[Facsimile] Winfield Scott Lieut Genl U. S. WINFIELD SCOTT was born at Petersburg, Virginia, June 13th, 1786; received a liberal education; was admitted to the bar and practiced a few years; entered the army in 1808 as a captain of light artillery; commanded on the northern frontier and won the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane in 1814; defeated Black Hawk in 1812; commanded in the Mexican campaign, which resulted in the capture of the City of Mexico in September, 1847; was defeated as the Whig candidate for President in 1852; was commissioned as Lieutenant-General in 1855, and died at New York, May 29th, 1866.
CHAPTER XLI. MISS LANE IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
After the election of Mr. Buchanan, his home at Lancaster, "Wheatland," was a political Mecca, to which leading Democrats from all sections made pilgrimages. Mr. Buchanan, who was experienced in public affairs, appointed his nephew, Mr. J. Buchanan Henry, a well-informed young gentleman, recently admitted to the Philadelphia bar, as his private secretary, and made him indorse brief statements of their contents on each of the numerous letters of recommendation for office which he received.
A few weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Buchanan visited Washington, that he might confer with his leading political friends. He entertained a large party of them at dinner at the National Hotel, after which nearly all of those present suffered from the effects of poison taken into their systems from an impure water supply, and some of them never recovered.
Mr. Buchanan was accompanied, when he left his home to be inaugurated, by Miss Harriet Lane, his niece, a graceful blonde with auburn hair and violet eyes, who had passed a season in London when her uncle was the American Minister there, and who was as discreet as she was handsome, amiable, and agreeable. With her, to aid in keeping house in the Executive Mansion, was "Miss Hetty" Parker, who had for years presided over Mr. Buchanan's bachelor's-hall, and his private secretary, Mr. J. Buchanan Henry.
On his arrival at Washington, Mr. Buchanan was taken to a suite of rooms prepared for him at the National Hotel, but he soon after went to the house of Mr. W. W. Corcoran, the generous founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, where he remained until his inauguration. On the morning after his arrival, the National Intelligencer gave the following as the probable composition of his Cabinet: Secretary of State, Lewis Cass, of Michigan; Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb, of Georgia; Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, of Virginia; Secretary of the Navy, Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee; Secretary of the Interior, J. Thompson, of Mississippi; Postmaster-General, J. Glancy Jones, of Pennsylvania; Attorney-General, Isaac Toucey, of Connecticut. It was also said that Mr. Jones had declined, and that the position of Postmaster-General had been tendered to W. C. Alexander, of New Jersey. This programme, arranged by Mr. Buchanan before he had left his home, was but slightly changed. Mr. Toucey was made Secretary of the Navy, Aaron V. Brown, Postmaster-General, and Jere Black was brought in as Attorney-General. But these carefully made arrangements failed to beget confidence. Republicans were defiant, as were men of the dominant party, and everywhere there were apprehensions.
The inaugural message had been written at Wheatland, where Mr. J. Buchanan Henry had copied Mr. Buchanan's drafts and re-copied them with alterations and amendments, until the document was satisfactory. It met the approval of the selected Cabinet when read to them at Washington, the only change being the insertion of a clause shadowing the forthcoming Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court as one that would dispose of a vexed and troublesome topic by the highest authority.
It was also arranged that Mr. Buchanan's friend, Mr. John Appleton, who had represented the Portland district in Congress, and had served as Minister to Bolivia and as Secretary of Legation at Paris, should edit the Washington Union, which was to be the "organ" of the new Administration. Mr. Appleton's salary, with the other expenses of the paper above its receipts, were to be paid by Mr. Cornelius Wendell, as a consideration for the printing and binding for the Executive Departments.
Major Heiss, who had made sixty thousand dollars on the public printing, and then lost forty thousand dollars in publishing the New Orleans Delta, established a paper called The States, which was to be the organ of the filibusters and the secessionists. He was aided by Major Harris, a son-in-law of General Armstrong, who had made his fortune while Senate Printer, other parties doing the work for about half of what was paid for it. Mr. Henri Watterson, who had been born at Washington, while his father represented a Tennessee district in the House, commenced his brilliant editorial career as a reporter on The States.
At midnight on the third of March, the fine band of P. S. Gilmore, which had accompanied the Charlestown City Guard to Washington, formed in front of Mr. Corcoran's house, beneath the windows of the chamber occupied by Mr. Buchanan, and played "Hail to the Chief," followed by the "Star Spangled Banner" and "Hail Columbia." The city was filled that night with strangers, many of whom could not find sleeping-places. Every hotel was crammed, every boarding- house was crowded, private houses were full, and even the circus tent was turned into a dormitory at fifty cents a head.