and administrative tasks rather than storms or the crack of guns.
Children soon followed: a son, Townsend, and two daughters, Edith and Alice. In summers the family fled the heat to cooler seaside towns of the Jersey shore, where the children built sandcastles while their father hovered at the water’s edge, half-tempted to commandeer any respectable boat just to get a few minutes of real sea under his feet.
Retirement from the Navy and Newfound Wealth
In time, the Navy made the inevitable official. After more than two decades of service, repeated medical leaves, and a stack of commendations, Frederick Augustus Miller was finally placed on the retired list as a Navy Captain in 1885. Years later, in a gesture that meant much to him, the Navy upgraded his retired rank designation to Commander in recognition of his distinguished Civil War record.
Retirement was certainly a turning point, a new phase of life, but the true transformation of the Millers’ fortunes came not from retirement with a modest pension, but from Alice’s family wealth which was about to change everything.
In January of 1896, Alice’s father, Charles A. Townsend, died leaving an estate valued at roughly equivalent to 12 million dollars in today’s terms. In his will, he left to his daughter, Alice, a carefully constructed portfolio of income-producing securities: railroad shares, insurance stock, and industrial bonds, along with a life interest for his widow, her mother, in the residue of the estate. Frederick himself was named as one of the executors.
When Mrs. Townsend later passed away, the full benefit of that estate flowed to Alice and, by extension, to the Miller family. What had once been the solid security of a retired officer now became something more: a substantial, diversified fortune. For the first time in their lives, Frederick and Alice were not simply comfortable; they were truly wealthy.
That inheritance changed the scale of what was possible. It funded the children’s schooling, underwrote summers away from the city, and, most notably, made it feasible for a retired Navy man and his Brooklyn-born wife to imagine something bold: a grand new house in the nation’s capital, designed by a prominent architect.
A Move to Washington, D.C.
Sometime after retirement, the Millers exchanged the brick-lined streets of Brooklyn for the broad avenues of the capital. The exact timing of the move and the address of their first Washington home has slipped through the archival cracks. In DC, Frederick did not spend his retirement in leisure or idleness, he immersed himself in civic work: charities, hospitals, and the boardroom of American Security and Trust. Alice learned the social geography of a city still defining itself.
Washington, which had once been a muddy backwater in Frederick’s early Navy days, was changing. The postwar decades transformed it into a true capital, with new boulevards, tree plantings, and grand mansions rising around Dupont Circle and along Connecticut Avenue. Business magnates, foreign legations, lobbyists, senators, and social climbers all converged on the broad spine of Massachusetts Avenue.
For Frederick, the city held a special pull. He remembered his years there training recruits on the USS Portsmouth, remembered the Potomac at dawn, the dome of the Capitol emerging from morning mist. Washington was inland, to be sure, but the presence of the Navy Department, the Marine Barracks, and the ceaseless talk of policy and power gave it a kind of tidal energy that appealed to him.
To Alice, Washington presented both duty and opportunity. A capital filled with diplomats and lawmakers meant charities in need of leadership, and a stage on which to advance causes she cared about—hospitals, widows’ aid, and the education of sailors’ children.
And just a few years after moving into the capital city, they took that big step into the elite society of DC, commissioning a grand new home on the rising frontier of Massachusetts Avenue. The selected a plot of land at the corner of Massachusetts and 22nd Street well west of the established Washington mansions; few houses had been built that far out along the avenue in 1900. To some it seemed a speculative folly. To Frederick, who believed Washington was destined to become a “Mecca for wealth, fashion, and culture,” it felt exactly right. They would build not just a house, but a statement.
The Gilded-Age Mansion
In 1900, with Frederick officially retired as a naval commander and now a gentleman investor, the Millers commissioned prominent DC architect Paul J. Pelz, best known as the architect of the Library of Congress. The instructions were simple and startling: the residence must be grand enough for Washington society, yet it must also be unmistakably a sailor’s house.
Pelz’s design answered both demands. The façade rose in smooth stone in a richly French Renaissance, almost château-like composition, with tall windows, carved garlands, and a high entrance suitable for receiving ambassadors and senators. Look closer, though, and the sea was everywhere: shell motifs curled along the cornices; tridents and stylized waves were tucked into the ironwork; inside, the posts of the grand staircase were capped with miniature carved capstans.
The library was Frederick’s favorite room. Its walls were lined with shelves of leather-bound volumes and portfolios of charts. Framed maps of far-off coasts—Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean—hung alongside portraits of old ships. Above the mantelpiece, in a place of honor, was a carefully inked track chart of the USS Ticonderoga’s circumnavigation, drawn by his own hand.
One of the most striking rooms in the house and the one that most clearly revealed Frederick’s loyalties was the formal dining room. At its center stood a tall stained-glass window dedicated to Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, the legendary commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and the Navy’s first full admiral.
Farragut had commanded the very waters where Frederick had fought, his presence a constant shadow over the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. And for sailors like Miller, men who had fought at Donaldsonville and along the Mississippi, Farragut was more than an admiral. He was myth.
Washington DC itself had memorialized him with a grand bronze statue in Farragut Square in 1881, but Frederick chose to pay his own tribute within his home. The dining room’s window, glowing amber-blue, and sea-green when touched by afternoon light depicted stylized rigging, a billowing Civil War ensign, and, according to later accounts, the silhouette of the Hartford, Farragut’s flagship. For Frederick, it was a reminder of the commander whose courage had shaped a generation of naval officers, and a subtle signal to dinner guests that this elegant house on Massachusetts Avenue was, at its core, still a sailor’s home.
And then there was the cat. When the architect presented the final elevations, Frederick studied the roofline and added thoughtfully. “It needs a lookout,” he said. “Something that belongs to the ship, not the shore.”
Thus came the sculpted ship’s cat perched on a third-story cornice near the rear of the house, gazing out over the street as if watching the tide. To passersby, the cat is a curiosity. To Frederick, it was a symbol, a nod to the ship's cats that had paced along the decks of his ships, chasing rats, curling in coils of rope, and somehow always sensing when trouble was coming.
A Life of Privilege and of Service
By the time the Miller house rose on Massachusetts Avenue, Frederick had woven himself deeply into the civic fabric of Washington. Retirement from the Navy had not softened his instinct for duty; it had simply redirected it. He became treasurer of St. John’s Orphanage, applying the same steadiness that once led ship's crews to the task of keeping an institution for vulnerable children afloat. He helped guide the Workingman’s Club, offering counsel to a reform-minded organization that aimed to give laborers education, dignity, and a place to gather free from the city’s harsher temptations. He sat on the board of the Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital and the Blind Men's Home, where his calm decisiveness proved as useful in board meetings.
At the same time, Frederick stepped into Washington’s financial world. As a director of American Security and Trust Company, then one of the capital’s promising new banks, he brought something rare to its deliberations, decades of firsthand knowledge about how goods, ships, and fortunes moved across the world. His insights into foreign ports and shipping routes lent depth to decisions otherwise made from ledger books and political instinct.
Washington society, too, offered Frederick another outlet. At the Metropolitan Club near the White House, he was known as a thoughtful conversationalist who preferred a small circle to a crowded parlor. The Cosmos Club where scientists, explorers, and diplomats, debated everything from astronomy to anthropology felt almost like an extension of his years at sea.
Within this new DC society world, the three Miller children came of age. The only son Townsend learned the language of ledgers and deeds and stepped naturally into business. Edith and Alice moved through a slightly different circuit: the new National Cathedral School for Girls on Mount St. Alban, then the round of teas, musicales, and charity events expected of well-bred young women. Both daughters were among the early graduates of the school; Washington society writers took note when they appeared in the Cathedral’s lists and at their first formal dances.
In 1902, Edith stepped formally into Washington society. She was presented at the White House and then celebrated with a grand ball at their 2201 Massachusetts Avenue home, a glittering affair remembered as one of the loveliest of the season, where the city was invited to admire both its newest avenue and its newest young debutante. A few years later her younger sister, Alice, would graduate from National Cathedral School and be launched into society in her own right.
Wealth gave the Millers comfort: a staff to manage the house, summers in cooler places, fine clothes and good wine. But Alice refused to let their life become only about invitations and menus. The causes Frederick served, orphans, workers, the blind, patients in need of specialist care were the same sorts of people she championed in person, chairing committees and charity fairs, arranging musicales whose ticket sales funded hospital wards or holiday clothes for children in institutional care.
On certain evenings, the grand rooms of the house were turned over to quieter gatherings: a reception for wounded sailors passing through the city, or a committee meeting to raise funds for a new ward at the hospital. Frederick would stand near the fireplace, hands clasped behind his back, listening more than speaking, while the stone cat above kept its silent watch.
As the years went on, Frederick made one small but telling change. In the first decade of the new century, he formally added his mother’s surname, becoming Frederick Augustus Abercrombie-Miller. A final nod to the Philadelphia family that had sustained him when his life began
The Final Days
Frederick grew older, then frail, his war wounds and tropical diseases took their final toll. Frederick died November 11, 1909 at the age of 65. At last the Navy buried him with honors on gently sloping hill at Arlington National Cemetery where he could, as one old shipmate remarked, “still hear the guns from the river, if they ever need him.”
Alice remained in the house for some years, scaling back the grandeur but never quite abandoning the rituals of hospitality. Eventually, even she moved on, and new families, new institutions, and finally foreign governments and landlords took possession of the mansion, adapting its rooms to their own purposes.
But outside, on the cornice high above the street, the stone cat stayed.
Today, if you walk along Embassy Row and pause at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 22nd Street, you can still see it there small against the sky, back arched slightly, eyes fixed on a horizon that only it can see. The city below has forgotten most of Commander Frederick A. Miller’s story. The ships he sailed are long gone; the ports he visited have changed beyond recognition.
And yet, in that unlikely guardian on the roof, a ship’s cat marooned in stone, there lingers a trace of his life: the boy on the Elkton waterfront dreaming of adventure, the young officer braced at a gun in the Mississippi night, the weary traveler circling the globe, the older man, at last at rest in a house that echoed the sea.
So now I can now safely answer my own question.... “What’s with that? There must be a story there." Yes indeed.
This essay is built on a solid foundation of documented historical facts—real dates, ships, battles, institutions, newspaper accounts, social events, and genealogical records from Frederick A. Miller’s life—woven together with carefully crafted narrative detail. His naval service, wounds, promotions, marriage to Alice Townsend, rise in Washington society, the construction of the Massachusetts Avenue mansion, and the careers of his children are all grounded in verifiable sources. At the same time, the story uses a light degree of historical license to fill in emotional textures, conversations, motivations, and moments that the archival record doesn’t preserve. These imaginative elements stay faithful to the spirit of the era and the character of the people involved, enriching the known facts without contradicting them.
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