And so my good friend Mr. Thompson relieved me from the embarrassment of returning thanks, publicly, for the sword delivered by the Governor.
While on this subject I will here remark that this sword and the former one were taken from my summer home in Woodbury, N. J., in the absence of the family, and with all personal property and realty sold by the United States marshal at public outcry under the confiscation act of 1862.[16] Were the proceeds covered into the treasury?
I arrived in Washington during the winter of 1849-50, and made a report of the expedition that was published by the government as I have stated. The Quartermaster General, or the War Department, kept me all the year 1850 in Washington, or within call, for any special duty required.
Soon after my arrival in Washington I was honored with an invitation to dine with the President. I had the pleasure of taking in to dinner Miss Taylor, a young lady from Louisiana. The guests were too many for any general conversation, and nothing of moment occurred.
I was in Philadelphia when the news of the death of the President was received, July 9, 1850. Having been with him in all his battles in Mexico, I was pained to hear of his death, and that I had lost a kind friend. He had lived a soldier's life until elected President, and had never heard the voice of detraction, or his name mentioned except for praise, until he was forced into the political arena.
A lady friend of mine told me that she had a room at the hotel adjoining the General's reception room, and thus involuntarily heard much wrangling about the formation of his cabinet. Delegations of politicians from different States would go so far as to demand that certain men should be members of his cabinet as the price of loyalty to the party and support of his administration. The enemy on the battlefield never perplexed him as did his political friends and the pressure for appointment to office. He whose order and every word was obeyed now found himself confronted by the bitterest opposition, which perplexed him in the extreme, and, no doubt, it shortened his days. Brave, honest, pure, sincere, as a soldier he never deviated from the path of duty; and if we consider that the world has limited the fame of a soldier to one single measure, deeds performed, by this test his fame is imperishable. His every success was achieved by his daring, steadfast determination to do his duty, and fight the enemy wherever he found him, regardless of all odds. In this respect he might be paralleled with Nelson.
Mr. Fillmore now became President. Soon after this the Gardiner claim was being investigated, and I believe there were six commissioners to be sent to Mexico to examine the mine. The President was to name two of these commissioners; the Senate, two; etc. I was informed by the Adjutant General that the President instructed him not to send me on any duty out of the city, as he purposed to name me as one of his commissioners. However, about a month after this, Senator Soule, of Louisiana, came to the department to see me, and I believe my knowledge of the Spanish language did not come up to his expectations; and, if I remember aright, Lieut. Doubleday was named at his suggestion.
It was about this time that Capt. Ringgold, of the United States navy, asked me urgently to go with him as the artist on an expedition to make a coast survey of Kamchatka, and thence on south. He consulted the Secretary of War, and obtained permission for me to go if he made the application. He spoke of the climate in summer, and said in the fall we would sail for the Sandwich Islands and pass the winter there. The expedition was a tempting one, but other considerations induced me to decline going. Capt. Ringgold was a brother of Maj. Ringgold, who was killed at the battle of Palo Alto.
I think it was during this autumn that I was sent to Louisville, Ky., to purchase horses for the cavalry.
About the middle of December Col. Joseph Taylor, Maj. Gaines, his two daughters, and I took passage on a steamer for Cincinnati. There was much floating ice in the river, and snow began to fall, and it turned very cold. The captain ran into the mouth of the Kentucky river to avoid the heavy drift ice. In the morning we found the steamer fast in frozen ice, and wagons and sleighs came alongside. Gen. W. O. Butler came on board to see Col. Taylor, and, as there was no prospect of the steamer leaving for weeks, arrangements were made for Gen. Butler to send us on to Florence in his common two-horse farm wagon. The next morning the trunks were put in for seats and we started on our journey. The country was covered deep with snow, and the thermometer was fourteen degrees below zero. I walked behind the wagon nearly all the way to keep warm. The driver's hands were nearly frozen, and in crossing an awful ravine the horses were not checked and the wheels on one side would have missed the bridge and all in the wagon been killed had not my trunk fallen out in front and stopped the wagon. Fortunately no damage was done. The driver was to blame for not telling us his hands were half frozen.