Since the passage of the first Act, by the old Congress in 1776, there

have been over four hundred distinct Acts relating to pensions for

military and naval services, and for bounty-land rewarding such

services, enacted by Congress. Instead of the small pension-lists

transmitted by the courts of the country, through the Secretary of War

to Congress, the tens of thousands of pension-claims, presented to the

Government, under the various laws which relate to them, now require the

constant services of more than three hundred clerks in the Pension

Bureau, supervised by the Commissioner of Pensions.

It is the dual duty of this Bureau, to protect private interests, and to

secure the enforcement of the law. The claims are infinite and often

conflicting; the provisions of law manifold; and people unfamiliar with

the immense demand upon such an office, sneer or smile, or weep over the

length of the “red-tape” routine, through which its cases are so often

“long drawn out.” Persons waiting outside the Bureau, can not comprehend

the requirements or exigencies of a business demanding the employment of

so large a force of actors, or touching the springs of so many public

and private interests. Says one who knows: “Far better the delays of red

tape, than the inextricable confusion, and total inability to transact

business, which would be the inevitable result of a business system less

minute and stringent.”

The Pension Bureau is divided into four divisions, viz: the Mail

Division, the Judicial, the Financial, and the Miscellaneous.

The Mail Division is charged with the receiving, reading, distributing

to the proper desks, all the mail. Every original application, every

piece of additional evidence, every communication, of whatever nature,

is stamped with the date of receipt, and, with the exception of letters

of inquiry, they are entered on the records, which show from whom

received, when received, and to whom delivered.

“It requires careful examination of the papers, a thorough knowledge of

the office, and the closest analysis, to determine the proper

destination of each communication. Many writers are obscure, many

misstate their business, through ignorance or carelessness, and to

quickly comprehend the import of all papers, requires a keen eye and a

ready mind.

“Persons communicating with the Office, should remember this, and to

insure a correct distribution of their mail, should, in all cases,

indorse upon the outside of the envelope, the number of the claim

referred to, the name of the claimant, and the nature of the claim.

“In this Division, claims are also prepared for the files, by having a

heavy paper jacket placed round them, upon which is indorsed the Act

under which it is filed, the description of the party claiming, their

address, also the address of the attorney, if one appears in the claim.”

The Judicial Division is charged with an application of the law to the

evidence, and the determining of the right of the applicant to the

pension. This office is divided into three grand divisions—invalid,

widows, and minors. The first embraces all claims preferred by surviving

soldiers; the second, all claims based upon the service and death of

soldiers and sailors; the third, those of minors.

An Examiner of Pensions does not sit upon a bed of roses—or, if he does,

it is full of thorns. So various and minute are the provisions of law,

applicable to the cases under his consideration, so numerous are the

rulings of the office, and the decisions of the Heads of Departments,

and of the Bureau, with the opinion of the Attorney-General added, all

bearing upon this claim, it demands the most exhaustive examination, the

keenest discrimination, and the most wise judgment, to reach a final

just conclusion. And when his conclusion is reached, it is not final.

In the Judicial Division, are filed all pending claims. These files are

arranged with reference to the initial letter of the soldier’s surname,

and are divided into sections proportioned to the magnitude of the

letter of the alphabet. Upon the receipt of jacketed claims from the

mail division, the first step is to see if the party, making

application, ever filed a claim before, and this is ascertained by

examining the “original records.”

These records fill thirty enormous volumes, and contain three hundred

and eighty-three thousand applications that have been filed under the

act of July 14, 1862. All entries are made therein with reference to the

first three letters of the soldier’s surname, and only by this

subdivision of names, affording two thousand eight hundred combinations,

can convenient reference to any given claim be had; and even when so

divided, the examination of the greater combination requires

considerable labor. For instance, in two hundred thousand entries under

W. I. L., there will be three thousand two hundred and fifty entries;

and under S. M. I. you will find two thousand seven hundred and fifty

Smiths. If the result of this examination affords no evidence of a prior

application by the same person, after noting all other applications

based upon the service of the same soldier, the claims are numbered in

numerical order and placed upon the record, which includes a full

description thereof, and the recorded claims are then placed in the

files, to await examination in the order of their receipt.

When they are reached, the examiner’s duties begin. He first searches

for such recorded evidence as can be found in any of the Departments of

the Government. From these he notes all omissions, and points

unsupported, and calls upon the claimant, or his attorney, for

corroborative evidence of the statements made in the declaration. He is

guided in his requirements by the hundreds of rulings applicable to the

smallest details of the various kinds of claims. All the evidence

furnished in response must comply with the minutest demand of the law;

the law of evidence as applied in courts, and the express requirements

of the law under which the pension is claimed, are both brought to bear

in the consideration of the points to be met, and the testimony offered

in proof.

You will not be astonished to be told that very often they are not met,

or that in thousands of just cases the testimony is unequal to the

gradgrind requirements of the law. A want of a knowledge of the

provisions of the law—more than of willful knavery—is the great

acknowledged difficulty with which the Office has to contend. Many a

poor sinner, who lost his leg or arm, or carries a bullet in him,

received in his country’s battles, knows all about the minus members,

the battles, and the bullet, and not an atom about “the provisions of

the law,” or the inextricable windings of official red-tape. Because his

knowledge is of so one-sided a character, he finds it no easy matter to

get the governmental reward for that buried leg or arm; and by the time

all “the requirements of the law” have been slowly beaten into his

brains, the greater portion of his pension is pocketed by the

claim-agent who showed him how to get it.

All these provisions and safeguards of the law are said to be necessary,

to protect the Government against fraudulent claims. Perhaps they are;

but that makes them no less hard, or ofttimes unjust “to the soldier and

widow” who, in writing a letter, are as ignorant as babies of “the

requirements of the law.” Under these requirements, and with the utter

ignorance of common people of technical terms, and judicial statements,

it is not strange that “a large percentage of the evidence offered, is

imperfectly prepared.” A great deal more is deficient in substance, or

suspected of fraud.

The correspondence from this Division, stating objections, requiring

further proof, and elucidating doubtful points, amounts to hundreds of

letters a day. The long delay inevitable, is said to be the fault of the

system. “_Ex-parte_ evidence is the criminal.” “Were means afforded for

a cross-examination of all applicants and witnesses, these difficulties

and delays would disappear. One-half of the amount now taken from the

pockets of pensioners, to compensate agents for procuring their

pensions, would pay the entire cost of such a system, to say nothing of

the thousands of dollars paid from the Treasury upon fraudulent claims,

that would be saved.”

When the examiner has ended his researches, he prepares a brief of the

evidence, on which he bases his admission, or rejection, of the claim.

He closes it with a statement of his decision, showing from what date,

and at what rate admitted, or, if rejected, the cause therefor, and

signs his name, as examiner.

This action is entered in a record. The case is taken from out the file

of pending claims, and is placed in the hands of a clerk, who is called

the “Reviewer.” He is selected for this task, for his superior judgment,

and for his familiarity with the law, and the rules of office. He

“begins again,” goes over the entire action of the examiner, goes

through the entire evidence, in order to be able to approve, or

disprove, the examiner’s decision. If he approves, the case passes on to

the Chief of the Division, for _his_ approval, which, except in unusual

cases, is _pro forma_. From his desk the case goes to the Certificate

Section, for issue. There it receives its certificate and approved

brief, decorated with which it departs to the Commissioner’s desk, there

to receive his final and crowning signature, and the grand seal of the

Department. If the claim is a rejected one, and its rejection receives

the approval of the receiver, it is cast into the outer darkness of the

“rejected files.” Here it is subject to an appeal to the Secretary, and

may be borne forth again to the light, upon the presentation of new and

material evidence.

After the triumphant claim has received its certificate, it is treated

to a new coat of a wrapper, upon whose back a certificate-number, and

its history, is endorsed. It is then entered upon the admitted records.

After it has been reported to the Pension Agent, Finance Division, to

the Third Auditor of the Treasury, and to the Second Comptroller, it is

placed on the “admitted files.”

Seventy-five thousand pending claims are now on file in these two

divisions. They are slowly reduced in number, and the receipt of new

claims equals the disposal of the old ones. This statement does not

include the adjustment of claims filed under the act of February 14,

1871, granting pensions to survivors of the war of 1812, who served

sixty days, and to their widows. Their claims have been organized into a

separate division, in which a force of fifty clerks has been constantly

employed since its organization, May, 1871. This division is known as

the “1812 Division,” and strenuous efforts are made to reach very early

decisions in all its cases, the extreme age of the applicants making it

necessary—if their pension is to reach them “this side of Jordan.”

In this division, the claims are carried through their entire process,

from the application to the placing of the pensioner’s name on the

rolls.

The Bounty-Land Division forms a part of the Judicial branch. Herein all

claims for bounty-land, filed under the act of March 3, 1855, which is

the latest general provision, are adjusted. The _modus operandi_ of

obtaining land-grants is nearly identical with the process of obtaining

a pension.

Under the act of 1855, all persons who served fourteen days, either in

the army or navy, are entitled to one hundred and sixty acres, and those

who were actually engaged in battle, though their services were less

than fourteen days, are entitled to the same.

Under the various laws governing these land grants, warrants

representing 73,932,451 acres have been issued, which, estimated at

$1.25 per acre, amounts to $92,415,563.75, which, added to

$313,170,412.77 that has been paid since the beginning of the

Government, as pension, makes a total expenditure of $405,585,976.52,

which has been paid in gratuities to the defenders of the Republic.

Where the Judicial Branch ends in the certificate of a pension, the

Financial Branch begins. The rolls reported by those divisions are

entered in the agency registers, which are arranged to show payments for

several years, and the agents’ quarterly accounts of disbursements are

compared with these registers, and errors noted.

There are now upon the United States pension rolls the names of 232,229

pensioners, who are paid quarterly through fifty-seven pension agents.

When we remember that the accounts of all these agents, for these tens

of thousands of names, are adjusted and reported within the short space

of three months, it is not difficult to realize the amount of labor

involved.

The Finance Division is charged with all correspondence with the pension

agents, to suspend and resume payments, to drop from the rolls (in which

case the auditor and controller must also be notified), the payment of

accrued pensions to heirs and legal representatives; restorations, under

the act of July 27, 1868, where a pension has been unclaimed for three

years; the transfer of payments from one agency to another; the issue of

duplicate certificates in lieu of those lost or destroyed. All these,

and many, many other things are required at the hands of the gentlemen

employed therein. The act of June 8, 1872, granted increase to

pensioners of the first, second and third grades; and this Division,

after the passage of the Act and before the quarterly payment of

September 4, following, received, examined and issued 9,237 certificates

granting the increase. Of the agencies disbursing pension-money, there

are ten whose payments exceed $100,000,000 per annum. Of these, Boston

is the largest, paying out more than $1,800,000. The smallest amount

paid by any agency is that at Vancouver, Washington Territory, which

disburses less than $2,500 per annum.

The Miscellaneous Branch covers many features too minute to be brought

into this sketch. Among the more important is its Special Service

Division. This is occupied with the investigation of all claims in which

fraud is suspected. It prosecutes and convicts all persons whose guilt

is proved. Congress annually appropriates a considerable sum to pay the

expenses of such investigations, which tends largely to lessen

fraudulent practices against the Government. By means of this fund the

Office is enabled to keep a large number of special agents employed, who

are charged with the investigation of all suspected frauds perpetrated

within their respective districts.

This division requires clerks who are thoroughly familiar with all laws

which the Office is called upon to execute, as well as a general

knowledge of the criminal laws of each State. Its efforts are: first, to

secure the pensioner in all his rights; second, to prosecute all persons

where it is thought a conviction can be had; and third, to secure a

return to the Government of all money unlawfully obtained. The amount

saved in reducing pensions illegally rated, in dropping from the rolls

those found not to be entitled, and in sums refunded, largely exceed the

cost of the work, while the effect upon the public is beneficial in

deterring others from criminal practices. Cases have been found which

were allowed on the clearest proof of dependence upon the part of

mothers of soldiers, where an investigation proved that that same

dependent mother owned property in her own right to the amount of forty

thousand dollars!

Such cases are not confined to the classes usually engaged in unlawful

acts. Nothing is more remarkable than the number of persons—in the

average transactions of life deemed honest and honorable—who are ready

and eager, under one pretext or another, to “gouge” and defraud the

revenues of the Government; and these persons are by no means confined

to the seekers of pensions, but may be found every day in the highest

class that can reach the hard-earned treasure of the National Treasury.

The Medical Division of the Pension Bureau acts conjointly with the

Invalid Division in deciding the degree of disability of claimants for

original, and the increase of invalid pensions. This division is

supervised by medical gentlemen thoroughly trained in their profession.

All invalid claims, after having been briefed by the examiner, and

before passing into the reviewer’s hands, are referred to this division.

The Examining Surgeon makes a personal examination of the applicant, and

from his medical testimony, endorsed by the Chief of the Medical

Division, the Chief of the Invalid Division bases his final opinion and

action.

The Restoration Desk is devoted to all claims, which are to be restored

to the rolls, of parties who have been dropped for cause—principally

those who were residents of the States in rebellion at the beginning of

the late war. These are only placed upon the rolls upon incontestible

proof of loyalty.

The Appeal Desk is the recipient of all cases in preparation for

reference to the Secretary, where an appeal from the action of the

Office is taken.

The Final Desk is the extensive one of the Commissioner of Pensions.

From the beginning to the end of this busy Bureau, charged with the

comfort, the very subsistence of so many bereaved and disabled

fellow-creatures, the Commissioner must see all things, anticipate all

wants, supply all needs; upon him rests the entire administration of

this vast and potent Bureau. His position is not easy or his burden

light.

To fill so important a trust with honor, a Commissioner needs not only

clear judgment and business training, but should also be a man of

positive administrative talents, large information, thorough education,

and broad, comprehensive mind.

These qualities are all possessed in a pre-eminent degree by the present

Commissioner of Pensions.

General J. H. Baker was born in Lebanon, Ohio, 1829. He is the son of a

Methodist clergyman, and was graduated from the Wesleyan University,

Delaware, Ohio, taking the Latin honors of a large class in 1852. He was

Secretary of the State of Ohio during Chief-Justice Chase’s term as

Governor of that State. He moved to Minnesota, and was Secretary of the

State when he resigned to take command of the Tenth Minnesota

Volunteers. He served with distinction in the Indian expedition under

General Sibley, and, on his return, was ordered South. At St. Louis he

was placed in command of the post, and soon after was made

Provost-Marshal General of the Department of Missouri. At the close of

the war he became Register of Public Lands in Missouri, and, resigning

this position, in 1868 he returned to Minnesota, was candidate for the

United States Senate, and defeated by a very small majority. In 1871 be

was appointed Commissioner of Pensions.

General Baker is a tall, commanding looking gentleman, with dark hair,

complexion and eyes. He is of nervo-motive temperament, quick, prompt,

energetic in action, yet courteous and genial in his bearing to a very

marked degree.

Since the passage of the Act of July 4, 1862, nearly 400,000 claims for

pensions have been filed in and considered by the Pension Office. Of

course, in the examination of so vast a number of cases, errors have

been committed, matters of fact misinterpreted, and in many instances,

through carelessness, ignorance and neglect, injustice has been done.

The clerks of this office have always compared favorably, both in

industry and capacity, with those of other Bureaus; but, among so large

a number, worthless and inefficient ones will be found, and the still

greater evil of employing men who, though capable, take no interest in

their official duties, and, through the want of that spur to well-doing,

fail to make themselves of value to the Government, and render aid to

those whom the Office was organized to protect and assist. The

percentage of claims affected by these causes, small though it may have

been, would amount to thousands in the aggregate, and these, distributed

throughout the country, would give an enlarged color to their

complaints, and lead the people to believe that the evil was general and

unusual in its extent. When we add to this class of complainants the

150,000 who, in some shape, have had claims before the office for

increase, arrears, etc., and which, not coming within the law under

which they filed, were rejected, and who, not understanding what the law

did provide, but deriving their information from unscrupulous agents who

would not or could not instruct them in the matter, they feel seriously

aggrieved, and loudly complain. Two dependent mothers, equally poor, and

who were alike aided by their respective sons, reside in the same

village. They apply for a pension for the services and deaths of their

sons. The records of the War Department show that one of the soldiers

died of a disease contracted in the service and in the line of duty, and

that the other soldier died of a disease, though contracted in the

service, yet it _did not_ originate while he was in the line of duty.

These are distinctions which neither this poor woman nor the community

can understand. Yet the claim last described must be rejected, as it is

barred by the law. The whole community cries out about the great

injustice practiced by the Pension Office, while, in fact, the _law_ is

responsible, and _not_ the office.

Again, invalid pensioners, suffering from a partial or total disability,

are strongly urged, by their _pecuniary interests_, to believe that they

are entitled to a total or special rating. They apply for increase, and

are referred to an examining surgeon for a personal examination, and a

report as to nature and degree of disability. The surgeon fails to

conform to the applicant’s estimate as to the extent of his disability,

and the claim for increase is rejected, and here is another case of

“great injustice.”

Biennial examinations of all invalid pensioners are required, except in

cases of permanent disability. At such times the surgeon finds they are

partially or entirely recovered from the disability that existed at the

date of last examination, and notwithstanding the firm conviction of the

pensioner that he is just as much disabled as ever, he is reduced or

dropped. He at once joins the army of grumblers, and complains of

injustice.

The office acknowledges its imperfections, but respectfully declines to

admit the correctness of a tithe of the grievances reported. There is

some show of injustice in the delay frequently experienced in the

settlement of claims, and yet the Office is responsible to a slight

degree only. As heretofore intimated, the _system_ is largely

accountable for this. The suspicion, warranted by experience, attaching

to every piece of testimony received, and necessitating a close scrutiny

and reconciliation of the slightest discrepancies before final action

can be had. The hundreds of points going to make up a case must be found

in proofs, and the affidavits offered, three times out of five, fail to

cover the point.

Here is another cause for complaint. “The Pension Office called three

times for the same evidence.” It must be admitted that, some years ago,

there was an entire neglect of correspondence. “Letters of inquiry,”

asking condition of claim and countless questions, arrived by thousands.

Examiners were ambitious to pass (admit or reject) a large number of

claims, during the month, and these letters proved nothing, and required

time and labor to answer them, and were cast aside. This has all been

changed by the present Commissioner, and these letters are confided to

clerks who engage in nothing but correspondence, and who are required to

keep their desks up to date; and in this connection it is proper to add

that a magical change has been made in the style and completeness of the

letters. Some years ago, a fac-simile of the Commissioner’s signature

was stamped upon the out-going mail. Now, each letter is subjected to a

careful review by the Chiefs of Divisions, and goes thence to the

Commissioner’s room for his signature and a frequent review by him; and

the occasional return of a letter, with a sharp reminder, suffices to

keep the letter writers on the alert. And this idea of a careful

surveillance is not confined to correspondents, but it has been

carefully impressed upon the whole force by frequent illustrations. By

judicious, yet not burdensome reports, and by frequent reference thereto

by the Commissioner, which is forcibly brought to the knowledge of a

careless clerk, the _employés_ have been taught that no trifling will be

allowed.

It has also been realized by the _employés_ of this Bureau that merit

_is_ noted, and _de_merit will insure dismissal. It is the policy of

General Baker to hold his subordinates strictly responsible for the

proper performance of their individual duties, and to look to those

having charge of others to secure the desired results, or to report the

delinquent. The result of two years’ growth in this direction has been

gratifying. The increased industry of the Office, the improvement

resulting from a thoughtful and careful performance of its duties, and

the elevation of the standard which all seeking appointments must come

up to, and a careful weeding-out of the inefficient ones, are rapidly

tending to secure commendation from those having business with the

Bureau, rather than censure.

An aged claimant for a pension, who served in the war of 1812, residing

in Illinois in December, 1871, wrote to the Office as follows: “Oh! can

it be true that I am going to get $100? That news is too good! I’m so

hungry, and I love coffee so, but I can’t get any! All I have to eat is

corn-bread and sour milk. I can’t believe that I am to get so much

money, but I pray God it may be true.” It is needless to say that this

claim was made “special,” and the octogenarian had “coffee” for his

Christmas breakfast.

A Captain B., of Havre-de-Grace, Maryland, a claimant for pension under

Act of 1871, for services in the War of 1812, had his claim rejected, it

appearing that he served less than sixty days, as required by that Act;

whereupon the Captain grew wrathy, and wrote as follows:

“N. B.—Any man that will say that I was not a Private soldier in Capt.

Paca Smith’s company before the attack of the British on the City of

Baltimore, and during the attack on said City in Sept., 1814, and

after the British dropped down to Cape Henry, I say he is a dastard, a

liar, and a coward, and no gentleman, or any man that will say that I

got my Land-warrant from the Hon. Geo. C. Whiting, for 160 acres of

Land, for 14 days’ services in Capt. Paca Smith’s company, is the

same, as stated above, and I hold myself responsible for the contents

of this letter; and if their dignity should be touched, a note of

honor directed to Capt. Wm. B——, Havre-de-Grace, Harford Co., Md.,

shall be punctually attended to.

“WM. B——.”

CHAPTER XL.

TREASURES AND CURIOSITIES OF THE PATENT OFFICE—THE

MODEL ROOM—ITS RELICS AND INVENTIONS.

The Patent Office Building—Grace and Beauty of its Architecture—Four

“Sublime” Porticoes—A Pretty Large Passage—The Model Room—“The

Exhibition of the Nation”—A Room two hundred and seventy Feet in

Length—The Models—Recording our Name—Wonders and Treasures of the

Room—Benjamin Franklin’s Press—Model Fire-Escapes—Wonderful

Fire-Extinguishers—The Efforts of Genius—Sheep-Stalls, Rat-Traps,

and Gutta Percha—An Ancient Mariner’s Compass—Captain Cook’s

Razor—The Atlantic Cable—Original Treaties—The Signatures of

Emperors—An Extraordinary Turkish Treaty—Treasures of the

Orient—Rare Medals—The Reward of Major Andre’s Captors—The

Washington Relics—His Old Tent—His Blankets and Bed-Curtain—His

Chairs and Looking-Glass—His Primitive Mess-Chess and old Tin

Plates—The Old Clothes of the “Father of His Country”—Military

Relics of Well-known Men—Original Draft of the Declaration of

Independence—Washington’s Commission—Model of an Extraordinary

Boat—Abraham Lincoln as an Inventor—The Hat Worn on the Fatal

Night—The Gift of the Tycoon—The Efforts of Genius—A Machine to

Force Hens to Lay Eggs—A Hook for Fishing Worms out of the Human

Stomach—The Library of the Patent Office.

The lawful fees for issuing patents having accumulated into a

considerable fund, Congress added an appropriation, and directed that

the whole amount should be invested in a new building to be called the

Patent Office.

From that double fund has arisen the majestic structure which, next to

the Capitol, is the most august building in Washington. The southern

front of the Treasury is of superlative beauty, and from several other

points its architectural grace cannot be surpassed; but its whole effect

is marred by the dingy, unbroken outline of its Fifteenth-street side.

The advantage of the Patent-Office is, that from any point which you

choose to survey it, it impresses you as supremely grand. Occupying two

blocks, or an entire public square, standing upon a prominence, it

spreads and towers into space incomparable in mass and majesty. You may

approach it from four opposite directions, and on each side you lift

your eyes to four sublime porticoes towering before you. They are

supported by double rows of Doric columns, eighteen feet in

circumference, made of gleaming crystallized marble. The entire building

is of pure Doric architecture, strong, simple and majestic. Its southern

front is an exact copy of the Pantheon at Rome, and the eastern portico

is modelled after that of the Parthenon at Athens.

The length of the building, from Seventh to Ninth streets, is 410 feet,

and its width, from F to G streets, 275 feet. Its original design was

made by Mr. William P. Elliot, at that time surveyor of the City of

Washington. The plan was largely executed by Mr. Mills, architect of

Public Buildings; while the grand northern portico has been consummated

under the superintendence of Mr. Edward Clark, the present architect of

the Capitol.

We enter the eastern door of the basement-story, into a spacious passage

running from east to west, the whole length of the building. Through it,

large-wheeled machines can be drawn. On each side of this hall are rooms

for the deposit of fuel, large and heavy models and department offices.

In the centre springs a semi-circular stone staircase, with three

flights of steps, which ascend to the second, third and last story. The

corridor in the first story is like the one that we entered below, and

on each side of the hall, doors open into commodious apartments for the

accommodation of the commissioners, examiners, clerks, etc.

Ascending the stone staircase, we come to the Model Room—_par

excellence_, the Exhibition Room of the nation. For architectural

simplicity and space, and the purpose for which it was designed, it is

unsurpassed in the whole world. Standing here, we look down a vista two

hundred and seventy-four feet in length, and its perspective is

enchanting to the sight. A double row of stone columns supports a

succession of brick arches, finely proportioned, and corresponding in

depth with the rooms below. The floor is paved with tessellated stone,

and the light streams in from numerous windows on each side.

The models and other articles are arranged in glass cases on each side

of the room, leaving ample space in the centre for promenading. There

are two rows of cases, one above the other—the upper row being placed

within a light gallery of iron, reached by iron stairways, and extending

entirely round the east, north and west halls. The ceiling is supported

by a double row of pillars, which also act as supports to the galleries,

and both the walls and ceiling are finished in marble and frescoes.

Entering, we find a large register, with pens and ink, at the right of

the door, in which we may record our name and the date of our visit, if

we please.

[Illustration:

THE MODEL ROOM, PATENT OFFICE.—WASHINGTON.

This room contains the fruits of the inventive genius of the whole

nation. More than 160,000 models are here deposited.

]

The first case on the right of the entrance contains Benjamin Franklin’s

press, at which he worked when a journeyman-printer in London. It is old

and worm-eaten, and is only held together by means of bolts and iron

plates, and bears but little resemblance to the mighty machines by which

the printing of to-day is done. Then come models of “fire-escapes,” some

of which are curiosities and well worth studying. The impression left by

the majority, however, is that if they constitute one’s only hope of

escape, in case of fire, an old-fashioned headlong leap from a window

may just as well be attempted at once.

Near by are the models of those inventive geniuses who have attempted to

extinguish conflagrations by discharging a patent cartridge into the

burning mass. The guns, from which the cartridges are thrown, are most

remarkable in design.

Then follow tobacco-cutting machines, of various kinds, all sorts of

skates, billiard-table models, ice-cutters, billiard-registers, improved

fire-arms, and toys, of different designs, among which is a most

ingenious model of a walking-horse. Having reached the end of this row

of cases, we cross over to the south side of the hall. The first cases

contain models of cattle and sheep-stalls, vermin and rat-traps, and are

followed by a handsome display of articles in gutta percha, manufactured

by the Goodyear Company.

In the bottom of one of the cases is an old mariner’s compass of the

year 1604, presented by Ex-Governor Wise, of Virginia, then United

States Minister to Brazil, in the name of Lieutenant Sheppard, U. S. N.

The ticket attached to the compass is written in the bold, running hand

of the ex-rebel statesman. Near by is a razor which belonged to the

celebrated navigator, Captain Cook. It was recovered from the natives of

the island upon which he was murdered, and is hardly such an instrument

any of those who behold it would care to use. A piece of the Atlantic

cable is just below it.

Several of the cases following contain the original treaties of the

United States with foreign powers. They are written upon heavy sheets of

vellum, in wretchedly bad hands, and are worn and faded. All, save the

treaties with England and the Eastern nations, are written in French,

and are all furnished with a multiplicity of red and green seals; the

first is the treaty with Austria, and bears the weak, hesitating

signature of Francis I. The signature of Alexander I., attached to the

first Russian treaty, has more character in it. The treaty of peace with

England, in 1814, which ended our second war with that power, bears the

signature of the Regent, afterwards George IV. The treaty of 1803, with

the Republic of France, is signed “Bonaparte,” in a nervous, sprawling

hand. Bernadotte’s smooth and flowing hand adorns the first treaty with

Sweden.

The original treaty with Turkey is a curious document. It consists of a

number of long slips of parchment, covered with columns of Turkish

characters. Near by it hangs a bag, in which it was conveyed to this

country. The bag is its legal covering, or case, and is provided with a

huge ball of red wax, by way of a seal. Next to it is the first treaty

of alliance with France—the famous one of 1778—which gave the aid of the

French king to the cause of the suffering and struggling States of the

new republic. It is signed by the unfortunate Louis XVI. The “Louis” is

written in a round, phlegmatic hand; but the lines are delicate, as if

the pen did not press the paper with the firmness of a strong will. The

French treaty, of 1822, bears the autograph of Louis XVIII.; and that of

1831, the signature of Louis Phillippe. Don Pedro I., Emperor of Brazil,

has affixed his hand to the Brazilian treaty, and the name of Ferdinand

(the last, and least) is affixed to that of Spain.

In the glass cases with the treaties are several Oriental articles,—a

Persian carpet and horse-cover, presented to President Van Buren, by the

Imän of Muscat; and two magnificent rifles, presented to President

Jefferson, by the Emperor of Morocco. These rifles are finished in the

highest style of Eastern art, and are really beautiful. In the same

cases are collections of medals, some of European sovereigns, and others

of American celebrities. Among them is a copy of the medal, awarded by

Congress, to the captors of Major André. Near these are several splendid

Eastern sabres, presented by the great Ali Pacha, the Bey of Egypt, to

Captain Perry and the officers of the U. S. ship-of-war, _Concord_, at

Alexandria, (Egypt,) in 1832.

The next cases contain the Washington relics, which are amongst the

greatest treasures of the nation. They consist of the camp-equipage, and

other articles used by General Washington, during the Revolution. They

are just as he left them at the close of the war, and were given to the

Government, for safe keeping, after his death. Here are the tents which

constituted the head-quarters, in the field, of the great soldier. They

are wrapped tightly round the poles, just as they were tied when they

were struck for the last time, when victory had crowned his country’s

arms, and the long war was over. Every cord, every button and tent-pin

is in its place, for he was careful of little things. His blankets and

the bed-curtain, worked for him by his wife, and his window-curtains,

are all well preserved. His chairs are perfect, not a round being

broken; and the little square mirror in his dressing-case is not even

cracked. The wash-stand and table are also well kept. His knife-case is

filled with plain horn-handle knives and forks, which were deemed “good

enough for him,” and his mess-chest is a curiosity. It is a plain wooden

trunk, covered with leather, with a common lock, the hasp of which is

broken. It is divided by small partitions of thin wood, and the

compartments are provided with bottles, still stained with the liquids,

tin plates, common knives and forks, and other articles pertaining to

such an establishment.

In these days of luxury, an ordinary sergeant would not be satisfied

with so simple and plain an establishment. His cooking utensils,

bellows, andirons, and iron money-chest, all of which went with him from

Boston to Yorktown, are in the same case, from the side of which hangs

the suit of clothes worn by him upon the occasion of his resignation of

his commission as Commander-in-Chief, at Annapolis, in 1783. A hall

lantern, and several articles from Mount Vernon, a “travelling

secretary,” Washington’s sword and cane, and a surveyor’s compass,

presented by him to Captain Samuel Duvall, the surveyor of Frederick

county, Maryland, are in the same case, as are also a number of articles

taken from Arlington House, and belonging formerly to the Washington

family.

A coat worn by Andrew Jackson, at the battle of New Orleans, and the

war-saddle of the Baron De Kalb, a bayonet used by one of Braddock’s

soldiers, and found on the fatal field upon which that commander met his

death-wound, together with the panels from the state-coach of President

Washington, make up the collection. The original draft of the

Declaration of Independence, with the signatures of the Continental

Congress attached, is framed and placed near the Washington case. It is

old and yellow, and the ink is fading from the paper. Near it hangs

Washington’s Commission as Commander-in-Chief of the American army,

bearing the characteristic signature of John Hancock, President of the

Continental Congress.

In the same case is a plain model, roughly executed, representing the

frame-work of the hull of a Western steamboat. Beneath the keel is a

false bottom, provided with bellows and air-bags. The ticket upon it

bears the memorandum, “Model of sinking and raising boats by bellows

below. A. Lincoln, May 30, 1849.”

By means of this arrangement, Mr. Lincoln hoped to solve the difficulty

of passing boats over sand-bars in the Western rivers. The success of

his scheme would have made him independently wealthy, but it failed,

and, twelve years later, he became President of the United States.

During the interval, the model lay forgotten in the Patent Office, but,

after his inauguration, Mr. Lincoln got one of the _employés_ to find it

for him. After his death, it was placed in the Washington case.

The opposite case contains another memento of him—the hat worn by him on

the night of his assassination.

In a couple of cases, filled with machinery for making shoes, we see a

number of handsome silk robes and Japanese articles, of various kinds,

presented to Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln, by the Tycoon of Japan.

The remainder of the hall is filled with models of machines for making

leather harness and trunks, models of gas and kerosene oil apparatuses,

liquor distilleries, machines for making confectionery, and for trying

out lard and fat. Also, methods of curing fish and meat, and embalming

the dead. A splendid model of a steel revolving tower, for harbor

defence, stands near the door, and is one of the most conspicuous

ornaments of the room. The other halls are devoted exclusively to models

of patented machinery, and other inventions. The cases above and below

are well filled; models of bridges span the spaces between the other

cases, and those of the larger machines are laid on the floor of the

hall.

Models of improved arms, clocks, telegraphs, burglar and fire alarms,

musical instruments, light-houses, street cars, lamps, stoves, ranges,

furnaces, peat and fuel-machines, brick and tile-machines,

sewing-machines, power-looms, paper-making machinery, knitting-machines,

machines for making cloth, hats, spool cotton, for working up hemp,

harbor cleaners, patent hooks-and-eyes, buttons, umbrella and

cane-handles, fluting-machines, trusses, medical instruments of gutta

percha, corsets, ambulances and other military establishments,

arrangements for excluding the dust and smoke from railroad cars,

railroad and steamboat machinery, agricultural and domestic machinery of

all kinds, and hundreds of other inventions, line these three immense

halls. Among the most remarkable is a machine to force a hen to lay

eggs, and a silver worm hook, invented to fish worms out of the human

stomach.

A large library, of great value, is attached to the Patent Office,

containing many volumes of the highest scientific value. Under judicious

arrangement, a collection already rich and ample is forming, of every

work of interest to the inventors, and that new, increasing, important

class of professional men—the attorneys in patent cases. Upon its

shelves may be found a complete set of the reports of the British Patent

Commissioners, of which there are only six copies in the United States.

The reports of French patents are also complete, and those of various

other countries are being obtained as rapidly as possible. A system of

exchanges has been established, which employs three agents abroad; and,

in addition to various and arduous duties, the librarian annually

dispatches several hundred copies of the reports.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE BUREAU OF PATENTS—CRAZY INVENTORS AND

WONDERFUL INVENTIONS.

Patent-Rights in Steamboats—Origin of Copyright and Patent-Laws—Congress

Settles the Matter—A Board of “Disinterested, Competent”

Persons—Destruction of the Patent-Office by Fire—The New

Building—The Corps of Examiners—The Commissioner’s Speech—Twenty

Thousand Applications _per annum_—Fourteen Thousand Patents Granted

in One Year—Wonderful Expansion of Inventive Genius—“The Universal

Yankee”—Second-hand Inventions—Where the Inventions Come from—Taking

Out a Patent for the Lord’s Prayer—A Patent for a Cow’s Tail—A

Lady’s Patent—Hesitating to Accept a Million Dollars—How Patentees

are Protected—The American System—What American Inventors Have Done,

and What They Haven’t—The First Superintendent—The Present

Commissioner—Exploits of General Legett—His Efficiency in Office—The

Inventor Always a Dreamer—Perpetual Motion—The Invention of a D.

D.—His Little Machine—“Original with Me”—Silencing the Doctor—A New

Process of Embalming—A Dead Body Sent to the Office—Utilizing

Niagara—A _Generous_ Offer—An Englishman’s Invention—Inventors in

Paris—How to Kill Lions and Tigers in the United States with

Catmint—A Fearful Bomb-shell—Eccentric Letters—Amusing Specimens of

Correspondence.

With the settlement of the English colonies in America came a great many

English customs and laws, and among those adhered to was that of

granting patents or passing special Acts for the protection of

inventors.

In 1728, the Legislature of Connecticut granted the exclusive right of

practicing the business or trade of steel-making, provided the

petitioners improved the art to any good and reasonable perfection

within two years. In 1785, the State of Maryland passed an act giving to

one James Rumsey the exclusive right to construct, employ and navigate

boats of an improved construction, to run against the current of rapid

rivers. In 1787, an act was passed vesting the exclusive right of

propelling boats by steam and water for a limited time. In this year a

number of acts were passed to protect inventions of machines for

ruff-carding-belts, grinding flour, &c., and in 1789, one for the

protection of a hand fire-engine in New Hampshire was enacted.

The founders of the Constitution saw the advantages to be derived from

protecting the useful arts and sciences, and we find in Article 1,

Section 8, the authority and power given Congress “to promote the

progress of science and the useful arts by securing, for a limited time,

to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective

writings and discoveries,” etc.; “to make all laws which shall be

necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.”

Accordingly, Congress, in 1790, immediately after the ratification of

the Constitution, found it necessary and thought it beneficial to enact

a statute which authorized the issue of a patent to inventors and

discoverers of any useful manufacture, engine, machine, and those who

should devise any improvement thereon not before known or used.

The application, consisting of a clear description of the invention, was

at that time made to the Secretary-of-State, and the Attorney-General of

the United States. If such application was found to be new, a patent was

issued by authority of any two persons enumerated, attested by the

signature of the President of the United States, who granted to the

inventor the exclusive right of making, constructing, using, or vending

to others to be used, the invention or discovery, for the term of

fourteen years.

As the nation increased in power and talent, this Act was modified as

the necessities of the time required. Abuses crept in, the most noted of

which was the granting and issuing of a great many patents without any

record being kept to indicate that such patents were ever granted. This

was caused by lack of organization and want of proper assistance. The

Executive and Members of the Cabinet, having other duties to perform,

neglected the proper examination of applications, and the system

degenerated into as bad a one as the English.

This Act, with the amendment, was, in 1836, swept from the statute

books, and the Patent-Office was established on a surer basis, with an

organization of a Commissioner, Chief Clerk, an Examiner, a Draughtsman,

and some five clerks to conduct the examination and issues of

applications. As the decisions of the Commissioner, who was then

presumed to examine all applications, was not always impartial and

right, an appeal was allowed to a Board composed of three disinterested

and competent persons, who were appointed by the Secretary of State, as

occasion required.

The Patent-Office Building, which was at that time situated on the

present site of the General Post-Office, was completely destroyed by

fire in December, 1836, and all models, drawings and records were

consumed. Congress appropriated money, and issued circulars directed to

all who were thought to be interested in the restoration.

The majority of the patentees sent in duplicates of their papers and

models, but many were never heard from, and for this reason the office

is unable to present a complete record of the grants. After the fire,

the business of the Office was conducted in the City Hall building until

the present building was erected for the Patent-Office, a few years

later. In 1849, the Office was placed under the supervision of the

Secretary of the Interior or Home Department, where it now remains.

The fostering of invention encouraged home manufactures, one of the

results most eagerly sought, after the war with Great Britain. So active

became the inventive genius and so prolific of results, that Congress

was compelled, from time to time, to increase the examining corps, and

the little band of seven persons, who occupied the contracted rooms in

the City Hall, has expanded into a corps of eighty examiners and

assistants, more than two hundred clerks and other officials, all under

the control of a Commissioner and an Assistant-Commissioner.

The grant of one thousand patents in 1836, when the office was first

regularly organized, has enlarged into one hundred and sixty thousand at

the present time. And the latter number is scarcely two-thirds of the

number of applications. With this enormous increase followed a

corresponding labor and intricacy in examining so large a number of

applications, but so perfectly has the system been developed, that very

few mistakes are made in the way of wrongfully granting patents.

Hon. S. S. Fisher, United States Commissioner of Patents, before the

American Institute, New York City, September 28, 1869, made an eloquent

address concerning the American system of granting patents, from which I

make the following extracts:

“The great Patent Act of 1836 established what is now distinctively

the American system in regard to the grant of letters-patent.

“In the Patent-office, under the act of 1836, the Commissioner and one

examining-clerk were thought to be sufficient to do the work of

examining into the patentability of the two or three hundred that were

offered; now sixty-two examiners are over-crowded with work, a force

of over three hundred _employes_ is maintained, and the applications

have swelled to over twenty thousand per annum. This year the number

of patents granted will average two hundred and seventy-five per week,

or fourteen thousand a year.

“In England and on the Continent all applications are patented without

examination into the novelty of the inventions claimed. In some

instances the instrument is scanned to see if it cover a patentable

subject matter, and in Prussia some examination is made into the

character of the new idea; but in no case are such appliances

provided, such a corps of skilled examiners, such a provision of

drawings, models, and books, such a collection of foreign patents, and

such checks to prevent and review error, as with us. As a result, an

American patent has in our courts a value that no foreign patent can

acquire in the courts of its own country.

* * * * *

“The foreign patents of American inventors, that have been copies of

patents previously granted in this country, are the best that are

granted abroad. Many an English or French invention, that has been

patented without difficulty there, has been stopped in its passage

through our office by a reference to some patent previously granted in

this country. In spite of our examination, which rejects over

one-third of all the applications that are made, invention has been

stimulated by the hope of protection; and nearly as many patents will

issue in the United States this year as in the whole of Europe put

together, including the British Isles. But a few days ago I took up a

volume of Italian patents, when I was amused and gratified to find on

every page the name of the universal Yankee, re-patenting there his

American invention. He is, I suspect, much the best customer in the

Patent Office of United Italy.

“We are an inventive people. Invention is by no means confined to our

mechanics. Our merchants invent, our soldiers and our sailors invent,

our school-masters invent, our professional men invent, aye, our women

and children invent. One man, lately, wished to patent the application

of the Lord’s Prayer, repeated in a loud tone of voice, to prevent

stammering; another claimed the new and useful attachment of a weight

to a cow’s tail, to prevent her from switching it while milking;

another proposed to cure worms by extracting by a delicate line and

tiny hook, baited with a seductive pill; while a lady patented a

crimping-pin, which she declared might also be used as a paper-cutter,

as a skirt-supporter, as a paper-file, as a child’s pin, as a

bouquet-holder, as a shawl-fastener, or as a book-mark. Do not suppose

that this is the highest flight that the gentle sex has achieved. It

has obtained many other patents, some of which have no relation to

wearing apparel, and are of considerable value.

“Every inventor supposes that he has a fortune in every conception

that he puts into wood and iron. Stealing tremblingly and furtively up

the steps of the Patent Office, with his model concealed under his

coat, lest some sharper shall see it and rob him of his darling

thought, he hopes to come down those steps with the precious parchment

that shall insure him a present competency and enrich his children. If

he were offered a million in the first flush of his triumph, he would

hesitate about touching it without sleeping over it for a night. Yet

fourteen thousand millions would be a pretty heavy bill to pay from a

treasury not over full. No commission could satisfy the inventor, and

no price that we could afford to pay would take the place of the hope

of unlimited wealth, which now lightens his toil.... We say, we cannot

pay you in money, we will pay you in time. A new thought developed,

explained, described, put on record for the use of the nation—this is

the one side. The right to the exclusive benefit of this new thought,

for a limited time, and protection in that right, this on the other.

This is the patent system. A fair contract between the inventor and

the public.

“The inventor’s best security is to take out a patent.

“To secure this fair dealing, we have on the one side the Patent

Office, with its examiners, its drawings, its models, its books and

its foreign patents, to scan and test the invention.

“On the other side we have the courts of law to protect the inventor

and punish the thief. It is impossible that these instrumentalities

should do their work imperfectly. This is the American system. Under

its protection great inventions have been born, and have thriven. It

has given to the world the steamboat, the telegraph, the

sewing-machine, the hard and soft rubber. It has reconstructed the

loom, the reaping-machine, and the locomotive. It has won from the

older homes of the mechanic arts their richest trophies, and like

Columbus, who found a new world for Castile and Leon, it has created

new arts in which our nation has neither competitive or peer.”

The first Superintendent of the Patent Office was Doctor W. Thornton, a

gentleman of great attainments, who held his position for many years.

The present Commissioner of Patents is General Mortimer D. Leggett, born

of Quaker parents, in the State of New York, fifty years ago. At an

early age, he went with his parents to the Western Reserve, Ohio. He

received an academical education, studied law, was admitted to the bar,

and at twenty-eight, was established in a flourishing business in

Warren, Ohio. Jacob D. Cox, late Secretary of the Interior, studied law

with General Leggett, and ultimately became his partner under the firm

name of Leggett & Cox. General Leggett afterwards filled the position of

Professor of Pleadings and Equity Jurisprudence, in the Ohio Law

College, which he occupied till 1857, and later was called to become the

Superintendent of Public Schools in the city of Zanesville, which his

management made pre-eminent among the schools of the West. At the

beginning of the war, he entered the field at the head of the

Seventy-eighth Ohio. This regiment received its first baptism in the

snow and sleet of Fort Donelson, and was under fire there.

The executive and administrative ability of Colonel Leggett, as shown in

the discipline and condition of his regiment, attracted the attention of

General Grant, who made him Provost-Marshal of the post. He did his work

so well, that he was repeatedly chosen again, and by the warm

commendation of his chief, was made Brigadier-General. At the battle of

Shiloh, and the siege of Corinth, General Leggett held advanced posts.

In the siege of Vicksburg, General Leggett commanded the first brigade

of Logan’s Division—the brigade which, for its gallant service, was

honored by being designated for the coveted distinction of marching

first into the captured works. Soon after, he received command of this

division, and was made Major-General, and with it, made with Sherman,

the famous “march to the sea.”

There are many young men who live to say—that the most genial,

beneficent, and valuable influence, exerted upon them during the

toilsome campaign, and the dangerous periods of idleness in camp-life,

was that of General Leggett, who ever inspired patience by his unfailing

good humor, persistent fidelity to temperance, both by precept and lofty

example. He made many a dreary march seem like a picnic excursion; and

his quick, fearless, yet sympathetic glance, often inspired the sinking

heart at the moment of danger. Beyond this, he was a true soldier, in

caring anxiously for the comfort of his soldiers, in enforcing rigid

discipline, and in stimulating officers and men to excel in drill and

all service.

At the close of the war, General Leggett became Superintendent and

Business Manager of the engine works at Zanesville and Newark, Ohio, the

largest establishment of the kind in the West, where he remained, till

he was called by the friend who remembered his brave services in the

peril of war,—to the administration of one of the most important

branches of the Government service in time of peace. He has already

inaugurated one of the most potent movements toward the encouragement of

the useful arts, ever made in this country—viz.: the publication in

popular form, and at low rates, of the Patent Office drawings and

specifications.

General Leggett has a clear red-and-white complexion, wide, open

laughing blue eyes, and an aspect of fresh health which amounts to

youth. His frame and brain are cast in herculean mould. He is a man of

muscle, as well as mind—the former having been toughened by long

geological foot-tramps through the mountains of Virginia, as well as by

the exposures of war, and of an all-time active life.

The official chair of General Leggett has not proved too much for his

better self, as it does for so many. He meets all who approach him with

a smile and kind word, apparently not forgetting that in a republic the

potentate of to-day may be the suppliant of to-morrow, and that at any

rate, but one man at a time can be a Commissioner of Patents. He brings

to his official administration and decisions the same untiring industry,

intelligence and integrity; the same broad views, clear insight and

devotion to duty, which in every previous sphere that he has filled have

made his whole life an honorable success.

With all its comprehensive cares, one side of the Commissioner’s

official life tends to jollity, good digestion, and long life. In no

other position in the world, probably, could a man discover how many

crazy people there are outside of the lunatic asylum. The born inventor

is always a dreamer. For the sake of his darling thought, he is willing

to sacrifice himself, his wife and children, every thing but the

“machine” growing in his brain and quickening under his eager hand. How

often they fail! How often the precious thought, developed into form, is

only a mistake—a failure.

Sometimes this is sad—quite as often it is funny. The procession which

started, far back in the ages, with its machine of “Perpetual Motion,”

long ago reached the doors of the American Patent Office. The persons

found in that procession are sometimes astonishing. A doctor of

divinity, well-known at the Capital, and not suspected of studying any

machinery but that of the moral law, appeared one day in the office of

the Commissioner.

“I know I’ve got it,” he said.

“What, sir?”

“PERPETUAL MOTION, sir. Look!” and he set down a little machine. “If the

floor were not in the way, if the earth were not in the way, that weight

would never stop, and my machine would go on forever. I know this is

original with me—that it never dawned before upon any other human mind.”

So enthusiastic was the doctor, it was with difficulty he could be

restrained from depositing his ten dollars and leaving his experiment to

be patented. The Commissioner, quietly, sent to the library for a book—a

history of attempts to create Perpetual Motion. Opening at a certain

page, he pointed out to the astonished would-be inventor, where his own

machine had been attempted and failed, more than a hundred years before.

The reverend doctor took the book home, read, digested, and meditated

thereon—to bring it back and lay it down before the Commissioner, in

silence. No one has ever heard him speak of Perpetual Motion since.

It would take a large volume, to record all the preposterous letters and

inventions received at this office. A very short time since, a man sent

a letter to the Patent Bureau describing a new process of embalming

which he had originated. It was accompanied by a dead baby—“the model”

which he requested should be placed in one of the glass cases of the

Exhibition Room. He considered himself deeply injured when his request

was refused.

A letter was recently received by the Commissioner of Patents, from a

man in Portsmouth, England, offering this Government the benefit of an

invention of his own for utilizing water-power, so as to force the water

to a great height when confined in reservoirs constructed for the

purpose. He offers the invention free of all charge, because, he states,

that it pains him to see “such mighty power as there is at the Niagara

wasted.” In addition, he offers his own services at the _low_ rate of

£1,000 per annum, to build and operate the invention. He says in his

letter, that “if the mighty great power in Niagara was accumulated, it

would move a great deal.” He also states that he “has a good plan for a

velocipede and a bicicle, that he thinks would be a good thing for this

country,” but admits that “people in England don’t like it.”

Referring again to his water-power, he claims that if this Government

would build the road, he can take ships across the isthmus of Panama “in

a box, water and all.”

The Commissioner recently received the following communication from the

Legation of the United States:

PARIS, Dec. 3, 1872.

“SIR:—A very large number of inventions and discoveries are submitted

to this Legation, with the request that we shall transmit them to

Washington. Most of them are, as you may suppose, worthless. We have

had, for instance, serious plans proposed for the extermination of all

the lions and tigers in the United States by the use of catmint, the

_modus operandi_ being to dig an immense pit, and fill it with this

herb. The well-known love of the feline race for catmint will

naturally induce the lions and tigers to jump into the pit and roll

themselves upon it; whereupon concealed hunters are to appear and

slaughter the ferocious animals.

“Another plan is for the destruction of grasshoppers upon the plains

by the use of artillery; it being perfectly well known that concussion

kills insects.

“A third is for the capture of a besieged city by the use of a bomb

which, upon exploding, shall emit so foul a smell that the besieged

will rush headlong from the walls, and fall an easy prey to the

besiegers.”

The President of the United States receives many letters of like

character, which are by him transmitted to the Bureau of Patents. I

append verbatim copies (including orthography) of three which represent

many thousands more of equal intelligence received at this Department of

the Government.

AUGUST 31st 1872

MR. U. S. GRANT Sir it is with pleasure I take this opportunity Of

writing to You I Am well at Present Hoping those few lines will find

you enjoying Good health And prosperity I am doing all I can for you

in this locality and I hope and expect you will be our next President

Of the United States I would like to have an Office of Siveliseing the

Indians What Salary will you give me per Annum please Write to me and

let me no in fact I am in need of A little money at present Will you

please send me 600 or 1000 dolors to —— —— Sumthing Aught to be done

for the poor Indean And I beleave that I can sivelise them. If you

will give me 200 or 300 per month it will doo.

MARCH 13 1873

HON. SIR PRESEDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA I announce to you

that I am inventing Perpetual Motion I have once had my paterns stolen

or I should had the machine in running order before this and I have

altered my plan so that it carrys a shaft and wheel and when

constructed on a large plan it will move machinery, And being on a new

plan and different from all others and I am sure of success which I

hope to place before the world soon. Though in consequence of poor

health and not having the means to work with it will take some months

longer to accomplish it I might write you the plan but I am not sure

that you will receive this And now I wish to ask a few questions which

I hope you will answer by writing as soon as you receive this

1st has there been a patent granted or applied for on perpetual motion

2nd has the Government a bounty offered to the inventor

3d when the Machine is in perfect running order and shure that it will

go without stoping will you and a man from the Patent Office come on

and grant me a patent and fetch me the bounty if there is one.

4th is there eney way that I can have time to get the machine

completed before others can apply for a Patent

Please write soon and address ——

MAY 1872

HON FRIEND—_Solicitor of Patents_ I have invented a secret form of

writing expressly for the use of our gov in time of warfare the

publick demands it, It is different from any other invention known to

the publick in this or any gov. It consists simply of the English

alphabet and can be changed to any form that the safety of our gov.

demands it no higherglyphicks are employed but it is practicable and

safe I propose to sell it to our gov for the sum of one million

dollars I will meet any committee appointed to investigate the matter.

If you will give me your influence in Congress and aid in bringing a

sale of the invention about to our gov or any other I will reward you

with the sum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) It is no illusion or a

whim of the brain but is what I represent it to be scientific

practicable and safe, Wishing to hear from you on the subject I remain

Yours most truly ——

CHAPTER XLII.

THE WAR DEPARTMENT.

The Secretary-of-War—His Duties—The Department of the Navy—Efficiency of

the Army—The Custody of the Flags—Patriotic Trophies—The War of the

Rebellion—Captured Flags—An Ugly Flag and a Strange Motto—“Crown for

the Brave”—_Sic Semper Tyrannis_—The Stars and Stripes—The Black

Flag—No Quarter—The Military Establishment—The Adjutant-General’s

Office—The Quartermaster-General’s Office—The Commissary-General’s

Office—The Paymaster-General—The Surveyor-General—The Engineer’s

Office—The Washington Aqueduct—Topographical Engineers—The Ordnance

Bureau—The War Department Building—During the War—Lincoln’s Solitary

Walk—Secretary Stanton—The Exigencies of War—The Medical History of

the War—Dr. Hammond—Dr. J. H. Baxter—Collecting Physiological

Data—The Inspection of Over Half a Million Persons—Who is Unfit for

Military Service—Various Nationalities Compared—Curious Calculations

Respecting Height, Health, and Color—Healthy Emigrants—Remarkable

Statistical Results—The Physical _Status_ of the Nation.

The first recorded legislation of importance upon the military affairs

of the nation, is the Act of Congress, of the twenty-seventh day of

January, 1785, entitled “An Ordinance for ascertaining the Powers and

Duties of the Secretary of War.”

By this Act the duties of the Secretary are defined; and amongst them is

a provision requiring him to visit, “at least once a year,” “all the

magazines and deposits of public stores, and report the state of them,

with proper arrangements, to Congress.”

Immediately after the confederation of the States, by the adoption of

the Constitution, this legislation was superseded by an Act of Congress,

approved on the seventh day of August, 1789, defining the duties of the

department, which was again modified by the fifth Congress, in the Act

of the thirtieth day of April, 1798, “To establish an Executive

Department, to be denominated the Department of the Navy.” Of the

efficiency of this department, and its services to the Republic, there

can be no better testimony than that which has been extorted from

history, in the following words: “The United States, from the peace of

Independence, in 1783, achieved by war, and merely acknowledged by

treaty, have always (?) lost by treaty, but never by war.”

This sentiment, which is not as true now of our relations with Great

Britain as in 1814, contains within it a compliment to the Department

which, with limited means, and encountering the natural jealousy of

civism, has so administered its scanty finances that the army has been

made not only a defence for the frontiers, but a recognized national

force, equal to the direst emergency, a nucleus around which, in any

peril, the strength and bravery of the Republic may safely rally.

By the Act of the fourteenth of April, 1814, the Secretaries of War and

of the Navy were placed in custody of the flags, trophies of war, etc.,

to deliver the same for presentation and display in such public places

as the President may deem proper. Although many trophies, which a

monarchical power would have jealously preserved, have been lost, or at

least detached from their proper resting-place, there are still enough

in both departments to stir the patriotic emotions of all who take the

trouble to inquire for them.

The war of the Rebellion greatly increased these trophies. The Rebel

flags taken in battle, and in surrender, and the Union flags,

re-captured from the Confederates, now occupy large apartments in two

buildings belonging to the War Department; and are all placed under the

supervision of the Adjutant-General. In “Winder’s Buildings” hundreds of

these flags are deposited, and many hundreds more in the

Adjutant-General’s office on Seventeenth street. The front and back

rooms on the lower floor of the latter house are exclusively devoted to

their preservation. A polite “orderly” is in waiting, with a

record-book, which gives the name and history of every flag in the

building. The front room is devoted to the Union colors which were

re-taken from the rebels. The back room is filled with Confederate flags

of every device and hue. Here is the first Confederate flag adopted—an

ugly rag, thirteen stars on a blue field, with white and red bars. Its

motto: “We will collect our own revenues. We choose our own

institutions.”

The colors of the Benjamin Infantry, organized April 24, 1861, bear the

inscriptions: “Crown for the brave.” “Strike for your altars and your

fires.”

An Alabama flag, of white bunting, with broad cross-bars of blue, sewed

on by women’s hands, is inscribed: “Our Homes, our Rights, we entrust to

your keeping, brave Sons of Alabama.”

“_Sic Semper Tyrannis_,” says a tattered banner of fine silk, presented

in the first flush of rebellion-fever, with the confidence of assured

victory, “by the ladies of Norfolk, to the N. L. A. Blues.” Again, says

Virginia: “Our Rights we will maintain.” “Death to Invaders covered with

blood.” “Death or Victory,” cries the Zachary Rangers—and again:

“Tyranny is hateful to the gods.”

[Illustration:

BLOOD-STAINED CONFEDERATE BATTLE FLAGS, CAPTURED DURING THE WAR.

Sketched by permission of the Government from the large collection in

possession of the War Department, at Washington.

1. Black Flag. 4. State and Regiment unknown. [Captured at the

Battle of Gettysburg, by the 60th Regiment of

New York Volunteers]

2. Alabama Flag.

3. Palmetto Flag. 5. State Colors of North Carolina.

]

With the exception of the State colors, the Union flags bear fewer

mottoes. Many are fashioned of the finest fabrics, touched with the most

exquisite tints. They need no florid and sensational sentence. Enough,

that they bear the potent and silent stars of indissoluble union:

“When Freedom, from her mountain height,

Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there;

She mingled with the gorgeous dyes

The milky baldrick of the skies,

And striped its pure celestial white

With streakings of the morning light;

Then, from his mansion in the sun,

She called her eagle-bearer down,

And gave into his mighty hand,

The symbols of her chosen land.”

Beside this Flag of the Republic, the Black Flag, borne at Winchester,

with its hideous yellow stripe, and hellish sentence, “No Quarter,”

needs no comment. From floor to nave, they droop everywhere, faded,

tattered, bullet-riddled, the flags of Freedom, and the ensigns of

Slavery, defiant, yet doomed. On one side of the apartment, cases,

divided into minute boxes, rise to the ceiling. Each one is large enough

to take a flag tightly rolled. Over all hangs a curtain; and here these

rags, which have outlasted the wasting march, the sore defeat, wait to

tell their story in silence to coming generations.

The War Department is now divided into the following Bureaus:

Secretary’s Office: The Secretary of War is charged, under the direction

of the President, with the general control of the military

establishment, and the execution of the laws relating thereto. The

functions of the several Bureaus are performed under his supervision and

authority. In the duties of his immediate office he is assisted by a

chief clerk, claims-and-disbursing clerk, requisition-clerk,

registering-clerk, and three recording-clerks.

The Adjutant-General’s Office is the medium of communication to the army

of all general and special orders of the Secretary-of-War relating to

matters of military detail. The rolls of the army, and the records of

service are kept, and all military commissions prepared in this office.

The Quartermaster-General’s Office has charge of all matters pertaining

to barracks and quarters for the troops, transportation, camp and

garrison-equipage, clothing, fuel, forage, and the incidental expenses

of the military establishment.

The Commissary-General’s Office has charge of all matters relating to

the procurement and issue of subsistence-stores in the army.

The Paymaster-General’s Office has the general direction of matters

relating to the pay of the army.

The Surgeon-General’s Office has charge of all matters relating to the

medical and hospital service.

The Engineer’s Office, at the head of which is the Chief Engineer of the

army, has charge of all matters relating to the construction of the

fortifications, and to the Military Academy. At present, the Washington

Aqueduct is being built under its direction. The Bureau of Topographical

Engineers, at the head of which is the Chief of the Corps, has charge of

all matters relating to river and harbor improvements, the survey of the

lakes, the construction of military works, and generally of all military

surveys.

The Ordnance Bureau, at the head of which is the chief of ordnance, has

charge of all matters relating to the manufacture, purchase, storage,

and issue of all ordnance, arms, and munitions of war. The management of

the arsenals and armories is conducted under its orders.

The present building, still used for the War Department, is utterly

inadequate to its necessities. Already its Bureaus are scattered in

several transient resting-places. In a few years they will be again

concentrated in the magnificent structure now going up, for the combined

use of the State, War and Navy Departments.

With the present War Department building will be obliterated one of the

oldest land-marks of the Capital. All through the war of the Rebellion,

it seemed to be the temple of the people, to which the whole nation came

up, as they did to the temple at Jerusalem. What fates hung upon the

fiats which issued from its walls! Hither came mother, wife, and

daughter, to seek their dead, and to supplicate the furlough for their

living soldier. What times those were, when the very life of the nation

seemed suspended upon the will of the great War Secretary. I cannot look

at the trees which arch the avenue between the War Department and the

President’s house, without thinking of those days when Lincoln took his

solitary walk to and fro to consult with Stanton, his step slow, his

eyes sad, over-weighted with responsibility and sorrow. And going down

Seventeenth street, who that ever saw him can fail to recall the image

of Stanton as he paced up and down before the door of the War Department

for his half-hour’s exercise, when he held himself a prisoner within its

walls.

All will soon be gone—the old familiar places as well as the old

familiar faces. The grating of the trowel, cementing stone on stone, the

ceaseless click of the hammer foretell how speedily the august stone

structure, with graceful monoliths and turreted roof stretching over the

vast square, will take the place of the old War Department.

The exigencies of war not only augmented the business of the War

Department to gigantic proportions, but they created important Bureaus

which have survived to flourish in times of peace; of these, none are so

interesting, both to scientists and to citizens, as those connected with

the medical history of the war. It may not be universally known to the

public, but the medical profession has long been aware that the immense

collection of cases and treatment, recorded in the field and hospital

experiences of the late war, was being examined, condensed, tabulated,

and the valuable conclusion, deducible therefrom, prepared for

publication, under the direction of the Surgeon General of the army.

During the past few years “circulars” or detached portions of the work,

of special interest, have been issued, and this spring two quarto

volumes, being the first parts of the first two volumes of the entire

work, have been given to the world.

[Illustration: THE NEW BUILDING NOW BEING CONSTRUCTED FOR DEPARTMENTS OF

STATE, ARMY, AND NAVY.—WASHINGTON.]

Part I. of Volume I. is devoted to _medical_ history, and has been

compiled by Dr. Woodward, an assistant-surgeon of the army. This is a

volume of eleven hundred pages, and is divided into two parts and an

appendix. The parts give the statistics of disease and death,

respectively, of white and colored troops. The appendix consists of

reports and statements of medical officers and their superiors.

Part I. of Volume II. commences the _surgical_ history, and is the work

of Dr. Otis, also an assistant-surgeon of the army, and well known as

the curator of the Army Medical Museum. It contains nearly eight hundred

pages, and is illustrated by numerous photo-lithographs of gunshot

wounds, stumps of amputated limbs, and various other injuries of the

human body—all evidences of the cruelties of war.

The merit of the conception of this vast undertaking, is due to the

former Surgeon-General, Dr. Hammond, now the distinguished physician of

New York city.

In 1862 he devised the form and routine for copious and precise returns

of hospital treatment, and under his energetic supervision, Dr. Brinton

of the volunteer corps, and Doctors Woodward and Otis, commenced the

“Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.”

The work was ably continued by Dr. Barnes, the former Surgeon-General,

and the result of all these labors is, so far, seen in the two volumes

described, for the publication of which an appropriation was made by

Congress in June, 1868. It is supposed that the entire work will reach

six, and perhaps eight, such parts, and it certainly will be, when

completed, a noble evidence of the liberality with which the Government

provided for its sick and wounded soldiers, who fought for its

preservation, and of the patriotism of the men who suffered in

supporting such Government.

Brevet Major-General Joseph K. Barnes, Surgeon-General of the United

States Army, was born in Pennsylvania, and appointed Assistant-Surgeon

United States Army from that State, June, 1840, and stationed at the

United States Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., until November of

that year. He served in the Florida war against the Seminole Indians to

1842; at Fort Jesup, La., to 1846; in the war with Mexico to 1848; at

Baton Rouge, La., and in Texas the same year, at Baltimore, Md., to

1851; in Missouri, to 1854; again at the United States Military Academy,

West Point, N. Y., to 1857; in California and at Fort Vancouver, W. T.,

to 1861; at the head-quarters of General Hunter, Western Department and

Department of Kansas to 1862.

He was promoted to be surgeon in the United States Army, August, 1856;

Lieutenant Colonel and Medical Inspector, February, 1863; Colonel and

Medical Inspector-General, August, 1863; and was assigned duty as

Acting-Surgeon-General, United States Army, in the same month; appointed

Brigadier-General and Surgeon-General, United States Army, August, 1864;

Brevetted Major-General, United States Army, for faithful and

meritorious services during the war.

Another medical report, perhaps equal in value to the Surgeon General’s,

has issued from the medical branch of the Provost-Marshal-General’s

Bureau, under the supervision of Dr. J. H. Baxter.

Dr. Jedediah H. Baxter, Lieutenant-Colonel and Chief Medical-Purveyor,

United States Army, was born in Strafford, Orange County, Vt., May 11,

1837. He was graduated at the University of Vermont, both in the

academical and medical departments, and in 1860 served as assistant

professor of anatomy and surgery in that University. He was house

surgeon in “Bellevue Hospital” at the “Seamen’s Retreat,” Staten Island,

and on “Blackwell’s Island.”

He entered the Twelfth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers in April,

1861, was commissioned assistant-surgeon of the Regiment, May 13, 1861,

and promoted to be surgeon, June 19, 1861. Served as post surgeon at

Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, until July 26, 1861, when, with his

regiment, he was mustered into the United States service and ordered to

join the forces then forming under Gen. N. P. Banks at Sandy Hook, Md.,

opposite Harper’s Ferry. He was Acting-Brigade-Surgeon, until April 4,

1862, when, promoted to Brigade-Surgeon of Volunteers, he was ordered to

report for duty to Gen. Geo. B. McClellan, and served on the staff of

that officer during the Peninsular campaign, as Medical Director of

Field-Hospitals and the transportation of sick and wounded of the Army

of the Potomac.

Disabled from field service by the “peninsular fever,” he was ordered to

hospital duty in Washington, D. C., August 1, 1862, and was in charge of

Judiciary Square United States General Hospital until September, 1862,

when he was ordered to superintend the building of Campbell United

States General Hospital, Washington, D. C., of which Hospital, when

completed, he was placed in charge, where he remained until January 5,

1864, when he was relieved and ordered to report for special duty to the

Provost-Marshal-General of the United States, who assigned him to duty

as “Chief Medical Officer of the Provost-Marshal-General’s Bureau.” In

this capacity he served, having the management of all medical matters

pertaining to the recruitment of the army, until the close of the war,

having been Brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel of the United States Volunteers

in March, 1865, and Colonel of the United States Volunteers in January,

1866.

When the Provost-Marshal-General’s Bureau was abolished, he was placed

on special duty by an Act of Congress, in preparing a report of the

medical statistics of the Provost-Marshal-General’s Bureau. On July 20,

1866, he was commissioned Assistant-Medical-Purveyor, United States

Army, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and was Brevetted Colonel “for

faithful and meritorious services during the war.” He was promoted to

the position of Chief Medical Purveyor of the United States Army, March

12, 1872, in which position he has supervision of the purchase and

distribution of all hospital and medical supplies required for the use

of the army.

On being called to the charge of the medical branch of the

Provost-Marshal-General’s Bureau, Dr. Baxter soon perceived that, in the

several Acts of Congress devolving upon the Provost-Marshal-General the

duty of recruiting by voluntary enlistment, conscription and

substitution, the vast armies called out to suppress the rebellion, lay

the means of obtaining such a view of the physical state and military

capacity of the nation as had never before and might never again be

obtained. After an examination of such material as had already

accumulated under the limited operation of the draft and recruiting

Acts, he prepared and issued to the surgeons of the enrolling boards, in

the several congressional districts, blank forms and instructions

designed to afford the means of tabulating from the reports of

individual examinations of recruits, drafted men and substitutes, the

statistics illustrating the relations between disease and nativity,

residence, age, complexion, height, and size, social condition and

occupation in the sex on which the principal physical burdens of life

fall.

The accumulating records of the medical department of the army could be

utilized for the benefit of military surgery and hygiene by showing the

varying facts of disease and wounds among soldiers, and the records of

pension applications and the regularly recurring examinations of invalid

pensioners would give the results of non-fatal wounds and disease upon

the disabled soldier returned to civil life. But Dr. Baxter saw that a

separate and important field of study and action was left to his own

bureau, if its current records could be reduced to a system of fulness,

accuracy and uniformity. This was successfully done, and the results

will soon be before the public. From advance sheets of the volume, many

interesting facts have been drawn for this article. The work is based on

the reports made of the medical inspection of about 605,000 persons

subject to draft, and minuter descriptions of the fuller examination of

508,735 recruits, substitutes and drafted men.

Of the whole number examined, a little over 257 in each thousand were

found unfit for military service. The largest number found disqualified

through any specific class of diseases were those affected by diseases

of the digestive organs, the ratio of unfitness to the whole number

examined being a little more than sixty in a thousand. Fifty nativities

are embraced in the report, the ratio of unfitness in each thousand

being, for American whites, 323; American colored, 225; Canadians, 258;

Irish, 337; Germans, 400; Scandinavians, 294; English, 325; and Scotch,

308.

From these ratios it will be seen that the Negroes, Canadians and

Scandinavians were the healthiest, and the Germans and Irish the

unhealthiest. The relative position assigned to the negro by these

figures is not in accord with the general opinion upon the subject, but

the healthiness of unskilled occupations and his simple method of life

in the South accounts for the fact. The report also shows that a larger

proportion of civilians are fit for military duty in this country than

in Great Britain or France, and probably Germany, though the figures to

prove the proposition in the latter case are not at hand.

Of the recruits, conscripts and substitutes under twenty years of age,

the ratio of rejection and exemption was 268 in the thousand, including

those too young for service; between twenty and twenty-five years, the

ratio was 245; between twenty-five and thirty, the ratio was 330; it was

411 between thirty and thirty-five; between thirty-five and forty it was

462, and over forty years it was 607 in a thousand, including all

rejected for dotage.

This table bears out the common experience that infirmities grow with

age. Of the native whites, 663 in a thousand were of light complexion;

of Canadians, 661 in a thousand; of English, 705; of Irish, 702; and of

German, 694—indicating, by the lower ratio of fair complexion, a greater

admixture of races in this country than in the parent countries. Of

persons of light complexion, 385 in the thousand were unfit for service,

while the dark complexions show the healthier ratio of 332 in each

thousand. The average height of Americans is found to be 5 feet 7½

inches, of Canadians 5.5, 5.1, of Irish and Germans 5.5, 5.4, of

Scandinavians and English 5.6, 0, and of French one-fifth of an inch

lower than the last named. All under five feet were rejected or

exempted, as the case might be; and the rejections under 5 feet 1 inch

were 582 in the thousand, between 5.1 and 5.3 they were 443, between 5.3

and 5.5 they were 322, between 5.5 and 5.7 they were 303, between 5.7

and 5.9 they were 313, between 5.9 and 5.11 they were 326, between 5.11

and 6.1 they were 350, and they were 358 in all over 6 feet 1 inch. The

healthiest persons were those of the average height of 5 feet 7 inches.

The chest measurements, at moment of respiration, averaged 33.11 inches

for Americans, 32.84 for Irish, 33.56 for Germans, 33.01 for Canadians

and 32.93 for English. The detailed statistics of height and size bear

out the statement that, as a rule, only healthy foreigners migrate from

the Old to the New World and healthy natives from the old to the new

States; both conclusions are quite reasonable, when the anticipated and

real hardships of migration are considered.

Considering the figures relating to occupation, it is found that the

ratio of unfitness for army life was 409 in a thousand among persons

engaged in in-door pursuits, and only 349 in a thousand, in persons of

out-door callings.

Taken by trades and professions, it appears that of journalists 740 in a

thousand were disqualified, physicians 670, clergymen and preachers 654,

dentists 549, lawyers 544, tailors 473, teachers 455, photographers 451,

mercantile clerks 416, painters 392, carpenters 383, stone-cutters 376,

shoe-makers 362, laborers 358, farmers 350, printers 335, tanners 216,

iron-workers 189. The average ratio of disability among professional men

was 520 in a thousand, merchants 480, artisans 484, and unskilled

laborers 348 only.

The journalists, doctors and clergymen were the unhealthiest

professional men, and teachers and musicians the healthiest. Brokers

were the unhealthiest of the mercantile class, and shop-keepers and

peddlers the healthiest. Iron and leather-workers were the healthiest of

the artisans; in the first occupation, partly, because only robust men

can follow it. Paper-makers, tailors and upholsterers appear to have

been the unhealthiest trades. Of unskilled occupations, so-called, for

the purposes of this work, miners and mariners were the healthiest, and

watchmen, bar-keepers and fishermen the unhealthiest. Explanation is

found in the case of watchmen, in the number of old and broken-down men

following that vocation. The ratio of single men found disqualified was

393 in a thousand, and of married men 447 in a thousand; the difference,

however, being no argument against marriage, as the latter class

embraces a larger proportion of men beyond middle age.

Congress has provided liberally for the publication of Dr. Baxter’s

medical statistics of drafts and recruitments, and the volume will

contain shaded maps and diagrams, to aid in exhibiting and contrasting

the results of his unique studies of the physical status of the nation.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM—ITS CURIOSITIES AND WONDERS.

Ford’s Theatre—Its Interesting Memories—The Last

Festivities—Assassination of President Lincoln—Two Years

Later—Effects of “War, Disease, and Human Skill”—Collection of

Pathological Specimens—The Army Medical Museum Opened—Purchase of

Ford’s Theatre—Its Present Aspect—Ghastly Specimens—Medical and

Surgical Histories of the War—The Library—A Book Four Centuries

Old—Rare Old Volumes—The Most Interesting of the National

Institutions—Various Opinions—Effects on Visitors—An Extraordinary

Withered Arm—A Dried Sioux Baby!—Its Poor Little Nose—A Well-dressed

Child—Its Buttons and Beads—Casts of Soldier-Martyrs—Making a New

Nose—Vassear’s Mounted Craniums—Model Skeletons—A Giant, Seven Feet

High—Skeleton of a Child—All that Remains of Wilkes Booth, the

Assassin—Fractures by Shot and Shell—General Sickles Contributes His

Quota—A Case of Skulls—Arrow-head Wounds—Nine Savage

Sabre-Cuts—Seven Bullets in One Head—Phenomenal Skulls—A Powerful

Nose—An Attempted Suicide—A Proverb Corrected—Specimen from the

Paris Catacombs—An “Interesting Case”—Typical Heads of the Human

Race—Remarkable Indian Relics—“Flatheads”—The Work of Indian

Arrows—An Extraordinary Story—A “Pet” Curiosity—A Japanese

Manikin—Tattooed Heads—Representatives of Animated Nature—Adventure

of Captain John Smith—A “Stingaree”—The Microscopical

Division—Medical Records of the War—Preparing Specimens.

The building in which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated will always

retain a deep and sad interest in the mind of the American people. It

was well that it should be consecrated to a national purpose. None could

be more fit than to make it the repository of the Pathological and

Surgical results of the war.

From the dark hour of the great martyr’s death, the light and music of

amusement never again animated these dark halls. But in two years from

the day of the tragedy, its doors were opened to the people, to come in

and behold what war, disease, death, and human skill had wrought.

In obedience to an order from the War Department, issued in 1862,

thousands of pathological specimens had accumulated in the office of the

Surgeon-General. An ample and fit receptacle was needed for their proper

care and display. And April 13, 1867, the old Ford Theatre, on Tenth

street, between E and F, was opened as the Army Medical Museum.

Congress had already purchased the building of Mr. Ford, and used it for

a time as the receptacle for the captured archives of the Confederate

Government. Before it was opened as the Army Museum, its interior had

been entirely remodeled, retaining nothing of the original building but

the outside walls. It has been made fire-proof, and is exclusively

devoted to the uses of the Museum. The third story is the Museum hall,

lined on its four sides with pictures and glass cases filled with

ghastly specimens, beside many more in the interior of the room.

Over a square railing, in the centre of the hall, you look down upon the

second story, and through that to the first. The lower floor is filled

with busy clerks, sitting at tables, writing out the medical and

surgical histories of the war.

[Illustration:

THE MAIN HALL OF THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM.—WASHINGTON.

This Museum occupies the scene of the assassination of President

Lincoln, in Ford’s Theatre, which after that date became the

property of the Government. It contains a collection of upwards of

twenty thousand rare, curious and interesting objects, surpassing

any similar collection in the world. It is visited annually by

upwards of twenty-five thousand persons.

]

The second floor, which is reached by light spiral stairs from the

first, is largely devoted to the very valuable Medical and Surgical

Library, which has been collected since the opening of the Museum. It

now numbers thirty-eight thousand volumes, some of which are rare books

of extreme value. One of these was among the earliest of printed

volumes. The art of printing was first used to give to the world

religious and medical books. This treasure of the Medical Museum was

published at Venice, in 1480, and is the work of Petrus de Argelata. It

is bound and illuminated in vellum. Another choice book, is a copy of

Galen, which once belonged to the Dutch anatomist, Vierodt, and

copiously annotated by him. These, and many other valuable books, have

been bought by the agents of the Museum, abroad, while many others have

been received as contributions from physicians, and scientific societies

interested in the growth of this national institution.

Louis Bagger, in a late number of _Appleton’s Journal_, speaks of the

Army Medical Museum as one of the most interesting, but least visited,

of all the national institutions in Washington. It cannot fail to be one

of the most absorbing spots on earth to the student of surgery or

medicine; but to the unscientific mind, especially to one still aching

with the memories of war, it must ever remain a museum of horrors. Its

many bones, which never ached, and which have survived their painful

sheaths of mortal flesh, all cool and clean, and rehung on golden

threads, are not unpleasant to behold. But those faces in frames, eaten

by cancer or lost in tumors, which you look up to as you enter, are

horrible enough to haunt one forever (if you are not scientific) with

the thought of what human flesh is heir to.

No! the Museum is a very interesting, but can never be a popular place

to visit. I doubt if a sight at the Sioux pappoose, and a bit of John

Wilkes Booth’s spinal marrow, or a piece of General Sickles’ leg, will

be sufficient compensation to the average unscientific mind, to go twice

to look at those terrible tumors and elephantiasis in gilt frames and

glass jars. It is enough to make one feel as if the like were starting

out all over you. But that’s because you are not scientific.

The first “specimen” which confronts you on entering is a withered human

arm, with contracted hand and clinched fingers, mounted on wires in a

glass case on the window-ledge. The sharp bone protrudes where it was

shot off near the shoulder joint; every muscle is defined; the skin

looks like tanned leather. It is not pleasant to look at. A thrilling

story has been printed about this arm. I am sorry it is not wholly true.

The one I have to tell will not please you as well, for it is not nearly

as exciting.

We were told that the shock of the cannon-shot, which took off this arm,

carried it up into a high tree, where, a year or two after, its owner, a

Gettysburg hero, revisiting the battle-field, discovered his lost member

lodged in the branches, brought it down and bore it hither as a trophy.

The soldier _did_ find his arm (I am telling the true story); but he

found it in a corn-field. By what mark he knew it I am not informed, but

he declared it to be his arm and brought it to the Museum as a

first-class “sensational specimen.”

In the next window we find another one—the Sioux baby. Poor little baby!

It is not a Modoc—though not much better—it did not live to slay our

brethren, so we are sorry as we look at it—for its once black locks are

bleached red, and its nose is gone. It was found in a tree near Fort

Laramie. I have seen Sioux babies alive upon their native soil, and can

testify from personal observation that this little pappoose-mummy is

extraordinarily well dressed. Hannah of old did not sew more buttons on

the coat of her little Samuel in the Temple, than this poor savage

mother did on the plains of Wyoming. It is of blue flannel, profusely

ornamented with round tin buttons, and many beads on its broad collar.

On its neck it wears a string of white delf beads, and there is

something cunning and dainty in the tiny embroidered moccasins upon its

feet. In a case there is another pappoose still less agreeable to

contemplate. It is a little Flat-head Indian. Its head is so very flat

no doubt it died in the process of compression. This melancholy child

also wears a white necklace, and was found _buried_ in a tree.

Passing on, we are arrested by a table surrounded on its outer edge by

plaster casts of soldiers who have undergone famous and difficult

surgical operations. It is gratifying to know that, if you lose your

nose by some other collision beside that of a cannon ball, you can have

a new one set on made out of your cheek. The new nose will grow to the

root of the old one, and the hole in your cheek will fill up and the

scar heal. To be sure it will hurt you frightfully; but you _can_ have a

new nose made, and you yourself supply the material. If you don’t

believe it, come to the Army Medical Museum and see! Here is the head of

the poor fellow with his nose shot off—and here is another with the new

nose grown on.

In the centre of the table are some of Vassear’s mounted craniums,

purchased for the museum by order of the Surgeon-General. These

craniums, with the skeletons in the cases, are mounted after Blanchêne’s

method, which allows every portion to be taken apart and put together

again. This cranium on the table is as white as crystal; it is mounted

on gold, and tiny blue and crimson threads of silk trace from chin to

head-top the entire nerve system. It is a work of exquisite art as well

as of science, and in no sense repulsive. The glass cases just in the

rear contain skeletons mounted by the same method. One is the skeleton

of a giant, in life seven feet high, prepared by Auzoax and mounted by

Blanchêne’s method. It is as white as snow, and its brass or gold joints

(we will call them gold) are bright and flexile. Another, of a child of

some six years, shows the entire double sets of first and second teeth.

The first, not one tooth gone, and above, in the jaw, the entire row of

second teeth ready to push the first ones out.

Amid the thousands of mounted specimens in glass cases, which reveal the

freaks of bullets and cannon-shot, we come to one which would scarcely

arrest the attention of a casual observer. It is simply three human

vertebræ mounted on a stand and numbered 4,086. Beside it hangs a glass

phial, marked 4,087, filled with alcohol, in which floats a nebulæ of

white matter. The official catalogue contains the following records of

these apparently uninteresting specimens:

“No. 4,086.—The third, fourth and fifth cervical vertebræ. A conoidal

carbine ball entered the right side, comminuting the base of the right

lamina of the fourth vertebræ, fracturing it longitudinally and

separating it from the spinous process, at the same time fracturing

the fifth through its pedicles, and involving that transverse process.

The missile passed directly through the canal, with a slight

inclination downward and to the rear, emerging through the left bases

of the fourth and fifth laminæ, which are comminuted, and from which

fragments were embedded in the muscles of the neck. The bullet, in its

course, avoided the large cervical vessels. From a case where death

occurred in a few hours after injury, April 26, 1865.”

“No. 4,087.—A portion of the spinal-cord from the cervical region,

transversely perforated from right to left by a carbine-bullet, which

fractured the laminæ of the fourth and fifth vertebræ. The cord is

much torn and is discolored by blood. From a case where death occurred

a few hours after injury, April 26, 1865.”

Such are the colorless scientific records of the death wounds of John

Wilkes Booth. All that remains of him above the grave finds its

perpetual place a few feet above the spot where he shot down his

illustrious victim.

It has been recorded elsewhere that the fatal wounds of Wilkes Booth and

his victim were strikingly alike. “The balls entered the skull of each

at nearly the same spot, but the trifling difference made an

immeasurable difference in the sufferings of the two. Mr. Lincoln was

unconscious of all pain, while his assassin suffered as exquisite agony

as if he had been broken on a wheel.”

In the surgical division which contains the above specimens we find

illustrations from living and dead subjects of almost every conceivable

fracture by shot and shell.

On a black stand, bearing the number 1,335, we see a strong white bone

shattered in the middle. The official statement concerning it is: “The

right tibia and fibula comminuted in three shafts by a round shell.

Major-General D. E. S., United States Volunteers, Gettysburg, July 2,

amputated in the lower third of the thigh by Surgeon T. Sim, United

States Volunteers, on the field. Stump healed rapidly, and subject was

able to ride in carriage July 16; completely healed, so that he mounted

his horse, in September, 1863. Contributed by the subject”—who is

General Daniel E. Sickles.

One of the cases in this division is filled with skulls which show

gunshot wounds from arrow-heads and thrusts from tomahawks and sabres.

One of the latter, No. 970, shows nine savage sabre cuts. It is the

skull of an Araucanian Indian, killed by Chilian troops. Near it is the

skull of another Indian, riddled by six or seven bullet-shots received

from American troops or trappers.

The Museum contains eight craniums, which illustrate the wonderful fact

of an unbroken external skull, while the vitreous table is perforated or

dented. One of these shows slight discoloration on the outside of the

head without fracture or depression, while inside, the bone is broken.

The seven other specimens illustrate the same phenomena. In this case we

see craniums in which bullets are imbedded and broken. We see one where

a conical bullet split in two in entering the head at the temple, one

half going inside, caused instant death, while the other half struck the

face outside. Here we see a minié-bullet split on the bones of the nose.

Another case is of an attempted suicide—who died a natural death. He

fired a pistol in his mouth, whose bullet passed through the jugular

vein, but not through the head. It stopped short, embedded in the bone,

where it remained as a stopper to the blood from the perforated artery,

and the man who tried to kill himself, lived seventeen years to be sorry

for doing so.

[Illustration:

A WITHERED ARM

Skin, flesh and bones complete. Amputated by a cannon shot on the

battle field of Gettysburg. The shot carried the severed limb up

into the high branches of a tree, where it was subsequently found

completely air and sun dried.

]

[Illustration:

All that remains Above Ground of

JOHN WILKES BOOTH.

Being part of the Vertebræ penetrated [A] by the bullet of Boston

Corbett. Strange freak of fate that these remains of Booth should

find a resting place under the same roof, and but a few feet from

the spot where the fatal shot was fired.

]

[Illustration:

A SIOUX PAPPOOSE

Or Indian infant, found in a tree near Fort Laramie, where it had

been buried (?) according to the custom of the tribe.

]

[Illustration: