Diary of George Templeton Strong, Saturday, October 13, 1860

From any more princes of the blood, libera nos Domine. May this nice-looking, modest boy find his way home, or at least to our boundaries, with all convenient speed.

I’ve been in hard work about His Royal Highness for forty-eight hours. I’m weary of His Royal Highness. . . . The Ball is over, thank Heaven, but the Trinity Church reception and services tomorrow are still to be. What they will be, time must tell. I’ve made the most minute, definite arrangements with Mr. Kennedy and Sergeant Cropsey and the sextons and their aids, but I fear the crowd will out-general me. And I cannot be at the church till the services are actually commencing, for the destinies compel me to accompany or escort the royal party, our guests; and Hyslop and Dunscomb, who will be at the church from nine (when the doors open) till the Prince arrives, are timid and imbecile. I’d give a great deal if tomorrow’s august transaction were done and well done.

Mr. Ruggles took Ellie and me, also Mrs. Hunt, to the Astor Library yesterday morning. Only two or three onlookers were present; Mrs. Schuyler and Mrs. John Sherwood. We waited and waited, lounged through alcoves, looked with vain longings at the titles of nice books. The trustees of the library were biding their time below, waiting to pounce on His Royal Highness the moment the sound of his chariot wheels should be heard. At length, about eleven o’clock, a noise of much people was heard without—a hooray—an opening of the police-guarded door, feet on the stone staircase, and then a vision of a girlish-looking young boy walking swiftly through the library with Dr. Cogswell, followed by the hairy-faced Duke of Newcastle with Mr. S. B. Ruggles and by William Astor, Carson Brevoort, and others of the library trustees escorting Lord Lyons and a lot of peers and honorables beside. They inspected the premises in double-quick time, and at the head of the staircase on their way out. His Highness shook hands with Cogswell and thanked him very briefly, simply, and nicely, just as any untitled gentleman would have done (think of it!), and the royal party was gone.

I spent a few minutes in looking at some of the special treasures of the library—the First Folio Shakespeare, the editio princeps of Homer, and so on, and then went down to Wall Street. . . .

At eight to the Academy of Music. The doors were not yet opened to the common herd, but my exalted official position on the committee admitted me by the royal entrance on Fourteenth Street. The house looked brilliant, blazing with lights and decorated with great masses of flowers. My post was with Charles King, Ben Silliman, and Cyrus Field in the room appointed for the reception of invited guests generally. Certain other committees had interfered with our arrangements in an unwarrantable and unconstitutional manner. The consequence of this outrage was (as we had distinctly foreseen and predicted) that the great majority of the invited guests found their way to "the floor” for themselves without being conducted thither by any legitimate organ. Our duties were therefore light. We "received” a few South American and Portuguese diplomats and General Paez and Major Delafield and Captain Cullum and sundry army and navy people and a score of city militia, colonels in most elaborate uniforms, and Mayor Wood (I had a very intimate talk with that limb of Satan); and at ten we adjourned to the special reception room and joined Hamilton Fish and old Pelatiah Perit (who looked like a duke in his dress coat and white cravat), and Peter Cooper, who looked like one of Gulliver’s Yahoos caught and cleaned and dressed up.

In came the royal party at last, with the Reception Committeemen, who had been assigned the pleasing duty of escorting them. We were presented to His Royal Highness seriatim. I had supposed that shaking hands with a Prince of Wales was indecorous, and that a bow was the proper acknowledgment of introduction to so august a personage; but when the Prince puts out his hand, or extends and proffers his fingers like anybody else, it seems ungracious to decline the honor and say, "Sir, I am so well bred as to know my place, and I am unworthy to shake hands with a descendant of James I and George III and a probable King of England hereafter.” I think of having my right-hand glove framed and glazed, with an appropriate inscription.

Fish had assigned to each of the committee the duty of conducting one of the Prince’s suite into the ballroom, and I was charged with Lord Hinchinbrooke. I had implored Fish to bear in mind that most of our committee (myself included) were unable to distinguish dukes from mere honorables and asked him to be sure to introduce each notable to his committeeman godfather (vide programmes of autos-da-fè). But he forgot to do so, and we marched into the ballroom in a very promiscuous way— Fish escorting Monseigneur, Peter Cooper tagging after them, and the rest like a flock of sheep—and took our place at the head of the room; that is, the east end. Orchestra plays "God Save the Queen,” followed by "Hail Columbia!” Aspect of the house and the crowd brilliant and satisfactory. I fall into talk with a pleasant-looking Englisher, and introduce myself. He proves to be Englehart, the Duke of Newcastle’s private secretary, and an amiable, agreeable man.

A space in our front was kept clean by the Floor Committee, and through this the crowd began to defile. Fish presenting them as they passed and people making "murgeons and jenny-fluxions to H. R. H. George Anthon passed with Ellie. . . . I was pointing out notabilities to Englehart and the Honorable Mr. Somebody, and just indicating John Van Buren as the son of one of our ex-kings, when there was a dull, ugly, jarring report, quickly followed by another of the same sort. Everybody started and peered in vain over the heads of the densely packed crowd, and wondered what it was. But there was no panic and no rush. Presently we learned that the temporary flooring had given way in two places; over the stage a couple of beams broke, causing the reports we had heard. Ellie went down into one of the pits and was frightened, but did not lose her footing, nor her self-possession.

Of course, people crowded away from this dangerous, region in all directions. The promenade became impracticable, and the Prince and his suite and most of the committee retreated to the reception and supper-rooms. A large space was presently roped off, including the two chasms in the floor, and revealing the scandalous, criminal negligence with which the work of constructing the supports had been done. A score of carpenters and policemen and the illustrious Brown were energetically repairing the damage within fifteen minutes after the accident. But there was a general sense of failure and calamity. Everything looked bilious. Everyone said the whole floor was unsafe. There could be no dancing; the ball was a disgraceful fiasco. I explained to many persons that the Reception Committee had nothing to do with the arrangements of the house. Meantime, the carpenters were working for their lives. Brown peering down into the oblong hole looked as if engaged in his ordinary sextonical duties at an interment. . , .

By midnight damages had been repaired and dancing set in. People streamed over every part of the floor the moment the Prince appeared on it. Danger was forgotten. His Royal Highness’s partners, Mrs. Goold Hoyt, Miss Lily Mason, Mrs. John Kernochan, and others, were among our prettiest women. Mrs. Governor Morgan, with whom the Prince opened the ball officially, is elderly and stout, but presentable enough. It is said that she had been taking dancing lessons for the last fortnight, rubbing up her old steps, and that when the quadrille commenced, she timidly inquired, "Your Royal Highness, isn’t it time for us to balancer?” Miss Helen Russell was overpowered when the Prince was presented. Her voice failed her for fear, and she astonished H. R. H. with a series of contortions and muscular twitchings before she succeeded in articulating an audible word. So they say; I saw little of the dancing. The way people crowded round was snobbish and rude and indecent, and I kept on the outskirts, where loafed and lounged dejectedly. . . .

While the Prince was waiting for Mrs. Camilla Hoyt, his partner. Walker, the Presbyterian bookbinder, bustled up with a young woman under his arm, introduced himself, and proceeded, "The lady with whom Your Highness was to dance doesn’t seem to be ready; allow me to introduce my daughter.’’ The Prince said, "Yes, the crowd is very dense,’’ or some such thing, and evaded this ambitious plebeian rather gracefully for so young a person. Ellie heard this propriis auribus. She was presented to the Illustrious Stranger and discoursed with him and danced in the same "Lancers.” I had a very pleasant talk with Mrs. Colonel Scott, and was introduced to Millard Fillmore, who is well-bred and cordial, but I spent most of the evening, or night rather, dawdling about and wishing it were over.

Got home at daylight, weary and worn after nearly nine hours spent in a new pair of patent leathers. Very tired. If H. R. H. appreciate my exertions, he will send me the Victoria Cross or make me a duke in partibus, at least.

This evening at Mr. Ruggles’s awhile and saw part of the Firemen’s procession pass up the Fourth Avenue. It was very brilliant, with torches, colored lights, and so forth. On Madison Square, where they no doubt displayed all their resources of Roman candles and portable fireworks, it must have been a really attractive spectacle.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 46-9

Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, June 29, 1776

[Unanimously Adopted, June 29, 1776]

In a General Convention.

Begun and holden at the Capitol, in the City of Williamsburg, on Monday the sixth day of May, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six, and continued, by adjournments to the day of June following:

A CONSTITUTION, OR FORM OF GOVERNMENT,

agreed to and resolved upon by the Delegates and Representatives of the several Counties and Corporations of Virginia.

Whereas George the Third, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Elector of Hanover, heretofore intrusted with the exercise of the Kingly Office in this Government, hath endeavoured to pervert the same into a detestable and insupportable Tyranny; by putting his negative on laws the most wholesome and necessary for the publick good;

by denying his Governours permission to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation for his assent, and, when so suspended, neglecting to attend to them for many Years;

by refusing to pass certain other laws, unless the persons to be benefited by them would relinquish the inestimable right of representation in the legislature;

by dissolving legislative assemblies repeatedly and continually, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions of the rights of the people;

when dissolved, by refusing to call others for a long space of time, thereby leaving the political system without any legislative head;

by endeavouring to prevent the population of our Country, and, for that purpose, obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners;

by keeping among us, in times of peace, standing Armies and Ships of war;

by affecting to render the Military independent of, and superiour to, the civil power;

by combining with others to subject us to a foreign Jurisdiction, giving his assent to their pretended Acts of Legislation;

for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

for cutting off our Trade with all parts of the World;

for imposing Taxes on us without our Consent;

for depriving us of the Benefits of Trial by Jury;

for transporting us beyond Seas, to be tried for pretended Offences;

for suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever;

by plundering our Seas, ravaging our Coasts, burning our Towns, and destroying the lives of our People;

by inciting insurrections of our fellow Subjects, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation;

by prompting our Negroes to rise in Arms among us, those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of his negative, he hath refused us permission to exclude by Law;

by endeavouring to bring on the inhabitants of our Frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of Warfare is an undistinguished Destruction of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions of Existance;

by transporting, at this time, a large Army of foreign Mercenaries, to compleat the Works of Death, desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy unworthy the head of a civilized Nation;

by answering our repeated Petitions for Redress with a Repetition of Injuries;

and finally, by abandoning the Helm of Government, and declaring us out of his Allegiance and Protection;

By which several Acts of Misrule, the Government of this Country, as formerly exercised under the Crown of Great Britain, is totally dissolved; We therefore, the Delegates and Representatives of the good People of Virginia, having maturely considered the Premises, and viewing with great concern the deplorable condition to which this once happy Country must be reduced, unless some regular adequate Mode of civil Polity is speedily adopted, and in Compliance with a Recommendation of the General Congress, do ordain and declare the future Form of Government of Virginia to be as followeth:

The legislative, executive, and judiciary departments, shall be separate and distinct, so that neither exercise the Powers properly belonging to the other; nor shall any person exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time, except that the Justices of the County Courts shall be eligible to either House of Assembly.

The legislative shall be formed of two distinct branches, who, together, shall be a complete Legislature. They shall meet once, or oftener, every Year, and shall be called the General Assembly of Virginia.

One of these shall be called the House of Delegates, and consist of two Representatives to be chosen for each County, and for the District of West Augusta, annually, of such Men as actually reside in and are freeholders of the same, or duly qualified according to Law, and also of one Delegate or Representative to be chosen annually for the city of Williamsburg, and one for the Borough of Norfolk, and a Representative for each of such other Cities and Boroughs, as may hereafter be allowed particular Representation by the legislature; but when any City or Borough shall so decrease as that the number of persons having right of Suffrage therein shall have been for the space of seven Years successively less than half the number of Voters in some one County in Virginia, such City or Borough thenceforward shall cease to send a Delegate or Representative to the Assembly.

The other shall be called the Senate, and consist of twenty four Members, of whom thirteen shall constitute a House to proceed on Business for whose election the different Counties shall be divided into twenty four districts, and each County of the respective District, at the time of the election of its Delegates, shall vote for one Senator, who is actually a resident and freeholder within the District, or duly qualified according to Law, and is upwards of twenty five Years of Age; And the sheriff of each County, within five days at farthest after the last County election in the District, shall meet at some convenient place, and from the Poll so taken in their respective Counties return as a Senator to the House of Senators the Man who shall have the greatest number of Votes in the whole District. To keep up this Assembly by rotation, the Districts shall be equally divided into four Classes, and numbered by Lot. At the end of one Year after the General Election, the six Members elected by the first division shall be displaced, and the vacancies thereby occasioned supplied from such Class or division, by new Election, in the manner aforesaid. This Rotation shall be applied to each division, according to its number, and continued in due order annually.

The right of Suffrage in the Election of Members for both Houses shall remain as exercised at present, and each House shall choose its own Speaker, appoint its own Officers, settle its own rules of proceding, and direct Writs of Election for supplying intermediate vacancies.

All Laws shall originate in the House of Delegates, to be approved or rejected by the Senate or to be amended with the Consent of the House of Delegates; except Money Bills, which in no instance shall be altered by the Senate but wholly approved or rejected.

A Governour, or chief Magistrate, shall be chosen annually, by joint Ballot of both Houses, (to be taken in each House respectively, deposited in the Conference room, the Boxes examined jointly by a Committee of each House, and the numbers severally reported to them, that the appointments may be entered, which shall be the mode of taking the joint Ballot of both Houses in all Cases) who shall not continue in that office longer than three Years successively, nor be eligible until the expiration of four Years after he shall have been out of that office: An adequate, but moderate Salary, shall be settled on him during his Continuance in Office; and he shall, with the advice of a Council of State, exercise the Executive powers of Government according to the laws of this Commonwealth; and shall not, under any pretence, exercise any power or prerogative by virtue of any Law, statute, or Custom, of England; But he shall, with the advice of the Council of State, have the power of granting reprieves or pardons, except where the prosecution shall have been carried on by the House of Delegates, or the Law shall otherwise particularly direct; in which Cases, no reprieve or Pardon shall be granted but by resolve of the House of Delegates.

Either House of the General Assembly may adjourn themselves respectively: The Governour shall not prorogue or adjourn the Assembly during their setting, nor dissolve them at any Time; but he shall, if necessary, either by advice of the Council of State, or on application of a Majority of the House of Delegates, call them before the time to which they shall stand prorogued or adjourned.

A Privy Council, or Council of State, consisting of eight Members, shall be chosen by joint Ballot of both Houses of Assembly, either from their own Members or the People at large, to assist in the Administration of Government. They shall annually choose out of their own Members, a President, who, in case of the death, inability, or necessary absence of the Governour from the Government, shall act as lieutenant Governour. Four Members shall be sufficient to act, and their Advice and proceedings shall be entered of Record, and signed by the Members present (to any part whereof any Member may enter his dissent) to be laid before the General Assembly, when called for by them. This Council may appoint their own Clerk, who shall have a Salary settled by Law, and take an Oath of Secrecy in such matters as he shall be directed by the Board to conceal. A sum of Money appropriated to that purpose shall be divided annually among the Members, in proportion to their attendance; and they shall be incapable, during their continuance in Office, of sitting in either House of Assembly. Two Members shall be removed, by joint Ballot of both houses of Assembly at the end of every three Years, and be ineligible for the three next years. These Vacancies, as well as those occasioned by death or incapacity, shall be supplied by new Elections, in the same manner.

The Delegates for Virginia to the Continental Congress shall be chosen annually, or superseded in the mean time by joint Ballot of both Houses of Assembly.

The present Militia Officers shall be continued, and Vacancies supplied by appointment of the Governour, with the advice of the privy Council, or recommendations from the respective County Courts; but the Governour and Council shall have a power of suspending any Officer, and ordering a Court-Martial on Complaint for misbehaviour or inability, or to supply Vacancies of Officers happening when in actual Service. The Governour may embody the Militia, with the advice of the privy Council; and, when embodied, shall alone have the direction of the Militia under the laws of the Country.

The two Houses of Assembly shall, by joint Ballot, appoint judges of the supreme Court of Appeals, and General Court, Judges in Chancery, Judges of Admiralty, Secretary, and the Attorney-General, to be commissioned by the Governour, and continue in Office during good behaviour. In case of death, incapacity, or resignation, the Governour, with the advice of the privy Council, shall appoint Persons to succeed in Office, to be approved or displaced by both Houses. These Officers shall have fixed and adequate Salaries, and, together with all others holding lucrative Offices, and all Ministers of the Gospel of every Denomination, be incapable of being elected Members of either House of Assembly, or the privy Council.

The Governour, with the Advice of the privy Council, shall appoint Justices of the Peace for the Counties; and in case of Vacancies, or a necessity of increasing the number hereafter, such appointments to be made upon the recommendation of the respective County Courts. The present acting Secretary in Virginia, and Clerks of all the County Courts, shall continue in Office. In case of Vacancies, either by death, incapacity, or resignation, a Secretary shall be appointed as before directed, and the Clerks by the respective Courts. The present and future Clerks shall hold their Offices during good behaviour, to be judged of and determined in the General Court. The Sheriffs and Coroners shall be nominated by the respective Courts, approved by the Governour with the advice of the privy Council, and commissioned by the Governour. The Justices shall appoint Constables, and all fees of the aforesaid Officers be regulated by law.

The Governour, when he is out of Office, and others offending against the State, either by Mal-administration, Corruption, or other Means, by which the safety of the State may be endangered, shall be impeachable by the House of Delegates. Such impeachment to be prosecuted by the Attorney General, or such other Person or Persons as the House may appoint in the General Court, according to the laws of the Land. If found guilty, he or they shall be either for ever disabled to hold any Office under Government, or removed from such Office Pro tempore, or subjected to such Pains or Penalties as the laws shall direct.

If all, or any of the Judges of the General Court, should, on good grounds (to be judged of by the House of Delegates) be accused of any of the Crimes or Offences before-mentioned, such House of Delegates may, in like manner, impeach the Judge or Judges so accused, to be prosecuted in the Court of Appeals; and he or they, if found guilty, shall be punished in the same manner as is prescribed in the preceding Clause.

Commissions and Grants shall run, In the Name of the Common Wealth of Virginia, and bear teste by the Governour, with the Seal of the Common wealth annexed. Writs shall run in the same manner, and bear teste by the Clerks of the several Courts. Indictments shall conclude, Against the Peace and Dignity of the Common-Wealth.

A Treasurer shall be appointed annually, by joint Ballot of both Houses.

All escheats, penalties, and forfeitures, heretofore going to the King, shall go to the Common Wealth, save only such, as the Legislature may abolish, or otherwise provide for.

The territories contained within the Charters erecting the Colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, are hereby ceded, released, and forever confirmed to the People of those Colonies respectively, with all the rights of property, jurisdiction, and Government, and all other rights whatsoever which might at any time heretofore have been claimed by Virginia, except the free Navigation and use of the Rivers Potowmack and Pohomoke, with the property of the Virginia Shores or strands bordering on either of the said Rivers, and all improvements which have been or shall be made thereon. The western and northern extent of Virginia shall in all other respects stand as fixed by the Charter of King James the first, in the Year one thousand six hundred and nine, and by the publick Treaty of Peace between the Courts of Great Britain and France in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty three; Unless by act of this legislature, one or more Territories shall hereafter be laid off, and Governments established Westward of the Allegheny Mountains. And no purchases of Land shall be made of the Indian Natives but on behalf of the Publick, by authority of the General Assembly.

In order to introduce this Government, the Representatives of the People met in Convention shall choose a Governour and privy Council, also such other Officers directed to be chosen by both Houses as may be judged necessary to be immediately appointed. The Senate, to be first chosen by the people, to continue until the last day of March next, and the other Officers until the end of the succeeding Session of Assembly. In case of Vacancies, the Speaker of either House shall issue Writs for new Elections.

SOURCE: Julian P. Boyd, Editor, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1: January 1760 to December 1776, p. 377-83

Francis Lieber to Senator Chares Sumner, April 10, 1863

New York, April 10,1863.

. . . I do not think that your remarks concerning foreign ministers having intercourse with the opposition apply to the case of Lord Lyons. Would or would not the premier of England have sent word to a monarch that his minister was no longer agreeable to his majesty, if this minister in London, a century ago, had held covert intercourse with Scottish sympathizers or adherents of the Stuarts? I believe that a minister must be very circumspect in his intercourse with the opposition, — as opposition, and in excited times. Depend upon it, Pitt would not have allowed a foreign minister to be closeted with Fox and Sheridan, discussing high politics of England, without making complaint. I give you an anecdote which will be interesting to the chairman of Foreign Affairs. President King tells me that when his father, Rufus King, was American Minister in London, he paid a visit to Paris after the Peace of Amiens, when Fox likewise went. Fox went to see Consul Bonaparte. The latter desired that King would have himself presented, or the chief officers of the consul told King that they would gladly present him. King, who was then engaged in making a treaty with England, declined, because he knew that Bonaparte was very disagreeable to George III., and he thought he had no right to do anything that could interfere with his relation to the British court or ministry. When he returned to England and went to court, George III. went up to him and said: “Mr. King, I am very much obliged to you; you have treated me like a gentleman, which is more than I can say of all my subjects.” I give the words exactly as President King gave them to me, and he says that he gave the words to me as exactly as he could remember them, the anecdote being in lively remembrance in the family. He thinks he can now repeat the very words in which his father told the affair immediately after his return from court, and that they are the ipsissima verba of George III.

My belief is that, had we to consider nothing but diplomatic propriety, Lord Lyons's case is one which not only would authorize the President, but ought to cause him to declare to the Queen of England that Lord Lyons “was no longer agreeable to the American Government.” This occurrence belongs to the large class of facts which show, and have shown for the last two hundred and fifty years, that monarchies always treat republics as incomplete governments, unless guns and bayonets and commercial advantages prevent them from doing so. You remember the Netherlands? Lord Palmerston would not have spoken of a puny kingkin as he did of us in the recent Alabama discussion. Do you believe that the course of England toward us at present would have been anything like what it has been, and continues to be, had we had a monarch, though there had been an Anne or a Louis XV, or a Philip on our throne? Unfortunately, I must add that it is a psychological phenomenon which is not restricted to monarchists. The insolence of the South would have presented itself as rank rebellion to the grossest mind, had we had a monarch, or a president for life. Man is a very coarse creature. I can never forget that I found in Crabbe's “Dictionary of Synonyms,” that “properly speaking rebellion cannot be committed in republics, because there is no monarch to rebel against.” What does my senator and publicist think of this? A girl, “not of an age at which any respectable millinery establishment would be intrusted to her,”as Lord Brougham expressed it, is a more striking name, figure, sign, to swear allegiance to, than a country, a constitution, and their history, or the great continuous society to which men belong, let them be ever so old or glorious. Five hundred years hence it may be somewhat different. For the present, it is true that, could you extinguish the whole royal family in England, but keep the nation ignorant of the fact, and rule England by a ministry and parliament in the name of Peter or John, Bull would be far warmer in his allegiance than he would prove to the State, or Old England, or Great Britain. Observe how degrading for our species the beggarly appointment of a king of Greece is, — a Danish collateral prince! Our race worships as yet the Daimio as much as the Japanese do. Though a perfect Roi fainéant, it is a Roi, — an entity, a thing, and therefore better than an idea, however noble,— gross creatures that we are! . . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 331-3

Major Wilder Dwight: Tuesday Afternoon, July 30, 1861

maryland Heights, Advanced Post, July 30, 1861,

Tuesday Afternoon, in Camp.

With your passion for fine prospects and high hills, you would like to climb with me from the dripping ford of the Potomac up the abrupt steep that overhangs it to the thick wooded side of the Heights on the Maryland shore. You might enjoy the tangled pathway through the woods; you would certainly find a thirsty pleasure at the spring of pure water which pulses from the heart of the mountain; and when you came out of the silent wood-path upon a broad table-flat, and found it white with tents and alive with armed men and vocal with martial music, you would wonder, as King George before the dumpling, how the d----l we got there. This is precisely what I am going to tell you. Giving you first, however, a moment to cast your delighted eyes up the Potomac Valley to the blue hills beyond, and across Harper's Ferry town to the gorge of the Shenandoah, which gives the name to the lazy military department which waits a new life from the energy of General Banks. And, interrupting you again, to say that I have all your letters safe, and have every pleasure in reading them and in rereading them. Now for the story. In this melting heat of the sultriest afternoon my memory is relaxed, and I cannot recollect when I wrote. On Sunday, however, the army moved across the Potomac and occupied Maryland Heights below Sandy Hook, leaving the Massachusetts Second in full possession of Harper's Ferry. The Colonel leaving the upper part of the town where we had been, I spent Sunday evening in posting our pickets and outposts, and in taking what military precautions were possible against a night surprise and attack. Of course we spent a wakeful night, though I could not think there was any chance of attack. The next morning I was off again on the road towards Charlestown to fix a point for a strong picket, and generally to cruise about the country. Colonel Andrews and myself spent three hours in sunny riding (you don't quite appreciate the meaning of the sunny South). When we got back we found that Colonel Gordon had got an order changing the disposition of our forces thus: Colonel Andrews to remain in Harper's Ferry with three companies (Captains Cary's, Abbott's, and Cogswell's), a battery of three guns to be mounted on the table-land above the ford on the Maryland shore, and the rest of the regiment to cross and encamp near it, to support the battery and protect the ford. This sounds plain and easy, but it gave us a lively afternoon. I will tell you the story by and by. Now the call is sounding for dress-parade. The heat is ridiculous. I have philosophized myself, however, into great good spirits, and I do not wilt. With humility I hope to get through. Now for parade. . . . .

If you had happened in on our parade you would have had the pleasure to see me preside. We do not look as gay as we did at Camp Andrew, but we also do not have so many friends to see us. I have got my tent finely pitched, with a rich carpet of oak-leaves, and have extemporized a writing-desk. Tattoo is just beating, and I will go on with my story.

After the order to divide our forces came, the regiment was soon paddling and splashing through the water. We left Colonel Andrews making everything secure. The regiment mounted the steep ascent on this side, and at last made the plateau. But our wagons, which had to take a longer and more circuitous ascent, were not so lucky; and tentless, almost supperless, the men bivouacked for the night. The officers found a friendly supper in the house of a man on whoso farm we are, — the only inhabitant of the neighborhood, if that can be called a neighborhood where neighbors there are none. This farmer* knew John Brown; and, indeed, John Brown's school-house, where he hid his arms, is down just below our camp, in the woods. I may exaggerate the effect of John Brown, but certain it is that the whole military organization in Virginia dates from his raid. And the other day a woman said, “We have not dared to command our slaves since John Brown came.” The man's name is a terror and a bitterness to them. To-day we have been getting our wagons up, pitching tents, organizing an encampment. In Colonel Andrews's absence this falls a good deal on me. New work is hard work, but the aptitude, I suppose, will come. I suppose when an old dog is going to learn new tricks he does not do it in dog-days. I certainly should like to take my lessons in cooler weather. I have been riding about the hills a good deal, and have been to head-quarters to see General Banks. Old Mr. Weller generalized quite broadly when he said, “Sammy, a man as can form a ackerate judgment of a horse can form a ackerate judgment of anything.” Perhaps we generalize a little rapidly in making Governor Banks the commander of a division and a department. We shall see. Just now military civilians must look sharp lest they fall. I am making a long story of very little, but if I could have brought you up to our sunset view, you would have easily understood the new pleasure of our fine camp life after the dull work of garrisoning Harper's Ferry. It does no good to write of scenery, you want to hear of achievement. We must wait for that. Think of us, now in perfect safety, getting ready for better things, I hope. The events of the past week show that every man who is fit for it must do his part to fight now.

_______________

* See Appendix VIII.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 61-3