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 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.
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