Return to Washington.--The different degrees of temperature in the
atmosphere at different places seen in the thickness of the ice in
the rivers from New York to Washington inclusive.--Long interview
with the President. His misfortunes rather than his faults.--
His cheerfulness, and his views as to Liberia.--Supernumeraries
ought to be set to work and sent off.--Beautiful situation of
Washington.--The Congress library, its officers and the agreeable
company usually in the library room.--Army of little officers
in and about the capitol.--Judge Upshur, personal acquaintance
with him, his character and death.--The tragedy on board the
Princeton.--Great funeral and a whole city in tears for the loss
of so many distinguished citizens.
Having determined to return to Washington city, I wrote to the
innkeeper of the Mansion house hotel at Philadelphia, to have my room
warm for me at 11 o’clock, P. M. and entering the evening cars at
Jersey city in the evening, we were carried across the State of New
Jersey, and crossing the Delaware with some difficulty, on account of
the ice in the river, I arrived at Philadelphia, and was in a good
warm bed, in a warm room, before eleven o’clock at night, at Horter’s
Mansion house, corner of 11th and Market streets, Philadelphia.--The
ride across the State of New Jersey, in a bright moonlight night,
was as agreeable as it could be, we being able to see each town as
we passed through it. The cars were well warmed by stoves; we were
not too much crowded to be comfortable, and we had agreeable company
enough to render our journey pleasant. Lodging at Philadelphia, next
morning after breakfast I entered the cars for Baltimore, and arrived
at Washington city exactly twenty-five hours after I had left New York.
This last day’s ride was perhaps on the second day of February. The
different degrees of temperature in the atmosphere during the month
of January, was seen in the thickness of the ice in the North, the
Delaware, in the Susquehanna and the Potomac rivers. In the North river
the ice was fourteen inches in thickness, in the Delaware ten inches,
and eight inches in the Susquehanna, but not more than six inches in
the Potomac. The city of New York, located on an island that lies
high, and is exposed to every breath of air that moves in any direction
over the land or the water, is colder than its latitude would seem to
indicate. The current in the river and in the Sound, owing to a tide
of from seven to eleven feet in height, rising and falling every few
hours, prevents any very great inconvenience to ships, either entering
into or leaving the harbor in the coldest winter weather.
I was no more fatigued by my journey, than if I had been sitting in my
room at the Broadstreet hotel. The passage money between Washington
city and New York, is only ten dollars and fifty cents, yet, for
handling trunks, for refreshments on the way, and tavern bills, added
to car fare, we may safely say that it costs the passenger fifteen
dollars between Washington city and New York.
Soon after my return to Washington, I spent an entire evening with the
President, from early candle lighting until after nine o’clock. He had
invited the Rev. Mr. Gurley, and a gentleman from Memphis, Tennessee,
to visit him that evening. These gentlemen tarried an hour or so, when
I was left alone with the President. He conversed very freely on the
colony of Liberia, and expressed a wish to see it become a nation,
independent, but under the protection of the United States and of
England. He dwelt on that subject during an hour. He was quite eloquent
on the prospect when Virginia would send off her slaves to Liberia, and
become a great manufacturing State, and in that way at length assume
her old supremacy, standing at the head of the Union in numbers and
wealth. The President said that he owned some thirteen slaves, which
he bought, to prevent their being carried South. He appeared to be
entirely willing to set them free, and let them emigrate to Liberia.
To him they had been valueless, and so would remain a burden on his
hands. He seemed to think that this Union would last forever, or if it
should be divided, the Alleghenies would be the line of separation. In
this opinion I heartily coincided with him. He was quite cheerful, and
very agreeable in conversation. He appeared to know his position--who
his friends were around him, and who were not his friends. At that
time I thought he had more friends among his officers than he supposed
he had, but subsequently I ascertained the entire correctness of his
information on that matter. He has doubtless been very unfortunate.
Placed in his high station as unexpectedly to himself as to a whole
nation, his first cabinet was not of his selection, and they deserted
him in a critical moment. He was compelled instantly to form a new
cabinet, which unfortunately for him, Upshur always excepted, began
forthwith to help themselves, and their poor, needy, greedy dependants,
and they have continued to help themselves ever since they have been in
office. Two of these heads of department spent their time in studying
how they might gratify either their cupidity or their malice. The
indignation of all honest men in the nation was roused into activity
against the President, on account of removals from office on several
occasions, because they argued that the Chief Magistrate, unless he
approved of such flagrant acts of oppression, in removing from office
such men as Gen. Van Rensellaer, Governor Lincoln, and a long list
of good men, he would at once remove those heads of department who
had been guilty of such high-handed injustice. Thus, the whole blame
fell on the President, instead of falling on the real authors of such
wickedness. The President has been, and is still blamed, for many
appointments of very incompetent men, which I understood him to say, he
never had interfered with at all. So of the accounting officers, who
had in many cases, it is said, done great injustice to individuals, and
then had charged all their enormities on the President. The people in
every part of the Union had become exasperated at these flagrant acts
of oppression and injustice. Claimants, where the case was as clear
as the noon-day, were postponed from day to day, for weeks and months;
their claims were to be acted on, none could say when. It is a fashion
they have here, of putting off the settlement of claims until the
applicant has spent here about all that he gets from the government.
The supernumerary officers, block up every avenue to the treasury.
Congress should either dismiss them altogether, or send them off to
clear out our western rivers, or employ them as far off as possible
from the seat of the national government. Why they are here at all is
a mystery to me, and why Congress permits them to throng their lobbies
and the rotundo, is equally surprising to me. West Point academy was
once useful, but if the cadets are to accumulate as rapidly as they
have of late years, it may lead in the end to an aristocracy in this
country. Whether this institution, on the whole, is an useful one, is
at best quite doubtful in my mind.
Taking a recess, as a legislator would call it, I here say that
Washington city and its surrounding country is delightfully situated
for the seat of the national government.--The ground rising gradually
from the water and extending back in places a mile or more, with the
space occupied by water, between, the ground around it on all sides of
it, presents every variety of aspect, almost, calculated to render it
pleasant as a residence. It has none of the bustle of commerce, none of
its noise or crowd. During a session of Congress, persons of both sexes
are in the city from all parts of the Union, with whom the stranger
can associate, and obtain a great deal of information, topographical,
literary, scientific, general or particular. Every person in the
whole Union being here represented, one can gain correct information
concerning any man of any note in the nation. By going to the library
room of Congress, he can there find and read almost any books which
he desires to consult. He can there see daily, persons of the most
refined taste, polite manners and agreeable conversation. None but
such persons are rarely seen in that room. I have always found reading
people more placid and more agreeable in their manners than others, and
were any whole nation wholly composed of such materials, it would be
the happiest and the best nation in the world. Mr. John S. Meehan the
librarian and Edward B. Stelle, C. H. W. Meehan and Robert Kearon, his
assistants, are among the most polite and agreeable gentlemen in this
city. They are always ready to attend to the wishes of all who call on
them. Personally acquainted with nearly all who call at their room,
they are always ready to introduce a stranger to any gentleman who is
in the room. Fatigued as they sometimes are with the constant labor
of a long day, yet they never complain of their toil, but cheerfully
attend to all the wants of the visiters.--This room is opened very early
in the morning, and not closed until a late hour. If any officers of
the government deserve all their salaries, and more too, they are the
Meehans, father and son, Stelle and Kearon. Their salaries are small
ones, and their labors are great and fatiguing all day long, during the
whole session of Congress. During the intervals between the sessions,
their labors are not so fatiguing, but they are even then constant,
unremitting and useful to the visiters, who are always all day long in
this library. Having known these gentlemen fourteen years and upwards
in their present stations, I take a real pleasure in bearing this
testimony in their favor.
How many messengers, assistant messengers, doorkeepers and assistant
doorkeepers, clerks and assistant clerks, postmasters and assistant
postmasters, paperfolders, pages, &c. &c. there are here, I cannot
tell, because I do not know, but their numbers must be very large,
and they cost the nation a great deal. All the officers of government
in the city must amount to one thousand at least, and their salaries
would support probably all the State governments in the Mississippi
Valley. I make no complaint of this vast expense, but we must not find
fault with the expenses of monarchical government in many of the minor
governments in the old world. Take from those governments, in the north
of Europe, their standing armies, rendered necessary, perhaps, by their
peculiar position, and it is possible that their governments might be
cheaper than ours. That we have many useless officers, many members of
Congress seem to think, but whether they can be cast off, because they
are useless, is doubtful. This army of smaller officers are always on
the alert, when retrenchment and reform are talked of by members--these
creatures crying out: “penny wise and pound foolish.” They have some
influence on Congress, and would be glad to have more. So far as the
House of Representatives are concerned, there is a strong disposition
to reduce the expenses of the government, but the Senate has not yet
acted finally on that subject.
Very soon after my return to Washington, I became personally acquainted
with Judge Upshur, Secretary of State. From the first day I saw and
conversed with him in his office, until the day of his death, I saw
him at least once, often twice a day, and wrote down at night what had
been the subjects of our conversation in our interview. I did this
at his suggestion, so that he could duly consider the subject matter
of our discourse in the day time. He was one of the most agreeable,
sensible and truly good men, whom I ever became personally acquainted
with. Sometimes he has been called a nullifier, perhaps, but no man in
the nation was ever more attached to the Union than he was. We thought
precisely alike on that subject--that it is the highest duty of all our
citizens to use all the means in our power to promote the interests of
all sections of the Union, and of all classes of its people.
The natural cements of our confederacy, consisting of mutual interests
promoted by mutual acts of kindness and affection for each other, Judge
Upshur preferred, as he often told me, to all or even any resorts
to the violent restraints of physical force, such as the despot and
the tyrant employ. He dwelt with rapture on the future prospects of
this nation, when its citizens and its institutions, would cover the
whole of North America, like a mantle, and when our ships would float
on every sea and visit every island and country in the world. When
our steamers would ascend and descend every river of any size that
irrigates the countries of both continents. By such means, he thought,
christianity would be spread from pole to pole, and all the world
become united in the bonds of peace, harmony and brotherly affection.
In this way, wars would cease and the despot and the warrior be laid
aside as useless. “The nodding plume, he said, dyed in blood, would
no more be seen.” Knowing as I did, all his views and all his plans,
and the means which he would have used to carry them into execution, I
felt the overwhelming calamity of his death the more on these accounts.
His plans were all formed, and they were just about to be carried into
effect, otherwise he would have instantly gone into private life.
Laying my own feelings, as to myself, out of the question, and looking
only to the public interest, I felt myself and the country overwhelmed
by an awful calamity. Any successor of Judge Upshur would not have
the time, such as he had devoted to that object, to form and mature
plans of operation. And if he had such plans laid as Upshur had, his
successor might not have the necessary means of effecting his object.
As a nation, we deserved to suffer, but still we may mourn for our
dreadful loss, sustained by his untimely death.
Judge Upshur was a man of good principles and pure morals. He was all
in reality and truth, that any old Virginia gentleman was in the days
of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, an ornament to human
nature itself and of the “Ancient Dominion.” He recalled to my mind
the old patriots of Virginia, for whom from my earliest years I had
entertained a strong and abiding sense of their worth, their intrinsic
value, as men and as citizens of this republic. From three of their
Presidents I had received numerous marks of their confidence in me
and my relatives. This may be one reason almost without my knowing it
why I have always taken such pleasure in doing justice to Virginia’s
favorite sons. I shall always take a melancholy pleasure in remembering
Judge Upshur, and in associating him in my mind with my old friend
Chief Justice Marshall. From the latter gentleman I received a great
deal of aid in the way of information, while I was in Washington, many
years since, when I was preparing for the press my History of Ohio. An
old Virginia gentleman, as he exists in my recollections of Jefferson,
Marshall, Monroe and Upshur--the Randolphs, the Masons, the Lees, the
Pendletons--and what I hear of Archer, Rives and others is as perfect as
human nature can be.
Here I present a very condensed account of the awful calamity on board
the Princeton on the 28th day of February, 1844.--The first announcement
of the event is derived from the Intelligencer of the 29th of February,
and the account of the funeral obsequies is extracted from the Globe of
the 4th of March.
In the whole course of our lives it has never fallen to our lot to
announce to our readers a more shocking calamity--shocking in all its
circumstances and concomitants--than that which occurred on board the
United States ship Princeton, yesterday afternoon, whilst under way, in
the river Potomac, fourteen or fifteen miles below the city. Yesterday
was a day appointed by the courtesy and hospitality of Captain
Stockton, Commander of the Princeton, for receiving as visiters to his
fine ship (lying off Alexandria) a great number of guests, with their
families, liberally and numerously invited to spend the day on board.
The day was most favorable, and the company was large and brilliant,
of both sexes; not less probably in number than four hundred, among
whom were the President of the United States, the Heads of the several
Departments, and their families. At a proper hour, after the arrival
of the expected guests, the vessel got under way and proceeded down
the river, to some distance below Fort Washington. During the passage
down, one of the large guns on board (carrying a ball of 225 pounds)
was fired more than once, exhibiting the great power and capacity of
that formidable weapon of war. The ladies had partaken of a sumptuous
repast; the gentlemen had succeeded them at the table, and some of them
had left it; the vessel was on her return up the river, opposite to the
fort, where Captain Stockton consented to fire another shot from the
same gun, around and near which, to observe its effects, many persons
had gathered, though by no means so many as on similar discharges in
the morning, the ladies who then thronged the deck being on this fatal
occasion almost all between decks, and out of reach of harm.
The gun was fired. The explosion was followed, before the smoke cleared
away so as to observe its effect, by shrieks of wo which announced a
dire calamity. The gun had burst, at a point three or four feet from
the breech, and scattered death and desolation around. Mr. UPSHUR,
Secretary of State, Mr. GILMER, so recently placed at the head of the
Navy, Commodore KENNON, one of its gallant officers, VIRGIL MAXCY,
lately returned from a diplomatic residence at the Hague, Mr. GARDNER,
of New York, (formerly a member of the Senate of that State,) were
among the slain. Besides these, seventeen seamen were wounded, several
of them badly and probably mortally. Among those stunned by the
concussion, we learn not all seriously injured, were Capt. Stockton
himself; Col. Benton, of the Senate; Lieut. Hunt, of the Princeton;
W. D. Robinson, of Georgetown.--Other persons also were perhaps more or
less injured, of whom in the horror and confusion of the moment, no
certain account could be obtained. The above are believed to comprise
the whole of the persons known to the public who were killed or
dangerously or seriously hurt.
The scene upon the deck may more easily be imagined than described. Nor
can the imagination picture to itself the half of its horrors. Wives,
widowed in an instant by the murderous blast! Daughters smitten with
the heart-rending sight of their father’s lifeless corpse! The wailings
of agonized females! The piteous grief of the unhurt but heart-stricken
spectators! The wounded seamen borne down below! The silent tears and
quivering lips of their brave and honest comrades, who tried in vain to
subdue or to conceal their feelings! What _words_ can adequately depict
a scene like this?
On Saturday the last rites were paid to the distinguished men who laid
down their lives on the deck of the Princeton. The funeral procession
presented the most sad, solemn, affecting scene ever witnessed in this
city of the Union. The President’s House was again--as on the demise
of General Harrison--made the receptacle of death. Instead of one,
five bodies were now laid out in the lately illuminated east room
of that fair mansion, which before the melancholy fate which there
awaited General Harrison in the first month of the first year of his
presidential term, had never known a pall within its precincts. The
first month of the last year of the same term found it again turned
almost into a charnel house. Like “_the Capets monument_,” it became
“_a palace of dim night_,” and gathered within its gloom the blackened
and bloody remains of a most frightful tragedy--the bodies of five
intimate friends of the President, two of them his cabinet associates,
all hurried out of existence while he sat unconsciously, with only a
plank between them, enjoying a song. What a thin partition in this life
separates its scenes of greatest enjoyment and bitterest grief!!
Religious rites were performed over the dead by the Rev. Mr. Hawley
and Mr. Butler, of the Episcopal Church, and Mr. Laurie, of the
Presbyterian Church, before leaving the President’s House. The
bodies were then hearsed, and the procession led off by the military
companies, which filled the avenue in front of the President’s house.
The military array, composed of horse, infantry, and artillery, made
a very imposing appearance; and the train of carriages which followed
extended along the avenue more than a mile. A vast multitude, on foot
and on horseback, from the neighboring cities and adjoining country,
filled the spaces not occupied by the procession. The whole distance
between the President’s and the Capitol square, as far as the vision
could reach through the darkness of the day and the dust, seemed to be
a living current, in slow movement to the wailing and mournful music
of the band, which, with the sound of distant cannon and solemn-pealing
bells, alone broke the silence. The immense crowd was perfectly mute in
its march. The dread quiet that reigned over all; the almost twilight
darkness that dimmed the whole day; the deep mists that shadowed the
surrounding hills and horizon from sight; the cloud of dust that
covered the long and gloomy procession; the sweeping trains of crape
that blackened the closed windows and doors of the dwellings on the
way,--gave, altogether, the most saddened and impressive aspect of wo
ever worn by this city. It was rendered the more deeply affecting by
the contrast of but a few days before, when the warmth of a vernal sun
had shone out, giving light and gayety to our streets, opening the
buds upon the trees and bringing out the tender green upon the grounds
whereon the snow had so recently lain.
The mournful ceremonials had just been concluded, when the city was
alarmed with the apprehension of another fatal accident to the Chief
Magistrate himself. As he returned in his carriage of state from the
place of interment, (the Congress burying ground, about three miles
from the President’s House,) his horses took fright, and ran with
fury along the great thoroughfare, filled with people and carriages.
There was no arresting their wild career; the reins were broken in
the attempt to restrain them, and all that could be done was to give
room to their headlong flight. As they approached the turn in the end
of the avenue, obstructed by the President’s square, they got scared
at something on one side of the street, and shied off in their course
to the curb-stone on the other side, which gave the advantage to an
intrepid colored man on the side walk to seize them by the short reins
and stop them. A little beyond, in the direction they were going, lay
masses of the large stone rejected from the new treasury building, near
the precipitous bank to the south of the President’s wall. Had not the
career of the horses been arrested at the moment that it was, the next
would have wrecked the carriage on these rocks, or precipitated it over
the bank. The President was happy to escape from his state equipage,
over which all guidance and control was lost, and find himself afoot,
by the side of his humble deliverer.