At age eight, Mil­lard was ad­mit­ted in­to a Bos­ton choir, and at 10 sang in the chor­us of the Han­del and Hay­dn so­ci­e­ty as an al­to. His voice changed to a te­nor, and on one oc­ca­sion, around age 15, dur­ing the ab­sence of the prin­ci­pal te­nor, he sang in the or­a­to­rio Sam­son. In 1851, he went to Eur­ope and spent three years stu­dy­ing un­der the best mas­ters in It­a­ly. He then spent some time in Lon­don, ap­pear­ing at var­i­ous mu­sic­al ven­ues as a ten­or, and tra­veled with Cath­er­ine Hayes in Ire­land and Scot­land. While abroad, he wrote con­sid­er­a­ble mu­sic, and was a fre­quent con­trib­ut­or to Dwight’s Jour­nal of Mu­sic and other Amer­i­can mu­sic­al pub­li­ca­tions. In 1854, he re­turned to Amer­i­ca, set­tling in Bos­ton, giv­ing vo­cal les­sons and sing­ing at con­certs. Two years lat­er, he moved to New York. In 1859, he pro­duced his first im­port­ant song, Vi­va La Amer­i­ca, which was ve­ry suc­cess­ful. Up­on the out­break of the Amer­i­can civil war, he en­tered the ar­my and was com­miss­ioned a first lieu­ten­ant in the 19th New York Re­gi­ment. Af­ter four years of ser­vice, he was se­vere­ly wound­ed in the Bat­tle of Chick­a­mau­ga, ren­dered un­fit for du­ty, and sent home. Not long af­ter, he was of­fered a po­si­tion in the cus­tom house, which he held until at least 1881. Millard’s works con­sist of about 300 songs (in­clud­ing the pa­tri­o­tic song Flag of the Free); near­ly 400 adap­ta­tions of French, Ger­man and Ital­i­an works; ma­ny anthems; 4 church ser­vic­es; 4 Te Deums; a grand mass; a ves­per; and an Ital­i­an opera in 4 acts, Deborah.

• Jones, pp. 99-9

1. In the Low­ly Man­ger Lyi­ng

1. Abide with Me, ’Tis Ev­en­tide