The Reminiscences of an Astronomer

by Simon Newcomb

THE OLD AND THE NEW WASHINGTON

A few features of Washington as it appeared during the civil war are indelibly fixed in my memory. An endless train of army wagons ploughed its streets with their heavy wheels. Almost the entire southwestern region, between the War Department and the Potomac, extending west on the river to the neighborhood of the observatory, was occupied by the Quartermaster's and Subsistence Departments for storehouses. Among these the astronomers had to walk by day and night, in going to and from their work. After a rain, especially during winter and spring, some of the streets were much like shallow canals. Under the attrition of the iron-bound wheels the water and clay were ground into mud, which was at first almost liquid. It grew thicker as it dried up, until perhaps another rainstorm reduced it once more to a liquid condition. In trying first one street and then another to see which offered the fewest obstacles to his passage, the wayfarer was reminded of the assurance given by a bright boy to a traveler who wanted to know the best road to a certain place: "Whichever road you take, before you get halfway there you'll wish you had taken t' other." By night swarms of rats, of a size proportional to their ample food supply, disputed the right of way with the pedestrian.

Across the Potomac, Arlington Heights were whitened by the tents of soldiers, from which the discharges of artillery or the sound of the fife and drum became so familiar that the dweller almost ceased to notice it. The city was defended by a row of earthworks, generally not far inside the boundary line of the District of Columbia, say five or six miles from the central portions of the city. One of the circumstances connected with their plans strikingly illustrates the exactness which the science or art of military engineering had reached. Of course the erection of fortifications was one of the first tasks to be undertaken by the War Department. Plans showing the proposed location and arrangements of the several forts were drawn up by a board of army engineers, at whose head, then or afterward, stood General John G. Barnard. When the plans were complete, it was thought advisable to test them by calling in the advice of Professor D. H. Mahan of the Military Academy at West Point. He came to Washington, made a careful study of the maps and plans, and was then driven around the region of the lines to be defended to supplement his knowledge by personal inspection. Then he laid down his ideas as to the location of the forts. There were but two variations from the plans proposed by the Board of Engineers, and these were not of fundamental importance.

Willard's Hotel, then the only considerable one in the neighborhood of the executive offices, was a sort of headquarters for arriving army officers, as well as for the thousands of civilians who had business with the government, and for gossip generally. Inside its crowded entrance one could hear every sort of story, of victory or disaster, generally the latter, though very little truth was ever to be gleaned.

The newsboy flourished. He was a bright fellow too, and may have developed into a man of business, a reporter, or even an editor. "Another great battle!" was his constant cry. But the purchaser of his paper would commonly read of nothing but a skirmish or some fresh account of a battle fought several days before—perhaps not even this. On one occasion an officer in uniform, finding nothing in his paper to justify the cry, turned upon the boy with the remark,—

"Look here, boy, I don't see any battle here."

"No," was the reply, "nor you won't see one as long as you hang around
Washington. If you want to see a battle you must go to the front."

The officer thought it unprofitable to continue the conversation, and beat a retreat amid the smiles of the bystanders. This story, I may remark, is quite authentic, which is more than one can say of the report that a stick thrown by a boy at a dog in front of Willard's Hotel struck twelve brigadier generals during its flight.

The presiding genius of the whole was Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War. Before the actual outbreak of the conflict he had been, I believe, at least a Democrat, and, perhaps, to a certain extent, a Southern sympathizer so far as the slavery question was concerned. But when it came to blows, he espoused the side of the Union, and after being made Secretary of War he conducted military operations with a tireless energy, which made him seem the impersonation of the god of war. Ordinarily his character seemed almost savage when he was dealing with military matters. He had no mercy on inefficiency or lukewarmness. But his sympathetic attention, when a case called for it, is strikingly shown in the following letter, of which I became possessed by mere accident. At the beginning of the war Mr. Charles Ellet, an eminent engineer, then resident near Washington, tendered his services to the government, and equipped a fleet of small river steamers on the Mississippi under the War Department. In the battle of June 6, 1862, he received a wound from which he died some two weeks later. His widow sold or leased his house on Georgetown Heights, and I boarded in it shortly afterward. Amongst some loose rubbish and old papers lying around in one of the rooms I picked up the letter which follows.

War Department,
Washington City, D. C., June 9, 1862.