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 center, 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-
62 - 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. McClellan 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 McClellan 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 of 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.
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