Walks about Washington

by Francis E. Leupp

Captain Stockton of the navy invited a party of about four hundred ladies and gentlemen to inspect the sloop-of-war Princeton, then lying in the Potomac. President Tyler, the members of his Cabinet and their families, and a good many Congressmen were among the guests. The vessel had dropped down the river to a point near Mount Vernon, when some of the party importuned Stockton to fire his big gun, nicknamed “the peacemaker.” This was just at the close of the luncheon, and the ladies had lingered at table while most of the gentlemen went on deck. One lady, fortunately, had detained Tyler as he was about to leave, by inducing him to listen to a song; for the gun exploded, killing Mr. Upshur, Secretary of State, Mr. Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy, Commander Kennon of the navy, Virgil Maxey, lately American Minister at the Hague, and David Gardiner of New York, the father of Miss Julia. A day of merrymaking was thus turned into one of mourning, as the vessel slowly moved up the stream again, bearing the bodies of the dead, for whom funeral services were held at the White House. After an interval the President renewed his suit and found Miss Gardiner more pliant. When he

Soldiers’ Home

had composed in her honor a serenade beginning, “Sweet lady, awake!” she agreed to marry him if her mother would consent. Her mother did not approve of a union between a man of fifty-six and a girl of twenty, but, as she did not actually forbid it, they had a very quiet wedding.

In spite of the enjoyment he took in social intercourse, Tyler was often criticized for his frigid manners. A virulent type of influenza which became epidemic during his administration received the name of “the Tyler grip,” from the remark of a Boston man who fell ill a few hours after being presented to him: “I probably caught cold from shaking hands with the President.” A good deal was made of this in the campaign of 1844, and added point to John Quincy Adams’s denunciation of Tyler for “performing with a young girl from New York the old fable of January and May!” Tyler’s general unpopularity, and a deadlock between two other prominent candidates, led the Democrats to nominate James K. Polk for President. He was so little known to most of the voters that throughout the campaign the Whigs, who were supporting Henry Clay, rang the changes on the question, “Who is James K. Polk?” thus contrasting his obscurity with Clay’s eminence. The count of ballots showed that a candidate of whom little was known might have certain advantages over one long before the public eye; and as on inauguration day it rained heavily, exultant Democrats kept themselves warm by hurling back at the Whigs the familiar cry, “Who is James K. Polk?” and then laughing wildly at their own humor. It was on this occasion that the telegraph first conveyed out of Washington the news that one President had retired and another had come in—Professor Morse having set up an instrument at the edge of the platform on which the President-elect stood, and ticked off a report of the proceedings as they occurred.

Mrs. Polk being a devoted church-member, of a school which disapproved of dancing, the inaugural ball that evening shrank into a mere promenade concert till after she and her husband had quitted the hall. The social activities of the Polks, through the four years which followed, were consistent with this beginning, all the functions at the White House being too sober to suit the diplomats or the younger element among the resident population. On its practical side, Polk’s term was perhaps the most notable in that generation, including as it did the war with Mexico, which resulted in the annexation of California and the great southwestern area afterward carved into the States of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. This war, moreover, furnished the usual crop of Presidential candidates, chief among them General Zachary Taylor, who had led the first army across the Rio Grande, and General Winfield Scott, who had wound up the invasion by capturing the city of Mexico.

Believing Taylor the easier to handle, the Whig managers fixed upon him, although, having passed the larger part of his sixty-four years with the army, he had never voted. Indeed, he had always expressed an aversion to office-holding, and, when approached on the subject of the Presidency, met the overture with frank disfavor, declaring that he had neither the capacity nor the experience needed for such a position. But his “availability” overcame the force of his protests, and the Whigs won with him a sweeping victory at the polls. There is pathos in the story of the break-up of the pleasant home in Baton Rouge, and the reluctant removal of the family to Washington, taking with them only a faithful negro servant, a favorite dog, and “Old Whitey,” the horse the General had ridden through the Mexican war. Taylor was with difficulty dissuaded from his purpose of imitating his military predecessors and riding “Old Whitey” either to or from the Capitol on inauguration day. What his friends most feared was his loss of dignity in the eyes of the crowd, for his legs were so short that, in certain emergencies, an orderly had to lift one of them over his horse’s flanks whenever he mounted or dismounted.

Taylor was as simple a soul as Harrison. His unostentatious ways in the army had led the soldiers to dub him “Old Rough and Ready,” and this title stuck to him always afterward. One of his favorite amusements was to walk about Washington, chatting informally with people he met and watching whatever was going on in the streets. His love of comfort was such that he could never be induced to wear clothes that fitted him, but his suits were always a size or two larger than his measure, and these, with a black silk hat set far back on his head, made him recognizable at any distance. His message at the opening of Congress contained one announcement as voluminous as his costume: “We are at peace with all the nations of the world, and the rest of mankind.” The bull was discovered too late to prevent its going out in the original print; but in a revised edition the sentence was made to end: “And seek to maintain our cherished relations of amity with them.”

The White House underwent another grand refurbishing while the Taylors were in it. The east room was newly carpeted, its walls were decorated, and gas replaced its candles and lamps. The ladies of the family were good housekeepers—particularly the younger daughter, who made the old place look actually homelike, and whom an appreciative guest described as doing the honors “with the artlessness of a rustic belle and the grace of a duchess.” But this pleasant picture was soon to be clouded over. On the fourth of July, 1850, a patriotic meeting was held at the base of the Washington National Monument, with long addresses by prominent men. It lasted the whole of a very hot afternoon, and President Taylor, as a guest of honor, felt bound to stay through it, refreshing himself from time to time with copious drafts of ice-water. He reached home in a state of some exhaustion and at once ate a basketful of cherries and drank several glasses of iced milk. From a party to which he had accepted an invitation for that evening he was obliged to excuse himself at the last moment on the score of indisposition. He was violently ill throughout the night, and five days later he died.

Millard Fillmore of New York, fifty years old, of moderate political views and fair ability, was Vice-president at the time. Unlike Tyler, he went to the Capitol to be sworn in the presence of a committee of the two houses, but made no inaugural address. Mrs. Fillmore, who had formerly been a teacher, cared little for society. She was of studious habits and soon converted the oval sitting room in the second story of the White House into a library, personally selecting the books. Her taste ran chiefly to standard historical and classical works; and, as the editions then available were generally not very good specimens of the typographic art, most of her collection has disappeared. In this administration the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, and Fillmore, by signing it, alienated the North so largely that the Whig party refused to nominate him for another term. General Scott, to whom it turned, did precisely what most of the politicians had predicted he would: made a number of public utterances which ruined his chances and thus gave the election to his Democratic competitor, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire.