his wife. As I stood there alone, with no one by to irritate me by assertions of the man's absolute supremacy, I acknowledged that I had come to the final resting-place of a great and good man,—of a man whose patriotism was, I believe, an honest feeling, untinged by any personal ambition of a selfish nature. That he was pre-eminently a successful man may have been due chiefly to the excellence of his cause, and the blood and character of the people who put him forward as their right arm in their contest; but that he did not mar that success by arrogance, or destroy the brightness of his own name by personal aggrandisement, is due to a noble nature and to the calm individual excellence of the man.

Considering the circumstances and history of the place, the position of Mount Vernon, as I saw it, was very remarkable. It lay exactly between the lines of the two armies. The pickets of the Northern army had been extended beyond it, not improbably with the express intention of keeping a spot so hallowed within the power of the northern Government. But since the war began it had been in the hands of the seceders. In fact, it stood there in the middle of the battle-field, on the very line of division between loyalism and secession. And this was the spot which Washington had selected as the heart and centre, and safest rallying homestead of the united nation which he left behind him. But Washington, when he resolved to found his capital on the banks of the Potomac, knew nothing of the glories of the Mississippi. He did not dream of the speedy addition to his already gathered constellations of those Western stars, of Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa; nor did he dream of Texas conquered, Louisiana purchased, and Missouri and Kansas rescued from the wilderness.

I have said that Washington was at that time,—the Christmas of 1861-1862,—a melancholy place. This was partly owing to the despondent tone in which so many Americans then spoke of their own affairs. It was not that the northern men thought that they were to be beaten, or that the southern men feared that things were going bad with their party across the river; but that nobody seemed to have any faith in anybody. Maclellan had been put up as the true man—exalted perhaps too quickly, considering the limited opportunities for distinguishing himself which fortune had thrown in his way; but now belief in Maclellan seemed to be slipping away. One felt that it was so from day to day, though it was impossible to define how or whence the feeling came. And then the character of the ministry fared still worse in public estimation. That Lincoln, the President, was honest, and that Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, was able, was the only good that one heard spoken. At this time two Jonahs were specially pointed out as necessary sacrifices, by whose immersion into the comfortless ocean of private life the ship might perhaps be saved. These were Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War, and Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the Navy. It was said that Lincoln, when pressed to rid his Cabinet of Cameron, had replied, that when a man was crossing a stream the moment was hardly convenient for changing his horse; but it came to that at last, that he found he must change his horse, even in the very sharpest run of the river. Better that than sit an animal on whose exertions he knew that he could not trust. So Mr. Cameron went, and Mr. Stanton became Secretary at War in his place. But Mr. Cameron, though put out of the Cabinet, was to be saved from absolute disgrace by being sent as Minister to Russia. I do not know that it would become me here to repeat the accusations made against Mr. Cameron, but it had long seemed to me that the maintenance in such a position, at such a time, of a gentleman who had to sustain such a universal absence of public confidence, must have been most detrimental to the army and to the Government.

Men whom one met in Washington were not unhappy about the state of things, as I had seen men unhappy in the North and in the West. They were mainly indifferent, but with that sort of indifference which arises from a break down of faith in anything. "There was the army! Yes, the army! But what an army! Nobody obeyed anybody. Nobody did anything! Nobody thought of advancing! There were, perhaps, two hundred thousand men assembled round Washington; and now the effort of supplying them with food and clothing was as much as could be accomplished! But the contractors, in the meantime, were becoming rich. And then as to the Government! Who trusted it? Who would put their faith in Seward and Cameron? Cameron was now gone, it was true; and in that way the whole of the Cabinet would soon be broken up. As to Congress, what could Congress do? Ask questions which no one would care to answer, and finally get itself packed up and sent home." The President and the constitution fared no better in men's mouths. The former did nothing,—neither harm nor good; and as for the latter, it had broken down and shown itself to be inefficient. So men ate, and drank, and laughed, waiting till chaos should come, secure in the belief that the atoms into which their world would resolve itself, would connect themselves again in some other form without trouble on their part.

And at Washington I found no strong feeling against England and English conduct towards America. "We men of the world," a Washington man might have said, "know very well that everybody must take care of himself first. We are very good friends with you,—of course, and are very glad to see you at our table whenever you come across the water; but as for rejoicing at your joys, or expecting you to sympathize with our sorrows, we know the world too well for that. We are splitting into pieces, and of course that is gain to you. Take another cigar." This polite, fashionable, and certainly comfortable way of looking at the matter had never been attained at New York or Philadelphia, at Boston or Chicago. The northern provincial world of the States had declared to itself that those who were not with it were against it; that its neighbours should be either friends or foes; that it would understand nothing of neutrality. This was often mortifying to me, but I think I liked it better on the whole than the laisser-aller indifference of Washington.

Everybody acknowledged that society in Washington had been almost destroyed by the loss of the southern half of the usual sojourners in the city. The senators and members of Government, who heretofore had come from the southern States, had no doubt spent more money in the capital than their northern brethren. They and their families had been more addicted to social pleasures. They are the descendants of the old English Cavaliers, whereas the northern men have come from the old English Roundheads. Or if, as may be the case, the blood of the races has now been too well mixed to allow of this being said with absolute truth, yet something of the manners of the old forefathers has been left. The southern gentleman is more genial, less dry,—I will not say more hospitable, but more given to enjoy hospitality than his northern brother; and this difference is quite as strong with the women as with the men. It may therefore be understood that secession would be very fatal to the society of Washington. It was not only that the members of Congress were not there. As to very many of the representatives, it may be said that they do not belong sufficiently to Washington to make a part of its society. It is not every representative that is, perhaps, qualified to do so. But secession had taken away from Washington those who held property in the South—who were bound to the South by any ties, whether political or other; who belonged to the South by blood, education, and old habits. In very many cases—nay, in most such cases—it had been necessary that a man should select whether he would be a friend to the South, and therefore a rebel; or else an enemy to the South, and therefore untrue to all the predilections and sympathies of his life. Here has been the hardship. For such people