Appendix E: Biographies

Thayer and Parker

Sylvanus Thayer (Braintree, MA 9 June 1785 – Braintree, MA 7 September 1872; see Image 318) “received a classical education at Dartmouth College, N.H.,” graduating in 1807;1 was a “Cadet of the Military Academy, Mar. 20, 1807, to Feb. 23, 1808, when he was graduated and promoted in the Army to Second Lieut., Corps of Engineers, Feb. 23, 1808”;2 “served on various engineer and ordenance duties, 1808–12; was engaged in the War of 1812–15 against Great Britain, receiving for his ‘distinguished and meritorious services’ the brevet of Major, Feb. 20, 1815 … and July 28, 1817, at the age of thirty-two, assumed the responsible trust of Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, which he found in a deplorably chaotic condition.”3 His “military experience in the field, his foreign travel and associations, his familiarity with the polite usages of society, his dignified bearing and refined mode of life, and, above all, his scientific acquirements, enlarged professional reading, and familarity with the French and dead languages, gave him immense vantage ground for success.”4 In his sixteen years as superintendent, “he built up the Military Academy from an elementary school to a model seminary of science and soldiership.”5 On 3 March 1823, Thayer was made a brevet lieutenant-colonel “for distinguished and meritorious services” during his superintendency and “in 1826 … recommended by General [Winfield] Scott [see Image 52] to be brevetted a Colonel” for this achievement.6 But “when, in 1829, General Andrew Jackson … became President of the United States,” he and Thayer clashed, which eventually resulted in Thayer’s request “to be placed upon other duty”; he was relieved of his superintendency on 1 July 1833.7 He “was made a member of the Board of Engineers, and was also charged with the planning and building of the fortifications and other public works in and about Boston Harbor.”8 He served as “Superintending Engineer of the construction of Fts. Warren and Independence, Boston Harbor … 1833–43, continuing the direction of those works while on professional duty in Europe, till 1846.”9

Charles Collins Parker (1823–1848; see Image 319) was the son of General Daniel (1782–1846) and Ann (Collins) Parker. The elder Parker was born in Shirley, Massachusetts, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1801. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in Charlestown, Massachusetts. In 1810, he became chief clerk in the War Department and served in this position until 1814, when he was commissioned adjutant and inspector general with the rank of brigadier general. He was paymaster general in 1821–1822 and in 1822 was superseded and dropped from the army. He returned to his law practice from 1822 to 1841, when he again became chief clerk of the War Department, a position he held until his death.10

Charles Collins Parker was born on 3 August 1823 in Washington, DC. He received his BA from Yale University in 1842. Recommended by General Winfield Scott, he entered the United States Military Academy on 1 July 1842, but resigned on 8 September 1842 and entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical Department in October 1842.11 In 1843, he was presented with the opportunity to travel through Europe as companion to Colonel Sylvanus Thayer.

Colonel Thayer had had a terrible illness at Norfolk and had “been ever since a miserable, ailing body with legs bandaged from feet to knees.” He was in his thirty-seventh year of service, during which he had “not asked or recd a furlough or leave of absence for a single day.” He now wanted two years off.12 He intended to “keep in constant motion during the mild weather and purpose[d] visiting the most interesting places in the British Isles, Germany, France, Italy and probably Spain” and wintering in Naples unless he decided “to make a short trip to Egypt.”13 He was delighted to have Charles Parker as his traveling companion and expressed his willingness to confer with him about the itinerary, sensing it might “be too wide a range to suit [the young man’s] views.”14

As the months passed, the departure was postponed several times. In response to Charles’s impatience at Thayer’s insistence that he could only depart when his professional duties and personal affairs were in order, Thayer urged that Charles apply himself to the study of German and French to be “better qualified … to profit by his travels.”15 Finally, around 10 December 1843, Thayer and Charles Parker met in New York. Thayer was “charmed with his personal appearance and deportment and anticipate[d] much satisfaction and happiness in his companionship.”16 In answer to an anxious letter from Daniel Parker, who feared that Thayer felt “too much the responsibility of having Charles with [him] on his travels,” Thayer wrote a touching response: “Far, far from it on my honor. Without the prospect of having him with me I doubt whether I could have mustered courage enough to go to Europe at all. I could not endure the thought of being in foreign countries at my age and present state of health without a friend near me. Altho’ my personal acquaintance with him is but slight I think that I know him well and feel sure that he is all I could wish. I am truly gratified that you think it will be best for him to accompany me every where. Permit me to add that I have a due sense of all that you have done for me. My heart is full to overflowing.”17 They sailed on the Packet Ship Liverpool on 22 December 1843.18

Thayer was accorded special treatment. United States consuls in Europe were informed that Colonel Thayer would be traveling “for a year or two in Europe for the benefit of his health” and would wish “to see whatever may be most interesting without encountering any great fatigue.” He would “be accompanied in all his travels by Charles Collins Parker.”19 Commanders of U.S. Navy vessels in the Mediterranean were informed that if they could offer accommodation to the two “from one port to another, without deviating from … course,” this would be desirable.20

Although Thayer “was going to Europe primarily for his health,” his intention was “also to visit points of greatest interest to the military.”21 He was supplied by the Ordnance Office with a list of “objects requiring [his] attention,”22 but it was suggested that “he might have a ‘Carte Blanche’ in relation to all Military information.”23 Thayer and Parker arrived in Paris on 25 January 1844. On 15 March, Thayer announced that he would set out in the middle of March “for St. Petersburg passing through Belgium, Holland & thence to Hamburgh, Copenhagen, Stockholm,” and that his “health continue[d] to be about the same as it ha[d] been during the last year.”24 Anna Whistler’s diary entries for 17, 19, and 22 July 1844 show that the two were then in St. Petersburg.

A note of 7/19 July 1844 from Col. Charles S. Todd (see Image 278), envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States to Russia, to Sir James Wylie (see Image 298), Baronet, Inspector General of Hospitals, St. Petersburg, indicated that “they may wish to visit the interesting Military Hospitals.”25 On 12/24 July, Todd expressed the hope that they might “find time to visit [him] again” and suggested they see the “public Lawns, the Ancient Armoury & the Observatory at Pulkova.”26

Parker wished to leave Thayer in Italy in November 1844 and to go on his own to Paris to hear medical lectures, rejoining Thayer in March 1845. Although advised by his father and others that he should “keep with the Col. wherever he goes and see all he can under his direction and when he can no longer have that advantage he can return and study anatomy etc. and then go again to Paris by himself,” Parker continued to press the issue, so that in the end his father left the matter to him under Thayer’s advice.27 They traveled through parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland.28 Thayer wrote a friend that Parker “accompanied me everywhere except to Greece & Egypt & a part of Italy.”29

Thayer, improved in health, arrived back in New York on 2 June 1846.30 No mention is made of whether Parker accompanied him back. Thayer had expressed to the U.S. Legation when last in Berlin “a wish to procure certain information from the Russian government, upon the subject of its military administration.”31 Consul Theodore S. Fay applied to the Russian War Department through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a number of manuscripts on the subject were received and forwarded to Thayer in Boston through the American War Department.32 Thayer returned to his work in Massachusetts constructing forts and coast defenses. He was made a colonel in the Corps of Engineers on 3 March 1863 and brevet brigadier general in the U.S. Army on 31 May 1863 “for long and faithful service.”33 He was on sick leave from 1858 to 1863 and “retired from active service, July 1, 1863, under the law of June 17, 1862, having been borne on the Army Register more than 45 years.”34 He returned to a secluded life in Braintree, Massachusetts, where he died at the age of eighty-seven.35

No mention is made of whether Charles Collins Parker accompanied Thayer back to the United States in 1846. He received the MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania on 3 April 1846 and practiced in Philadelphia. The subject of his thesis was diseases of the heart. He married on 30 September 1847 Anna Coleman, daughter of James Coleman, ironmaster at Elizabeth Furnace near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He died in Philadelphia at the age of twenty-five on 28 December 1848 and is buried in the Churchyard of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Their daughter, Charlotte Collins Parker (Mrs. James Rawle after marriage), was born after his death.36

Notes