Standing beside the statue, or seated upon the rustic bench close by, a view may be obtained which the visitor who has leisure may enjoy for an indefinite time. The city lies not far below. The eye can cover it all at one gaze. The dome of the capitol stands high above every other object—except that shaft of marble which bids fair to soon become the Washington monument—and far beyond is the broad Potomac, whose course is in the direction of view, and carries the eye on and on until objects become indistinct. Perhaps an officer close by may be observed lazily reclining upon the grass, while a soldier stands near him waving in various directions a white flag with a square block of color in the center. Presently the officer takes a small telescope from the earth beside him, and leveling it in a direction west of the city, looks steadily for a minute or two, lowers the glass and apparently writes down the result of his observation in a memorandum book. Looking in the same direction as did the officer the sight will be just strong enough to discern a flag-staff upon the top of the hills on the other side of the Potomac, perhaps five or six miles away. Curiosity may be gratified by a few questions, and from the answers it will be learned that the flag-staff marks the spot known as Fort Meyer, Virginia, the station of the United States signal corps, and the operation just witnessed was simply a practice lesson in transmitting a message by the use of the small flag, the motions of which to right, to left, to front, or by circle, indicated the letters or words of the message. A practice day upon this spot, by the signal men, is a diversion for many an old soldier whose monotonous life is greatly relieved even by a pantomime. A little east of south from the statue, about 400 yards distant, is Barnes’ Hospital, named for General Joseph K. Barnes, deceased, late surgeon-general of the army, who was the senior officer of the commissioners of the Home, when the hospital was built nearly eight years ago. It is a model hospital in every respect, and has received unqualified approval from the foremost medical men of Europe, as well as of America. It is full of patients all the time. It was intended to accommodate sixty, but the average number is about eighty. Some are ailing, some are waiting, some of sight or limb are wanting, all are forever done with the fullness of physical life, and the surgeon looks upon them as his children, whose every want he must attend. Three hundred yards farther south is the portion of the grounds known as “Harewood,” an estate of 191 acres added to the Home by purchase in 1872. A good portion of it is woods, through which are beautiful drives winding into labyrinths for one unaccustomed to them, for at three different points a stranger will be bewildered by following a well-worn track which returns upon itself, and may be traversed many times before some objects begin to have a familiar look. One of these places is bounded by a drive which is as irregular as would be the loop of a lasso thrown from the hand and permitted to drop upon the ground, an oblong irregular figure, from the northern end of which is the capitol “vista.” Through the woods for a distance of 500 or 600 yards an opening has been cut just wide enough, and trimmed just high enough to admit a view of the dome of the capitol, which is invisible from points a step or two on either side of a particular spot. With the aid of very little imagination one may think the eye rests upon the temple in the new city which has been pictured in misty glory by so many artists.
Upon the “Harewood” grounds are the principal farm and dairy buildings. The cottage now occupied by the farmer was, in some of the years of war, the summer home of the “great war secretary,” Edwin M. Stanton, the man who in the war times inspired more fear amongst his subordinates by the promptness and severity of his punishments for delinquencies than ever visited the same persons in the presence of an active foe. And yet when he stood upon the steps of the north front of the old War Department building, now gone down with him to the dust, and tried on that memorable 3d of April, 1865, to speak congratulatory words concerning the news which had come over the wires from the hand of President Lincoln, at City Point, Va., of a broken Rebellion and an evacuated Confederate capitol, his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see that the crowd which stood about and before him was composed of his apparently demoralized officers and clerks who had abandoned their desks and swarmed from the building by the windows as well as the doors; or, if he did see them, his voice was too much broken with the emotions, which were stronger than his stout heart, to permit him to administer a rebuke to those who almost without exception, at some time in the months and years just past, contributed their share to the result, and many had brought away the marks of the sacrifice.
The work of farming is confined to the products of a market garden, which can not be purchased for the purposes of the Home in as good condition as they can be raised upon the ground. The dairy is the most important institution of the Home, and the herd of from forty to fifty Alderney and Holstein cattle is by no means the least amongst the matters of interest to be seen upon the grounds. The work of the dairy is done by men. The cooking for the inmates, nursing the sick, and indeed all the indoor work usually done by women is done by men. Some of the employes are “civilians,” so called to distinguish them from inmates who are employed upon light work.
There are five principal gates or entrances to the Home grounds; two upon the east side and three upon the west side. At each is a lodge and a gate-keeper. The first on the east is the Harewood gate, entering upon the grounds already mentioned, of the same name. From it the “East drive,” after a serpentine course westward for about 500 yards up a pretty sharp grade, turns northward, and as it passes along east of the central portion of the grounds affords the finest view of the open country, the drive being upon high ground and the view unobstructed across the entire place. From the same gate “Corcoran Avenue,” flanked on both sides by magnificent rows of shade trees, leads into the woods. “Sherman” gate is near the north point opposite the cemetery; “Scott” gate, or as familiarly known, “Eagle” gate because of the immense iron eagles upon the gate pillars, is directly opposite “Sherman” gate, and both lead to the buildings only a few steps distant. There is a large gate a few steps west of the Scott statue so little used as not to be dignified with a name. The most important gate is one nearest the city upon the west side. It is reached by an avenue from “Seventh Street Road,” a continuation of the most important street running north and south in Washington. The avenue is the property of the Home, although the land on either side is owned by private parties. It is called “Whitney Avenue,” and the gate bears the same name. The ornaments upon the gate pillars or piers, which are of brick capped with stone, are large vases said to be copies of a vase designed by Thorwaldsen. The first view upon entering this gate is the one which may properly be called the “prettiest” when the word is used as meaning an appearance which gives momentary pleasure, but may not be remembered as one would remember the scenery and lake at Chautauqua. About two hundred feet from the gate are two little lakes which serve to assure the visitor that there really is real water on the place. By artificial means one of these lakes is held at a level about ten feet above the other, and by pipes carried to the center of the lower, a pretty, single jet fountain is formed. The north end of the upper lake is crossed by a substantial iron bridge, and the south end of the lower one is covered by a short granite span. Between the two all effort to find any satisfaction in the waste (?) of water is futile. But for miniatures they are really pretty, and with the three swans bumping up against the green shore as they float backward and swim forward, the half dozen white ducks with their heads in the mud and their dozen red legs and feet in the air in active effort to kick themselves farther into the mud, and the two wild geese, domesticated by the loss of part of a pinion each, as they stand sullenly by looking like fettered savages, all combine to afford a diversion which may not be found anywhere else by the visitor.
The drives throughout the grounds will afford a ride of ten or eleven miles without going twice over the same spot, except at crossings. They are beautiful, hard, well kept, graveled courses. The gutters are models, and of themselves works of beauty, as they are paved with selected stone, nearly white, nearly of a size, and none much larger than a large egg, all in their natural form or shape. But it all affords but little genuine good to the old soldier. If he ventures out upon the road his walk is beset with dangers, and a sudden fright from a dashing team almost upon him drives away all gratification he might receive by looking from a place of safety upon the handsome equipages whirling by. Except the “short cuts” through the grass—and these are few and under prohibition—there is but one foot-path of any length in the grounds, and that is of brick, between the main building and the hospital. In most cases, to traverse this, is not even a matter of melancholy pleasure. The many privileges ready made for the citizens of Washington, without care or cost to them, are no doubt appreciated by them, but if a due weight of appreciation could be given to the cost, both original in money and cumulative in deprivation to those whose right it is to use them, the use of extended drives in a beautiful park away from the heat and dust of the streets, and yet so near as to be at the door, would lead all the rest.
The Soldiers’ Home in the District of Columbia is unquestionably a grand institution, and in providing creature comforts, can probably not be improved upon, but it fails to meet a want which is known and recognized by the authorities having it in charge. Perhaps the one word which will best express it is diversion, not in the sense of amusement, but to take one away from his melancholies and permit no reaction. The inmates are men who have formed habits which grew under circumstances of constantly recurring excitement.
They are able to understand that the best years of their lives have passed, and that the best powers of their bodies have been used, while nearly half of the allotted time of life, as measured by the number of their years, ought to still be to their credit, but they feel in some way that their hands are empty. True, they have every comfort for animal life, and in the little red stone chapel, the three services every Sunday are more than they ever knew before as a provision for their spiritual welfare, and they have the same freedom from care to which they have been accustomed through their military life, but each one sees that all he has is shared by five hundred others, and in it all he has no single part over which he can exercise individual control, not even himself. Everything tells him his work is done, and there is no more in the give and take of life over which he can plan and work. Discontent is inevitable, and until some plan is devised for bringing the military service, or most of its features, to the Home, and having there a counterpart of the camp and its duties, not to be imposed as set tasks, but to be taken up and directed by the men who all their lives have been under direction, and ought now to enjoy the privilege of apparent control, a remedy will probably not be found. It took years to overcome in a measure the dislike and suspicion with which the old soldier regarded the Home. It was a manifestation of interest in him which was new and unusual, and by him untried. Progress has been made in the past years toward overcoming the matters which may be mentioned as difficulties in the problem of how to take care of men who ought to be simply aided in taking care of themselves by supplying them to a proper extent with means or material, and throwing upon them sufficient responsibility to create the occupation, which is the greatest need of the institution. This will gradually be worked out, and then the Home will be what it should, a place for work and life, and less of a place for waiting and death.
