In travelling from Washington to Richmond, and in passing through part of Maryland, the visitors were struck by the dilapidated appearance of the large farmhouses, mostly built of wood, to many of which there were attached curtilages, where the slaves were formerly penned in at night; and it was observed that the fences were very ragged, that the fields were left full of stumps of trees, and that the careful cultivation which had struck our eyes in the more northern States was wanting. One gentleman told us that the railway, passing through the worst and most neglected portion of the country, did not form a favourable platform from which to judge of the general condition of the State. But it is, I believe, undeniable that the soil has been very much exhausted on the Atlantic side in Virginia and in Maryland by the constant succession of crops of tobacco, and that it is necessary to use manure, not sparingly, in order to farm the land with advantage. The country by the right bank of the river seems very much as it was at the period of the war or before it—rugged, unkempt—with patches of forest and low swampy land, perforated by sullen lagoons and marshy streams.
At a station near Quantico Creek General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of the great Confederate leader, the daring chief of the Confederate cavalry after the death of "Jeb" (J. E. B.) Stewart in battle, joined our party; a soldierly-looking man, broad-browed, bright and keen-eyed, of immense breadth of chest, thick throated, large limbed, with a resemblance to Pelissier in his best days, to which, no doubt, a massive moustache and a heavy barbe d'Afrique somewhat contribute. He is now settled as a farmer on the banks of the Potomac, in a region every foot of which reeks with the memories of the four years' war. He lives on his estate and cultivates it with profit, and he draws, moreover, a rich harvest, at the time of the shad fishing, from the river, where his nets sweep in occasionally 60,000 or even 80,000 of these much-prized fish at a haul! Fitzhugh Lee told the Duke that he fully and entirely accepted the situation: he acknowledged the Union, and he would not, if he could, go back to the old order of things. Nay, more, he declared that the Virginians round about him were of the same way of thinking. Labour was to be had when needed. The negroes tilled the fields for wages, and the hirer had no further care about them when their work was done. Contrast that with his trouble with his biped property! The ladies of his house had to look after the women in travail. The negroes, when sick, were thrown on the hands of the master. When worn out with work or stricken by illness, the coloured people became burdens on the farm; and any one who has a breeding establishment for cattle or horses knows what infinity of demands on purse and patience the accidents and maladies to which all living things are exposed produce. Into Quantico Creek flows the stream of Bull Run, and away on our right was fought the first of the three battles which make the name renowned in the annals of the war. General Fitzhugh Lee did not dwell on the first defeat of the Federals with any relish either, but he could not forget all that happened on that memorable 3rd of July, 1861, any more than he could forget the long years of incessant combat of which it was the precursor, and when our train approached Fredericksburg, the scene of Burnside's disaster, and he was warmed up by the interest and interrogatories of his companions to recall the episodes of the three days' sanguinary fighting, the fire was kindled within him, and the burly Virginian farmer, standing beside the Duke on the carriage platform, described the position and the movements of the two great armies as if he were still engaged in it. Without any vaunting, the Southern leader spoke of his experiences in the war, and those who heard him recollected with feelings not easy to analyse that but a few hours before they had been listening with equal interest to General Sheridan, the antagonist of the gallant gentleman who was now talking to them and describing some of their cavalry engagements. He pointed out Maree's Hill, and the slopes on which the Irish Brigade lay in long rows of dead and dying at the close of Meagher's desperate assault, the site whence Lee surveyed and directed the action, the hills on which the Confederates were entrenched, the plains over which Burnside's column advanced and deployed under the Confederate fire, and the cardinal mistake of the Federal leader in attacking the left instead of the exposed right of the Southern army. "I have often spoken about it to Burnside since. He and I are very good friends now. I have often fought the battle over with him, and told him his best chance would have been against our right, which he could have got at by crossing the river lower down than he did." It was but the day before we had been chatting with the Federal general, now a senator of the United States, at Washington, and as genial and lusty[6] as he was when he came to the German headquarters at Versailles on the chivalrous if somewhat Quixotic enterprise of saving Paris from the last necessities of defeat.
There was a body of Virginian gentlemen at the Richmond station, which is some way from the town, to welcome the Duke, and carriages were awaiting the train. After the usual introductions our guides, philosophers, and friends drove us round and did the honours of their capital with much kindness and courtesy. The weather was disagreeable, but it was certainly exceptional—there was a grey sunless sky; bitter blasts swept the dusty roads, raising clouds of fiery red sand from the brickfield soil on which the city is built, and quite destroying previous impressions of the climate of Virginia. At Richmond itself there is not very much to be seen by an unsympathetic stranger, but for Americans of every stripe of political opinion the scene of such important events must be intensely interesting. We found the traces of the works thrown around the Confederate capital had nearly disappeared. A remnant of some of the earthworks may still be seen up the river, and in the Cemetery, marked by a pyramid of stone, lie Jeb Stewart and many a valiant comrade. The cemeteries, which form a melancholy addition to the interesting spots around the Virginian capital, are filled with the remains of the victims of that long and deadly struggle. Petersburg, from which Lee, after his brilliant and skilful defence, was obliged to fall back to the Court-House of Appomatox, where he surrendered, was too far for us to visit, but we saw much that was of interest in our hurried drive—the house in which ex-President Davis lived, the church in which he was at prayers when the news of Lee's abandonment of Petersburg was brought to him, the Tredegar Foundry where the Confederate guns were made, the Capitol which resounded to the ardent declamation of the statesmen who made Virginia illustrious, and to the eloquence of those who shared her evil fortunes. We saw the abodes of despairing or hopeful multitudes, of the sickness unto death, and of the death which is a release, the ruinous brick walls of Libby Prison, the Hospital, and we thought that it would be just as well to level the ugly piles to the ground. Later in the day we met one who had charge of the Federal prisoners, of whom some 75,000, he told us, had been under his care, a grave and courteous man, deeply imbued with the teaching of the fathers of the Constitution, who as a Judge believed that Heaven, in siding with les gros bataillons, had not done justice to a holy cause, and he made a remark which illustrated, I think, the spirit of many of those who accept the actual results of the contest as inevitable if not equitable. "At the outset of the war," he said, "all the prisoners were either Yankees or Irish; at the end of it the great proportion of the prisoners were Dutchmen—Germans, who could not understand a word of English, and who had come to fight for pay." The Irish ceased to enlist as soon as the Federal Government let loose and enlisted the negroes, and the war, he explained, was carried on by the foreign immigration from Europe. The Judge, indeed, held that if the North and the South had been left to fight it out the latter must have won. But what avail these speculations now? Let the dead bury their dead, and let the victors suffer the living to dwell in peace. Here are men, Southerners and Northerners, living in the same land, who have stood face to face in battle, and would live all the better if the sleeping dogs of war were let lie in peace. We were shown on our way to Richmond the humble shanty in which Stonewall Jackson breathed his last, and in the grounds of the Capitol itself the statue raised by admiring strangers to the memory of the Virginian Havelock—and it cannot be held, I think, that such a memorial as the latter can be classed with the celebration of the defeats of the Southern armies by permanent military organisations. He would be a very thin-skinned and ridiculous sort of Briton who took umbrage at the forthcoming festival at Yorktown which is to commemorate the surrender of Cornwallis to Rochambeau and Washington; but the Americans would have good reason to be moved to anger if we in England were to appoint a day for the glorification of the capture and destruction of Washington in the last war, an act of which none of us feel very proud, and of which most Englishmen are utterly ignorant, even though they may have heard of New Orleans, Lundy's Lane, and Plattsburg.
The State Capitol is said to be an imitation of the square house at Nismes. It stands in a fine situation in a park which is decorated with statues and planted with trees, peopled by beautiful grey squirrels—evidently the pets of the people. Its principal treasure is the statue of Washington, by Houdon; but there is a dishevelled-looking Library of 40,000 volumes, amongst which are some valuable works connected with the early history of the colony. In front of the Capitol there is another statue of Washington, equestrian and colossal, surrounded by statues of Henry, Jefferson, Marshall, Mason, Nelson, and Lewis; and there is also a fine statue of Henry Clay in the grounds; but I think we strangers regarded with a deeper interest, derived from the recollection of more recent exploits, the statue of Stonewall Jackson, erected by subscriptions raised in England to the memory of one of the most single-minded and gallant soldiers who ever fought for a lost cause.
The manufacture of tobacco still flourishes in the capital of Virginia. We were conducted to two of the largest establishments, where we were shown, with great courtesy by the managers and owners, the processes by which the most celebrated preparations for smoking and chewing are turned out from beginning to end; but I observed that—whether to prevent idle strangers from gratifying their curiosity, or an unauthorised investigation of trade secrets—we were always personally introduced by our guides, and that the doors of the factories were closed. The most interesting part of the interior was a long room, in which was a crowd of coloured people, men, women, and children, sorting tobacco, rolling up the leaves, and manipulating it for the various preparations which it undergoes in the presses and in the addition of saccharine matter, and the like, before it is packed up or cut for use. A happier looking people could not be seen, and at times their feelings of contentment burst out into song. They all joined, singing in chorus, with a great sweetness, some of the extraordinary melodies—half comic, half religious—of which we had a good experience subsequently.
Colonel Carrington, the proprietor of Ballard House, the principal Richmond Hotel, had sent a telegram before we started to request the Duke to postpone his visit for a week, as there was a Medical Conference being held, and all the hotels were filled, his own included, at the time. But our arrangements had been made, and it was not possible to alter them. What would become of our "programme"? Colonel Carrington did his best to accommodate the party, but the Medical Conference was in the ascendant. It was amusing to read in a Washington paper that the Duke had "expressed a desire to partake of a real old Virginia dinner," and that Colonel Carrington had gratified him to his heart's desire, so that "his Grace declared it was the best meal he had had since he landed." This announcement was made under capital letters: "The Duke's Dinner. He Gets A Square Meal In Richmond." It was late at night when we reached Washington. Notwithstanding the exceedingly unpleasant day the visit was exceedingly interesting, and I was more than ever content that I had persuaded my friends to visit the place which was once the centre of political life to the Southern Confederacy.
May 4th was devoted to an inspection of various objects of interest. It was our last day in Washington, and many visits had to be paid and cards left, for in no country in the world are the obligations of courtesy connected with card-leaving more rigidly exacted than in the United States; and perhaps there are no people usually so negligent in such matters as our own countrymen, unless they are connected with diplomacy. English travellers—at least if we are to judge from recent books—seldom come to a capital which is in every way worthy of inspection. In the two latest and best books of travel there is no mention of it at all. It is now incomparably the most beautiful city in the Union; the broad streets, asphalted, or well paved, lined with trees, no longer strike right and left into illimitable distances of unoccupied space, but present long rows of well-built houses.
At the time of the advance of the Federals the feeling of Washington was unmistakably Confederate, or "Secesh," as it was called in those days. I scarcely knew a man of any prominence there who was not opposed to the policy of the Government and Mr. Lincoln; always excepting, of course, the senators and the Congress-men then sitting at the Capitol, though even amongst them there were dissidents, for Breckenridge and his friends had not yet left Washington. There were suspects whom it was desirable to intimidate, or necessary to molest; and amongst these were Mr. Corcoran, who is regarded with respect by all who know him, and who now occupies the highest position in the estimation of the society of the city, to which he has been a large benefactor. The Corcoran Gallery owes its origin and its maintenance to his taste, wealth, and public spirit; and the visit which was paid to it to-day was well rewarded by the inspection of a number of very fine paintings and statues of very high order.
Amongst the survivors of the time, now so far back, of my long residence at Washington, I was glad to find General Emory and his wife. One of the earliest explorers of the territories acquired from Mexico at the outset of the war, he commanded the 6th Cavalry, which was quartered at Washington on ground which is at present covered with fine houses. After a distinguished career in the campaign he became Governor of New Orleans, where he re-established confidence and did much to abate the bitter feelings which had been aroused by the acts of his predecessors in the minds of the inhabitants. Of the officers of that gallant corps, after whom I enquired, there were none left that I knew; and the same answer was made to each name I uttered. "What has become of W——?" "Oh! dead long ago." "What of L——?" "He is dead, too." "What of K——?" "Oh; poor fellow, he died not very long ago;" and so on. "The Commodore," our neighbour, witty, shrewd, quaint, and the embodiment of kindly fun and satire, he too is gone! It is the penalty of living to lose one's friends. The feelings which were aroused by these memories were not diminished by a visit to Brady the photographer, who displayed whole albums filled with likenesses of deceased friends, and worse still, with photographs—alas! no longer likenesses—of men and women taken twenty years ago, now offering painful contrasts to their recognisable semblances in the life and flesh.
Another old friend, General Hazen, called on us to-day. General Hazen visited the headquarters of the German army during the siege of Paris, and was for some time in residence at Versailles, where I often had the pleasure of meeting him, and he subsequently made an extensive tour over Europe, with the view of examining the military establishments of the Great Powers, of which he recorded the results in a very useful volume. He is now in charge of the Meteorological Department, to which the Duke paid a visit in the afternoon; and the mechanism and arrangement of the extensive system of observations for national purposes conducted under his care were shown and explained to us by the officers of the department in the most painstaking manner.