I have taken the greatest pains to perfect another kind of boat, upon the principles I mentioned to you at Richmond, in November last, and have the pleasure to inform you that I have brought it to a great perfection ... and I have quite convinced myself that boats of passage may be made to go against the current of the Mississippi or Ohio rivers, or in the Gulf Stream (from the Leeward to the Windward-Islands) from sixty to one hundred miles per day. I know this will appear strange and improbable to many persons, yet I am very certain it may be performed, besides, it is simple (when understood) and is also strictly philosophical.
James Rumsey
(In letter to George Washington after construction of steamboat model seen in action by the latter in 1784)
December Thirteenth
On part of the field the Union dead lay three deep. So fearful was the slaughter that our men at certain points on the line cried out to the advancing Federal forces, “Go back; we don’t want to kill you all!” Still they pressed forward in the face of despair, and they fell in the unshrinking station where they fought. In six months Lee had effaced Pope, checked McClellan, and crushed Burnside—June 25 to December 13, 1862.
Henry E. Shepherd
Burnside repulsed at Fredericksburg, 1862
December Fourteenth
Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity, constancy and purity which have made him the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding generations.
James Bryce
(England)