Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1875-02-04
Washington City During the Re
belIiOn.

wings were filed with workmen. M
Fire Department worthy of the name
was to be seen, and a mere constabu'
larry comprised the police, which had
to call on the United States marines, al
in 1857, when the latter fred upon 9
mob, and killed and wounded a large
number of people. The water supply
was wholly afforded by pumps and
springs. Gas had been in partial use
for several years, but little else was
lighted except Pennsylvania Avenue
and the public buildings. Not one OF
the departments was half finished.
The Presidents House was beleaguerC
with stables, wooden fences, and
patches of bare earth. Nearly one-hali
the city was cut off from the rest by a
ditch, and called the Island, while an
intervening strip of mall and park was
patrolled by outlaws and outcasts, with
only bridge here and there for outlet.
The riverside was mass of earthen
bluffs pierced by two streets, and
scarcely attainable for mire and OBJ
structiens. Georgetown communica-
ted with the capital by an omnibus
line, and there was no ferry to AleXan-
dria to be remembered as such, except
in the sensitive traditions of the oldest
residents. There was a show of hote
accommodation, ON which we need
not linger, in memory of a Congress
man shooting a white waiter dead
in the dining-room at Wizards
or President. welcomed to his in
auguration with the National Ho-
tel disease. Slavery seemed to take
delight in pressing its exposures upon
the notice of Northern men and for
eigners. There was slave-pen under
the caves of the Smithsonian Institu-
tion. Manacled men were marched
down the avenue handcuffed together.
To take Northern paper was a stig-
ma; and for an abolitionist TO lecture
would have been to revive the riots
around the National Era office. There
were good and social elements in the
place, but society had its depths and
heights. To bear arms was common,
and they were used on quick occasion.
In short, the city was relatively in en-
bryo as much as when Moore, Weld,
Janson, and Basil Hall described it
early in the century.
A comparative description of the
cities of Richmond and Washington
during the civil war would epo-
tomize the relative vigor, constructive
ness, and confidence of the embattled
sections. Nothing was built in Rich
mond which commentaries the Con-
federate government at this day ex-
cept earth-works, and the State Capt.
tol, devised by Jefferson, which was
finished the year the national Copjtol
was commenced, fell in only a few
years after the close of the war. bury
ing court, Legislature, and spectators
in a charnel of smoke and wailing.
But the civil portion of the national
capital never grew with the rapidity
which it showed when menaced by the
public enemy.
AT an expense of 81 100000 sixty
eight forts in a circuit of thirty-seven
miles were thrown up, connected by
thirty-two miles of good roadway, all
of which is still available for the tour
ist and ,teamcter. The Long Bridge,
which had been opened in 1885, was
rebuilt; the railroad bridge beside it
constructed; the railroad from New
York doubled in track; the aqueduct,
which has cost above S3,000,OO0, was
sturdily carried ON within fire of the
enemy the dome was raised on the
Capitol, and saluted by the guns of all
the forts as the statue of Freedom took
its place on the summit; the Treasury
was ali completed except one wing,
and has cost about Sc, 600, 900; the Post
office was almost all built during the
war; and the Patent-office, which cost
50, 200, 900, was completed in 1867. The
first street railroad was opened in 1862.
The fortune of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad was made by the war,
and its 5000 900 of debt had become
a vast surplus by the time it distribu-
ted the Federal armies to their homes.
Common schools followed emancipa.
ton. Every facility of modern COM
fort had been either supplied or sug-
gested; and the private property which
had been deserted in hundreds of cases
by the owners, and offered for sale at
little more than the expense of flight,
in 1861, more than recovered its value
a year before the surrender of Lee
GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND, in Harper's
Magazine for February.
How MIR. Lincoln FOrgave Him.
From the Washington Chronicle.
An editor ofa weekly paper, publish
ed In little village in Missouri, called
at the White House, and was admitted
to Mr.. Lincoln's presence. He told
Mr.. Lincoln that he was the man who
first suggested his name for the Presi-
dency, and pulling from his pocket an
old, worn, defaced copy of his paper,
exhibited an item on the subject. DO
you really think said Mr.. Lincoln,
that announcement was the occasion
of my nomination" Certainly seid
the editor, the suggestion was so op-
perfume that it was at once taken up
your nomination.
'Ah! well, said Mr.. Lincoln, with a
sigh, and assuming rather gloomy
countenance, Il am glad to see you and
know this, but you will have to excuse
me; am just now going to the War
DeDartment to see Mr. Stanton well