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would cause suspicion of him and probably cause his temporary detention. While of slight form in appearance, he was quite an athlete, and a good pedestrian. He shouldered his portmanteau, and following the railroad track walked rapidly on to within some nine miles of Washington, where he was enabled to hire a one-horse vehicle, in which he drove to the capital and went straight to headquarters, where he duly delivered his dispatches, "with the dust of the road on them." As I was greatly in need of staff assistance, Lieutenant Abert was assigned to duty with me as aidde-camp, in which capacity he rendered good service.

When it was found so difficult to find any one who could carry dispatches to General Butler, it seemed to me that the best man to carry such documents was he who had so safely brought in dispatches under difficulties. The general-in-chief held the same opinion, and Lieutenant Abert was ready to start almost at a moment's notice. He divested himself of all uniform excepting his military vest, the buttons of which would prove him a soldier of the United States, and carefully concealing the dispatches in his clothing he drove quietly out of Washington in a buggy, which he left at Bladensburg, I believe. Thence he walked on foot to Annapolis Junction, and down the railroad track toward Annapolis. He soon struck a destruction train, well manned, a large party pulling up the rails and ties, and loading them on platform-cars, which, as fast as loaded, were dragged off toward Annapolis. Abert immediately put off his overcoat, placed it on a car, and commenced aiding in the work of destroying the track. After working vigorously for some time, he was noticed as not being one of the original party, and one of the destroyers asked him his name, at the same time praising his strength and skill at the work. He replied, frankly, "My name is Abert." "Where do you live?" "Born in Washington. I have lately lived in Virginia." "All right." And so he went on until all the cars were loaded, and he threw himself on one of them and was transported to the vicinity of Annapolis. He had never been there before, and I remember the minute description of the outskirts of the town, and the pathway thence to Fort Severn that General Scott gave him. Lieutenant Abert told me afterward that every detail down to a white paling fence with a green gate before a house, given by the General, was minutely correct. When he recognized one of the landmarks given by the General, he slipped off the car, followed the pathway indicated, and in a few minutes was before General Butler, to whom he delivered his dispatches. He returned to Washington when the volunteers came in. Abert served with me as aid-de-camp, afterward as assistant adjutant-general, was promoted to a captaincy of cavalry, then to lieutenant-colonel and aid-de-camp, as

inspector-general of the 19th Corps d'Armée. He died of yellow fever shortly after the war while on duty in Texas.

After this digression, due to a gallant young officer, let us return to Washington and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Trains were kept running to insure the possession of the road, and to have transportation ready

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at Annapolis Junction for any of the New York, Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania troops who might arrive there. The suspense in the national capital was short.

On the 25th April the train came back to Washington filled and covered with men. As the train neared the station the uniform of the Seventh Regiment New York State Militia was recognized, and a loud cheer of wel

come went up from my troops in the station I have never seen men more cordially welcomed than were those of the Seventh Regiment. The blockade was broken, and that gallant regiment were the first fruits of the opening of communications. The colonel and field officers and staff sprang from the cars. The companies were quickly formed, and the column marched in correct Seventh Regiment style up Pennsylvania Avenue to the President's mansion, where they gave a marching salute to the President. I mounted and galloped to headquarters to report the arrival to the generalin-chief, and arrange for a camping-ground for them. The old general said that this fine regiment must have a beautiful camping ground, and designated the country seat of Mr. William Stone, far out on Fourteenth Street, which the owner had patriotically offered to place at General Scott's disposal for such a purpose.

From that day on, each train sent out came back to us laden with volunteers from the Northern cities, and Washington was soon too strong for attack by any force which its enemies could then send against it.

FLUSHING, LONG ISLAND, June 3, 1885

BEGINNINGS OF THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA

Writing twenty years after the close of the disastrous effort of the Southern states to form a political federation and government more to their liking and more in sympathy with their special industrial interests than the Southern people had come to regard that of the United States, I am of the belief that I can usefully relate certain events of the epoch of 1860-65, in which I was either a participant or a witness, or of which I was specially made cognizant at the time. I also believe that I can write in the main unswayed by personal and political feelings, and free from the illusions of personal or sectional likes or dislikes.

I am incited to the undertaking, moreover, by the feeling that the souvenirs even of so unfortunate a part of their past history are not without many consolations to the people of the conquered states for what of misfortune and disaster befell them, including that long period of humiliation to which they were subjected after the war, known as that of political reconstruction: from which, happily for the whole country, they have wholly emerged without hazard of any future sectional contests or struggles other than that healthy competition between the various industrial interests naturally to be expected in so vast an empire as that of the United States.

Entirely satisfied myself that, while the great war of the sections of 1861-1865 fortunately failed to disrupt the Union, it should have ended in the summary extinction of servile labor or negro slavery in the country-I shall none the less carefully and dutifully narrate in the course of the following pages, as matter that belongs to the truth of history, much that will be found running counter to the present general opinion in the South as well as in the North and West: that the war necessarily ended in the discomfiture of the Southern people, if for no other reason than that of the great numerical inferiority of their section. On the contrary, no people fighting for independence or another polity ever had such an opportunity for gaining their object despite numerical odds, as the people of the Southern States had, at least as late as the battle of Gettysburg.

With state governments essentially older than the Federal Constitution, they started the Secession movement with nearly their full share of the educated military men of the national army, as well as with a small nucleus of an effective army in their militia and volunteer organizations,

and a large number of men educated at state military schools. The whole seceding section was exceptionally rich in food and other resources, and was largely dowered with defensive geographical features, together with a system of completed railways which intensified the value to the Southern armies of their thorough possession, from the outset, of the "interior lines" -that inestimable advantage in war. And last, but not the least potent part of their equipment for the enterprise, was a thorough unity of sentiment as to its justness-amounting to a heroic devotion and readiness for every sacrifice on the part of the whole Southern people.

I

After a service of eight years as an officer of the general staff of the army on the Pacific coast, on the 10th of November, 1860, I set out from San Francisco on the steamer Sonora, under orders for Washington. Among the passengers were Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Senator Judah P. Benjamin, returning home after a memorable display of their great legal and forensic abilities in a suit in which the large mining property known as the New Almaden, was the stake. Another senator recently elected from Oregon was of the company, the distinguished California advocate, Colonel Edward D. Baker, who had gone to and lived in Oregon barely long enough to qualify him for election, and who, therefore, in more recent times, would have been known as a "carpet-bagger." A Republican, his election had been effected by virtue of a political bargain between the anti-Lane Democrats and Republicans of the legislature of Oregon. Another prominent, and, to me, most interesting fellow-passenger, was Frederic W. Lander, a man physically and mentally of marked individuality, who had acquired some celebrity as an explorer and builder of wagon-ways across the continent to the Pacific coast. Several brother officers were also returning eastward, and, altogether, the party was a most agreeable one with the exception of a rather obtrusive San Francisco local politician, one Dr. Rabe, a German, who had started post haste, it was said, for the East, for the purpose of securing the collectorship of San Francisco from an administration which was not to be installed for some four months ahead. He was not a pleasant fellow-traveler because of his bad manners in airing his extreme political opinions on all possible occasions; nor was he much less displeasing to Colonel Baker than to others of our party, although politically affiliated with him, for the senator was an accomplished man of the world, of charming social demeanor, as I had seen during my previous casual friendly intercourse with him in Oregon.

*General Lane was, at the time, Senator in Congress.

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