White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

The first great task of President Johnson was the disbandment of the army. As a fitting climax to their four years of terrible struggle and hardship, President Lincoln had planned the Grand Review in Washington for May 23 and 24, 1865. To completing the preparations for this notable event, the President and Secretary Stanton devoted much attention, keenly aware of the impression which the assembly of the nation’s armed force would make upon the minds of foreign representatives and of its influence upon the general public.

As the time for the pageant drew near, there came a lifting of the gloom that had enveloped the capital, still a tented city surrounded on a circuit of thirty-seven miles by a ring of sixty-eight armed forts, with their encircling watch fires—a picture that had inspired Julia Ward Howe to write the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Public squares were still occupied by camps, and all available structures, converted into hospitals, were filled to overflowing with wounded soldiers.

Washington’s streets were notorious for their clouds of dust or wallows of sticky mud. As the dust prevailed at this period, the services of the Fire Department were necessary on both mornings to sprinkle the line of march to make the passing of the procession fairly comfortable for marchers and onlookers. Patrols guarded the intersections.

Upon the grassy hillsides and steps of the Capitol were massed the city’s school children in gala dress, with wreaths, flags, and bouquets, ready to greet the conquering hosts with patriotic songs. Four gaily decorated reviewing stands were erected in front of the White House for officials and celebrities. With the President were the members of the Cabinet and General U. S. Grant. Every window, roof, and tree presented its full limit of spectators while every foot of standing room along the entire line of march was filled with enthusiastic people.

With military promptness, on each morning at 9 o’clock, the great divisions of the army began their movement down Capitol Hill. The Army of the Potomac, with General George A. Meade commanding, occupied the entire day on Tuesday in passing in review, while Sherman’s army, with its two wings—the Army of Tennessee commanded by Major General John A. Logan, affectionately called “Black Jack” by his men because of his swarthy complexion, and the Army of Georgia, in command of Major General Henry D. Slocum—kept a weary audience shouting applause until dark on Wednesday. Before the columns started, the young women and girls of the city decked officers, men, horses, cannon, and guns with floral wreaths, garlands, and bouquets, and as each officer passed, he received a special ovation.

Brevet Major General George M. Custer, in command of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, was a picturesque figure, mounted upon a handsome stallion, his long hair reaching to his shoulders. Just as the procession turned into Pennsylvania Avenue from Fifteenth Street, the onlookers were horrified to see his horse rear and wildly dash up the street. The General’s hat flew off, and everyone expected to see him pitched to the ground and killed. But fears were turned to shouts of admiration at his horsemanship when he suddenly quieted the horse, turned, and rode back to his place, picking up his hat as easily as if he had planned the performance. In fact, such a charge was made. Every man in his contingent wore the Custer tie, a red scarf around the neck and extending almost to the belt.

A slowly increasing roar of applause greeted the coming of Sherman and Major General Oliver O. Howard, whose empty sleeve was an eloquent testimony of his service. These two rode a little in advance—horses flower decked and wreathed—and after they passed the reviewing stand, they too dismounted and joined the receiving party.

Spectators and marchers alike thrilled over the battle-torn flags that brought forth such storms of applause as they appeared. One flag alone drew every eye but no applause. It hung from the portico of the Treasury building—the flag of the Treasury Guard Regiment—a flag never to be forgotten. The lower portion was torn and jagged, not by bullet or shell, but by the spur on the boot of Booth the assassin, when he had jumped from the presidential box to the stage in Ford’s Theatre.

No military pageant in the history of the world had ever surpassed or equalled this review in size or character. The four years of constant conflict with a foe equally fine in every respect as themselves had battered, trained, and polished the raw recruits of the North, who had responded so quickly to President Lincoln’s call for volunteers, into the finest military organization in the world, unmatched anywhere save by their Confederate antagonists, also trained in the same rigorous school of experience.

From early morning until dark, on each day, eighty thousand bronzed patriots, in a column reaching from curb to curb, tramped up Pennsylvania Avenue to the triumphant music of their bands. Powerful, grim, relentless, they typified the rigours of war. Upon them still was the atmosphere of the conquest of half a continent reflected in their resolute faces and their worn clothes. No dress-parade soldiers were these. They were men who had witnessed and experienced every phase of the terrible game of war and had paid its heavy toll in wounds and hardship. None needed to scan the ragged emblems they carried so proudly to know that they had met and sustained the shock of combat. Veterans of Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Petersburg, and the final glory of Appomattox; veterans of Donelson, Belmont, Shiloh, Corinth, Perryville, Stone River, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Atlanta, Savannah, the Carolinas, Bentonville, and scores upon scores of other places. Behind them, upon these and many other blood-dyed fields, they had left another host, a silent army whose mangled bodies had consecrated the cause for which they and Abraham Lincoln had fallen.