The Reminiscences of an Astronomer

by Simon Newcomb

We bivouacked that night, and remained all the next day and the night following awaiting the attack of the enemy, who was supposed to be approaching Fort Stevens on the Seventh Street road. At the critical moment, General H. G. Wright arrived from Fort Monroe with his army corps. He and General A. McD. McCook both took their stations at Fort Lincoln, which it was supposed would be the point of attack. A quarter or half a mile down the hill was the mansion of the Rives family, which a passenger on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway can readily see at the station of that name. A squad of men was detailed to go to this house and destroy it, in case the enemy should appear. The attack was expected at daybreak, but General Early, doubtless hearing of the arrival of reinforcements, abandoned any project he might have entertained and had beat a retreat the day before. Whether the supposition that he could have taken the city with great celerity has any foundation, I cannot say; I should certainly greatly doubt it, remembering the large loss of life generally suffered during the civil war by troops trying to storm intrenchments or defenses of any sort, even with greatly superior force.

I was surprised to find how quickly one could acquire the stolidity of the soldier. During the march from the Navy Yard to the fort I felt extremely depressed, as one can well imagine, in view of the suddenness with which I had to take leave of my family and the uncertainty of the situation, as well as its extreme gravity. But this depression wore off the next day, and I do not think I ever had a sounder night's sleep in my life than when I lay down on the grass, with only a blanket between myself and the sky, with the expectation of being awakened by the rattle of musketry at daybreak.

I remember well how kindly we were treated by the army. The acquaintance of Generals Wright and McCook, made under such circumstances, was productive of a feeling which has never worn off. It has always been a matter of sorrow to me that the Washington of to-day does not show a more lively consciousness of what it owes to these men.

One of the entertainments of Washington during the early years of the civil war was offered by President Lincoln's public receptions. We used to go there simply to see the people and the costumes, the latter being of a variety which I do not think was ever known on such occasions before or since. Well-dressed and refined ladies and gentlemen, men in their working clothes, women arrayed in costumes fanciful in cut and brilliant in color, mixed together in a way that suggested a convention of the human race. Just where the oddly dressed people came from, or what notion took them at this particular time to don an attire like that of a fancy-dress ball, no one seemed to know.

Among the never-to-be-forgotten scenes was that following the news of the fall of Richmond. If I described it from memory, a question would perhaps arise in the reader's mind as to how much fancy might have added to the picture in the course of nearly forty years. I shall therefore quote a letter written to Chauncey Wright immediately afterwards, of which I preserved a press copy.

Observatory, April 7, 1865.

Dear Wright,—Yours of the 5th just received. I heartily reciprocate your congratulations on the fall of Richmond and the prospective disappearance of the S. C. alias C. S.

You ought to have been here Monday. The observatory is half a mile to a mile from the thickly settled part of the city. At 11 A. M. we were put upon the qui vive by an unprecedented commotion in the city. From the barracks near us rose a continuous stream of cheers, and in the city was a hubbub such as we had never before heard. We thought it must be Petersburg or Richmond, but hardly dared to hope which. Miss Gilliss sent us word that it was really Richmond. I went down to the city. All the bedlams in creation broken loose could not have made such a scene. The stores were half closed, the clerks given a holiday, the streets crowded, every other man drunk, and drums were beating and men shouting and flags waving in every direction. I never felt prouder of my country than then, as I compared our present position with our position in the numerous dark days of the contest, and was almost ashamed to think that I had ever said that any act of the government was not the best possible.

Not many days after this outburst, the city was pervaded by an equally intense and yet deeper feeling of an opposite kind. Probably no event in its history caused such a wave of sadness and sympathy as the assassination of President Lincoln, especially during the few days while bands of men were scouring the country in search of the assassin. One could not walk the streets without seeing evidence of this at every turn. The slightest bustle, perhaps even the running away of a dog, caused a tremor.

I paid one short visit to the military court which was trying the conspirators. The court itself was listening with silence and gravity to the reading of the testimony taken on the day previous. General Wallace produced on the spectators an impression a little different from the other members, by exhibiting an artistic propensity, which subsequently took a different direction in "Ben Hur." The most impressive sight was that of the conspirators, all heavily manacled; even Mrs. Surratt, who kept her irons partly concealed in the folds of her gown. Payne, the would-be assassin of Seward, was a powerful-looking man, with a face that showed him ready for anything; but the other two conspirators were such simple-minded, mild-looking youths, that it seemed hardly possible they could have been active agents in such a crime, or capable of any proceeding requiring physical or mental force.