Tag: archibald butt

In March of 1912, the Washington Times published a laudatory piece about the "soldier, painter, and connoisseur": the American artist Francis Davis Millet.

Indeed, Frank Millet seemed fated to be the common denominator through decades of extraordinary events.

He was a drummer boy in the American Civil War. He was a correspondent in the Turkish-Russo conflict and the Spanish-American War. Mark Twain had been his best man. He socialized with the President of the United States. He was the man who made "The White City" white for the Chicago World's Fair. He was asked to contribute to the design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington's D.C.

He sailed on Titanic.

Apparently, among Mr. Millet's many remarkable talents was his lifelong ability to somehow be everywhere, all at once.

Once, while in Japan, his companion joked that perhaps, Frank was finally in a land where no one would recognize him. A waiter then approached Frank and addressed him by name, because he had been in the artist’s company at the Chicago Exposition.

According to friends and critics alike, Frank was an exalted wanderer at heart and of mind.

Frank Millet boarded Titanic as a First-Class passenger on the evening of April 10, 1912, in Cherbourg, France.

He had been in Europe since early March of that year, in the company of his dearest friend, Major Archibald Butt.

They had been close companions for many years; they had even been housemates in Washington, D.C., hosting extravagant parties for the elite society of the capital.

Archie, as he was called, had reportedly been in danger of anxious collapse in early 1912. He had been walking a tightrope between his allegiance to former President Theodore Roosevelt, and current President William Taft. "Do you wonder," Archie asked his wife Clara, "that our nerves have been disintegrated and that our innards are all upside down?"

At the same time, Frank Millet was preparing for a business trip in Rome to handle administrative matters as the head of the American Academy of Art.

Concerned for his friend's well-being, Frank interceded to President Taft in a letter, begging leave for Archie so that the friends might travel in Europe together.

The President consented.

After a month abroad, the United States beckoned Frank back to finalize the design for the proposed Lincoln Memorial.

Archie and Frank briefly parted ways so the latter could conduct some business in Europe while the former stayed back in England. They intended to meet up once again on Titanic's maiden voyage.

The two did not share a cabin, however, because Archie had far too many trunks.

Once reunited on board Titanic on the evening of April 10th, Archie and Frank sat down to dinner with a mutual friend from Washington, D.C.: Clarence Moore. The trio would gather regularly throughout the voyage.

The next day, Frank posted a letter to fellow artist Alfred Parsons. He was evidently vexed, and uncharacteristically grouchy.

Frank, a gentle spirit, was not usually so sour; in fact, his dear friend and best man Mark Twain once said that he intended to call all cordial, affable people “Millets.”

But then again, he had just had "the Devil of a time in Rome" with the project he was involved in, and stated outright that he was ready to throw up his hands and "chuck it" altogether.

In the same letter, Frank took multiple opportunities to marvel at Titanic’s finery and size.

Frank and Archie whiled away the voyage in each other’s company. They often congregated with Clarence in the First-Class Smoking Lounge.

According to passenger Marie Grice Young, she often spotted the two friends taking vigorous walks around the decks as they chatted.

Frank and Archie also fraternized with fellow First-Class passenger Archibald Gracie. The old Colonel had likely tried to recommend his own book about Chickamauga to them, just like he had done with a very accommodating Isidor Straus. But Frank was probably uninterested, given that the men’s notions of the Civil War were drastically different.

Archie Butt was born in Georgia in 1865: the same year the Civil War had ended. And he was the nephew of a Confederate general.

Frank, on the other hand, was a Massachusetts native who had been a drummer for the Union Army, and his father had been a Union surgeon. He had even assisted his father’s surgeries on the field in 1864.

And while it might seem that Frank’s battlefield era was long past, the memories stayed with him. He regularly attributed his use of vivid, blood-red paint to his hospital experiences in the war.

Frank’s true feelings about the encounters with bombastic, former-confederate Colonel Gracie, whatever they might have been, are undocumented.

During the evening of April 14th, Frank and Clarence took dinner at their usual table in the First-Class dining saloon.

Archie, meanwhile, attended a party in the A La Carte restaurant held by George and Eleanor Widener, reportedly in honor of Captain Smith.

Afterward, the three friends settled in for a late night of cards in the Smoking Lounge with fellow passenger Arthur Ryerson. They were there at 11:40 p.m., the moment of Titanic’s collision with the iceberg.

The men reportedly continued their game until about 1:00 a.m. “They were perfectly imperturbable,” testified Archibald Gracie at the American Senate Inquiry.

The last sighting of Frank Millet was on deck, assisting the loading of lifeboats alongside Archie and John Jacob Astor.

Frank never sought salvation himself. Neither he nor Archie survived.

Francis Davis Millet’s corpse was the 249th recovered by the Mackay-Bennett.

He was 65 years old.

And, devoted even in death, Frank was remembered in conjunction with his most beloved friend, Archie.

They were jointly mourned across the nation by civilians and the famous alike, and were tearfully praised for their so-called glorious deaths. During a memorial for Archie, President Taft broke down in tears during his eulogy, and could not bear to continue.