B 3 r mm HI PRESENTED BY GENERAL LIBRARY ERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY TO me Management House THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS AMERICA amous AMERH Cathedral Woods, Intervale, N. H. EDITION ARTISTIQVE place* antr AMERICA BY JOEL COOK 3Tn Sip Volumes llolumc l. MERRILL AND BAKER New York London L1BRAHV OF CALIFORNIA THIS EDITION ARTISTIQUE OF THE WORLD'S FAMOUS PLACES AND PEOPLES IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGIS TERED COPIES, OF WHICH THIS COPY IS NO.- Copyright, Henry T. Coates & Co., 1900 INTRODUCTION. THE American is naturally proud of his country, its substantial growth and wonderful development, and of the rapid strides it is making among the fore most nations of the world. No matter how far else where the American citizen may have travelled, he cannot know too much of the United States, its grand attractions and charming environment. Though this great and vigorous nation is young, yet it has a his tory that is full of interest, and a literature giving a most absorbing story of rapid growth and patriotic progress, replete with romance, poetry and a unique folklore. The object of this work is to give the busy reader in acceptable form such a comprehensive knowl edge as he would like to have, of the geography, history, picturesque attractions, peculiarities, pro ductions and most salient features of our great country. The intention has been to make the book not only a work of reference, but a work of art and of interest as well, and it is burdened neither with too much statistics nor too intricate prolixity of description. It covers the Continent of North ( iii ) iv INTRODUCTION. America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Dominion and Alaska. It has been prepared mainly from notes specially taken by the author during many years of extended travel all over the United States and Canada. A method of treatment of the compre hensive subject has been followed which is similar to the plan that has proved acceptable in "England, Picturesque and Descriptive." The work has been arranged in twenty-one tours, each volume begin ning at the older settlements upon the Atlantic sea board 5 and each tour describing a route following very much the lines upon which a travelling sight seer generally advances in the respective directions taken. The book is presented to the public as a contribution to a general knowledge of our country, and with the hope that the reader, recognizing the difficulties of adequate treatment of so great a sub ject, may find in the interest it inspires, an indulgent excuse for any shortcomings. J. C. PHILADELPHIA, September, 1900. CONTENTS VOLUME I PAGE I. THE ENVIRONMENT OF CHESAPEAKE BAT, . 3 II. THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE CIVIL WAB, . 99 III. THE VALLEY OF THE DELAWARE, . . . 143 IV. CROSSING THE ALLEGHENIES, .... 275 V. VISITING THE SUNNY SOUTH, .... 343 VI. TRAVERSING THE PRAIRIE LAND, . . . 401 VII. GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST, . . 447 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME I PAGE IN THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 24 NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA . . . . 54 WASHINGTON MONUMENT, RICHMOND, VA. . 112 PENN'S LETITIA STREET HOUSE, REMOVED TO FAIRMOUNT PARK . . . .152 LOOP OF THE SCHUYLKIU, FROM NEVERSINK MOUNTAINS . . . . . 188 MAUCH CHUNK . . . ; . . 234 A. THE ENVIRONMENT OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. I. THE ENVIRONMENT OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. The First Permanent Settlement in North America Captain John Smith Jamestown Chesapeake Bay The City of Washington The Capitol The White House Elaborate Public Buildings The Treasury The State, War and Navy Departments The Congressional Library The Smithsonian Institution Prof. Joseph Henry The Soldiers' Home Agri cultural Department Washington Monument City of Mag nificent Distances Potomac Kiver Allegheny Mountains The Kittatinny Kange Harper's Ferry John Brown The Great Falls Alexandria Mount Vernon Washington's Home and Tomb Washington Belies Key of the Bastille Kappahannock Kiver Fredericksburg Mary Ball, the Mother of Washington York Kiver The Peninsula Wil- liamsburg Yorktown Cornwallis' Surrender James Kiver The Natural Bridge Lynchburg Appomattox Court- House Lee's Surrender Powhatan Dutch Gap Varina Pocahontas Her Wedding to Kolfe Her Descendants, the "First Families of Virginia" Deep Bottom Malvern Hill General McClellan's Seven Days' Battles and Ketreat Bermuda Hundred General Butler Shirley Appomattox Kiver Petersburg General Grant' s Headquarters City Point Harrison' s Landing Berkeley Westover William Byrd Chickahominy Kiver Jamestown Island Gold Hunt ing The Northwest Passage First Corn-Planting Indian Habits First House of Burgesses Tobacco-Growing Vir ginia Planters Importing Negro Slaves Newport News (3) 4 AMEEICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. Merrimac and Monitor Contest Hampton Beads Hampton Old Point Comfort Fortress Monroe Fort Algernon Fort Wool Elizabeth Eiver Norfolk Portsmouth Great Dismal Swamp The Eastern Shore The Oyster Navy William Claiborne Kent Island Lord Baltimore The Maryland Palatinate Leonard Calvert's Expedition St. Mary's Patuxent Eiver St. Inigoe's Severn Eiver An napolis United States Naval Academy Patapsco Eiver Baltimore Jones's Falls Washington Monument Battle Monument Johns Hopkins and his Benefactions Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad Druid Hill Greenmount Cemetery Fort McHenry The Star-Spangled Banner. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. WHEN Captain Christopher Newport's expedition of three little ships and one hundred and five men, sent out by the "Virginia Company" to colonize America, after four months' buffeting by the rough winter storms of the North Atlantic, sought a harbor of refuge in May, 1607, they sailed into Chesapeake Bay. These three little ships were the " Susan Con stant," the "Good Speed" and the "Discovery ;" and upon them came Captain John Smith, the renowned adventurer, who, with Newport, founded the first per manent settlement in North America, the colony of Jamestown. The king who chartered the " Virginia Company " was James I., and hence the name. As the fleet sailed into the " fair bay," as Smith called it, the headlands on either side of the entrance were named Cape Charles and Cape Henry, for the king's two sons. Their first anchorage was in a roadstead of such attractive character that they named the ad- CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 5 jacent land Point Comfort, which it retains to this dayj and farther inland, where Captain Newport afterwards came, in hopes of getting news from home, is now the busy port and town of Newport News. Sir Walter Raleigh, in the previous century, had sent out his ill-starred expedition to Roanoke, which had first entered this great bay ; and at the Elizabeth River, which they had named in honor of Raleigh's queen, they found the Indian village of Chesapik, meaning "the mother of waters ;" and from this came the name of Chesapeake Bay. Ra leigh had landed colonists here, as well as at Roanoke, and when the " Virginia Company " sent out New port's expedition it laid three commands upon those in charge : First, they were to seek Raleigh's lost colonists ; second, they were to find gold j and third, they were to search for the "northwest passage" through America to the Pacific Ocean. So strong was the belief in finding gold in the New World that the only consideration King James asked for his charter was the stipulation that the " Virginia Com pany " should pay him one-fifth of the gold and silver found in its possessions. As none of Raleigh's colonists could be found, the expedition sailed up the James River after consider able delay, and, selecting a better place for a settle ment, landed at Jamestown May 13, 1607, where Smith became their acknowledged leader, and pre served the permanency of the colony. This famous 6 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. navigator and colonist was a native of Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, England, born in January, 1579. When scarcely more than a boy he fought in the wars of Holland, and then he wandered through Europe and as far as Egypt, afterwards returning to engage in the conflict against the Turks in Hungary. Here he won great renown, fighting many desperate combats, and in one engagement cutting off three Turks' heads j but he was finally wounded and captured. The sober, investigating historians of a later day have taken the liberty to doubt some of Smith's wonderful tales of these remarkable adventures, but he must have done something heroic to season him for the hardy work of the pioneer who was the first to succeed in plant ing a colony in North America. After the Turks made him a prisoner, he was sold as a slave in Con stantinople, being condemned to the hardest and most revolting kinds of labor, until he became desperate under the cruelties and escaped. Then he was for a long time a wanderer through the wilderness, travers ing the forests of Russia, and pushing his way alone across Europe, until, almost worn out with fatigue and hardships, he arrived in England just at the time Newport's expedition was being fitted out j and still having an irrepressible love for adventure, he joined it. CHESAPEAKE BAY. There can be no better place for beginning a sur vey of our country than upon this great bay, which CHESAPEAKE BAY. 7 Smith and his companions entered in 1607. Chesa peake Bay is the largest inland sea on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. It stretches for two hundred miles up into the land, between the low and fertile shores of Virginia and Maryland, both of which States it divides, and thus gives them valuable navigation facilities. In its many arms and estu aries are the resting-places for the luscious oysters which its people send all over the world. It is one of the greatest of food-producers, having a larger variety of tempting luxuries for the palate than prob ably any other region. Along its shores and upon its islands are numberless popular resorts for fishing and shooting, for its tender and amply-supplied water-foods attract the ducks and other wild fowl in countless thousands, and bring in shoals of the sea- fishes, which are the sportsmen's coveted game. Its terrapin are famous, while its shores and border lands, particularly on the eastern side, are a series of orchards and market-gardens, providing limitless supplies of fruits, berries and vegetables for the Northern markets. It receives in its generally placid bosom some of the greatest rivers flowing down from the Allegheny Mountains. The broad Susquehanna, coming through New York and Pennsylvania, makes its headwaters, and it receives the Potomac, divid ing Maryland from Virginia, and the James, in Virginia, both of them wide estuaries with an enor mous outflow ; and also numerous smaller streams, 8 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. such as the Rappahannock, York, Patuxent, Patapsco, Choptank and Elizabeth Rivers. Extensive lines of profitable commerce, all large carriers of food-sup plies, have transport over this great bay and its many arms and affluents. Canals connect it with other interior waters, and leading railways with all parts of the country, while there are several noted cities upon its shores and tributaries. THE CITY OF WASHINGTON. The most famous of all these cities of the Chesa peake region is Washington, upon the Potomac, and we will therefore begin this story at the American National Capital. The striking thing about Wash ington is that, unlike other capitals of great nations, it was created for the sole purpose of a seat of gov ernment, apart from any question of commercial rank or population. It has neither manufactures nor commerce to speak of. After the adoption of the Federal Constitution there was a protracted con flict in Congress over the claims of rival localities for the seat of government, and this developed so much jealousy that it almost disrupted the Union at its inception. General Washington, then the President, used his strong influence and wise judgment to com promise the dispute, and it was finally decided that Philadelphia should remain the capital for ten years, while after the year 1800 it should be located on the Potomac River, on a site selected by Washington, THE CITY OF WASHINGTON. 9 within a district of one hundred square miles, ceded by Maryland and Virginia, and which, to avoid any question of sovereignty or control, should be under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. The location was at the time nearly in the geographical centre of the then thirteen original States. As the city was designed entirely on the Maryland side of the Potomac, the Virginia portion of the " Federal Dis trict of Columbia," as it was called, was retroceded in 1826, so that the District now contains about sixty- five square miles. The capital was originally called the " Federal City," but this was changed by law in 1791 to the " City of Washington." The ground plan of the place was ambitious, and laid out upon an extensive undulating plateau bordered by rolling hills to the northward and westward, and sloping gently towards the Potomac River, between the main stream and the eastern branch, or Anacostia River. This plan has been well described as "a wheel laid upon a gridiron," the rectangular arrange ment of the ordinary streets having superimposed upon it a system of broad radiating avenues, with the Capitol on its hill, ninety feet high, for the centre. The Indians called the place Conococheague, or the " roaring water," from a rapid brook running through it, which washed the base of the Capitol Hill, and was afterwards very properly named the Tiber, but has since degenerated into a sewer. A distinguished French engineer of the time, Major 10 AMEKICA PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. L'Enfant, prepared the topographical plan of the city, under the direction of Washington and Jeffer son, who was Secretary of State ; and Andrew EUi- cott, a prominent local surveyor, laid it out upon the ground. The basis of the design was the topography of Versailles, but with large modifications ; and thus was laid out the Capital of the United States, which a writer in the London Times, some years ago, called "the city of Philadelphia griddled across the city of Versailles." The original designers planned a city five miles long and three miles broad, and confidently expected that a vast metropolis would soon be created, though in practice only a comparatively limited portion was built upon, and this is not where they intended the chief part of the new city to be. Of late years, however, the newer portions have been rapidly ex tending. No man's name was used for any of the streets or avenues, as this might cause jealousy, so the streets were numbered or lettered and the ave nues named after the States. The corner-stone of the Capitol was laid in 1793, its front facing east upon the elevated plateau of the hill, and the town was to have been mainly built upon this plateau in front of it. Behind the Capitol, on its western side, the brow of the hill descended rather sharply, and here they laid out a wide and open Mall, westward over the lower ground to the bank of the Potomac River, more than a mile away. Off towards the THE CITY OF WASHINGTON. 11 northwest, at the end of one of the diagonal ave nues, they placed the Executive Mansion, with its extensive park and gardens stretching southward to the river, and almost joining the Mall there at a right angle. The design was to have the city in an ele vated and salubrious location, with the President secluded in a comfortable retreat amid ample grounds, but nearly a mile and a half distant in the rural re gion. But few plans eventuate as expected j and such is the perversity of human nature that the peo ple, when they came to the new settlement, would not build the town on Capitol Hill as had been intended, but persisted in settling upon the lower ground along and adjacent to the broad avenue lead ing from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion ; and there, and for a long distance beyond the latter to the northward and westward, is the city of Washing ton of to-day. Pennsylvania Avenue, one hundred and sixty feet wide, joining these two widely-sepa rated Government establishments and extending far to the northwest, thus became the chief street of the modern city. To Washington the Federal Govern ment was removed, as directed by law, in 1800, the actual removal being conducted by Tobias Lear, who had been President Washington's private secretary, and was then serving in similar capacity for President John Adams. He packed the whole archives and belongings of the then United States Government at Philadelphia in twenty-eight wooden boxes, loaded 12 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. them on a sloop, sailed down the Delaware, around to the Chesapeake, and up the Potomac to the new capital, and took possession. The original Capitol and Executive Mansion were burnt by the British during their invasion in 1814, when Washington had about ten thousand population ; it now contains over three hundred thousand, of whom fifty thousand are army and navy officers and civil servants and their families, and about eighty thousand are colored people. THE CAPITOL. The crowning glory of Washington is the Capitol, its towering dome, surmounted by the colossal statue of America, being the prominent landmark, seen from afar, on every approach to the city. The total height to the top of the statue is three hundred and seventy- five feet above the Potomac River level. The grand position, vast architectural mass and impressive effect of the Capitol from almost every point of view have secured for it the praise of the best artistic judges of all countries as the most imposing modern edifice in the world. From the high elevation of the Capitol dome there is a splendid view to the westward over the city spread upon the lower ground beyond the base of Capitol Hill. Diagonally to the southwest and northwest extend two grand avenues as far as eye can see Maryland Avenue to the left leading down to the Potomac, and carrying the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad to the river, where it crosses THE CAPITOL. 13 over the Long Bridge into Virginia ; and Pennsylva nia Avenue to the right, stretching to the distant col onnade of the Treasury Building and the tree-covered park south of the Executive Mansion. Between these diverging avenues and extending to the Poto mac, more than a mile away, is the Mall, a broad en closure of lawns and gardens. Upon it in the fore ground is the Government Botanical Garden, and behind this the spacious grounds surrounding the Smithsonian Institution ; while beyond, near the river bank, rises the tall white shaft of the Washington Monument, with its pointed apex. On either side spreads out the city, the houses bordering the foliage-lined streets, and having at fre quent intervals the tall spires of churches, and the massive marble, granite and brick edifices that are used for Government buildings. In front, to the west, is the wide channel of the Potomac, and to the south and southeast the Anacostia, their streams uniting at Greenleaf 's Point, where the Government Arsenal is located. On the heights beyond the point, and across the Anacostia, is the spacious Government Insane Asylum. Far away on the Virginia shore, across the Potomac, rises a long range of wooded hills, amid which is Arlington Heights and its pillared edifice, which was the home of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Washington and General Washington's adopted son, and was subsequently the residence of General Robert E. Lee, who married 14 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. Miss Custis. Spreading broadly over the forest-clad hills is the Arlington National Cemetery, where fif teen thousand soldiers of the Civil War are buried. At the distant horizon to the left rises the spire of Fairfax Seminary, and beyond, down the Potomac, is seen the city of Alexandria, the river between being dotted with vessels. To the northwest, behind the Executive Mansion, is the spacious building of the State, War and Navy Departments, having for a background the picturesque Georgetown Heights, just over the District boundary, their tops rising four hundred feet above the river. Farther to the north ward is Seventh Street Hill, crowned with the build ings of Howard University, and beyond it the distant tower of the Soldiers' Home. All around the view is magnificent ; and years ago, before the city ex pected to attain anything like its present grandeur, Baron von Humboldt, as he stood upon the western verge of Capitol Hill and surveyed this gorgeous pic ture, exclaimed : "I have not seen a more charming panorama in all my travels." After the British burnt the original Capitol, it was rebuilt and finished in 1827 ; but the unexampled growth of the country and of Congress soon demanded an extension, which was begun in 1851. It is this extension which supplied the wings and dome, de signed and constructed by the late Thomas U. Walter, that has made the building so attractive. This grand Republican palace of government, stretching over THE CAPITOL. ^ 15 seven hundred and fifty feet along the top of the hill, has cost about $16,000,000. The old central build ing is constructed of Virginia freestone, painted white, the massive wings are of white marble from Massachusetts, and the lofty dome is of iron. The dazzling white marble gleams in the sunlight, and fitly closes the view along the great avenues radiat ing from it as a common centre. The architecture is classic, with Corinthian details, and, to add dignity to the western front, which overlooks the city, a magnificent marble terrace, eight hundred and eighty- four feet long, has been constructed at its base on the crest of the hill, which is approached by two broad flights of steps. The Capitol is surrounded by a park of about fifty acres, including the western declivity of the hill and part of the plateau on top. Upon this plateau, on the eastern front, the populace assemble every fourth year to witness the inauguration of the Presi dent when he is sworn into office by the Chief Justice, and delivers his inaugural address from a broad plat form at the head of the elaborate staircase leading up to the entrance to the great central rotunda. In full view of the President, as he stands under the grand Corin thian portico, is a colossal statue of Washington, seated in his chair of state, and facing the new President, as if in solemn warning. The rotunda is the most striking feature of the Capitol interior ; it is nearly one hundred feet in diameter, and rises one hundred 16 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. and eighty feet to the ceiling of the dome, which is ornamented with fine frescoes by Brumidi. Large panelled paintings on the walls just above the floor, and alti rilievi over them, represent events in the early history of the country, while at a height of one hundred feet a band nine feet wide runs around the interior of the dome, upon which a series of frescoes tell the story of American history from the landing of Columbus. But, most appropriately, the elaborate decorations, while reproducing so much in Indian legend and Revolutionary story, are not used in any way to recall the Civil War. Away up in the top of the dome there is a Whispering Gallery, to which a stairway laboriously leads. The old halls of the Senate and House in the origi nal wings of the Capitol are now devoted, the former to the Supreme Court and the latter to a gallery of statuary, to which each State contributes two sub jects, mostly Revolutionary or Colonial heroes. Be yond, on either hand, are the extensive new wings the Senate Chamber to the north and the Representa tives 7 Hall to the south. Each is surrounded by cor ridors, beyond which are committee rooms, and there are spacious galleries for the public. Each member has his chair and desk, the seats being arranged in semicircles around the rostrum. In practice, while the House is in session, the members are usually reading or writing, excepting the few who may watch what is going on, because they are specially inter- THE CAPITOL 17 ested in the matter under consideration j and the member who may have the floor and is speaking is actually heard by very few, his speech being gener ally made for the galleries and the official stenog raphers and newspaper reporters. Debate rarely reaches a point of interest absorbing the actual at tention of the whole House, most of the speech- making seeming to be delivered for effect in the member's home district, this method being usually described as "talking for Buncombe." The other members read their newspapers, write their letters, clap their hands sharply to summon the nimble pages who run about the hall upon their errands, gossip in groups, and otherwise pass their time, move in and out the cloak- and committee-rooms, and in various ways manage not to listen to much that goes on. Nevertheless, business progresses under an iron-clad code of procedure, the Speaker being a despot who largely controls legislation. The surroundings of the Senate Chamber are grander than those of the House, there being a gorgeous "Marble Hall," in which Senators give audience to their visitors, and mag nificently ornamented apartments for the Presi dent and Vice-President. The President's Room is only occupied during a few hours in the closing scenes of a session, this small but splendid apart ment, which has had $50,000 expended upon its decoration, being a show place for the remainder of the year. VOL. L 2 18 AMEEICA, PICTUBESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. THE WHITE HOUSE. The most famous building in Washington, though one of the least pretentious, is the Executive Man sion, popularly known as the " White House/ 7 being constructed, like the older part of the Capitol, of freestone, and painted white. It stands within a park at some distance back from the street, a semi circular driveway leading up to the Ionic colonnade supporting the front central portico. It is a plain building, without pretensions in anything but its august occupancy, and the ornamental grounds stretch down to the Potomac Eiver, which flows about two hundred yards below its southern front. It is two stories high, about one hundred and seventy feet long, and eighty-six feet deep. This building, like the Capitol, was burnt in the British invasion of 1814 and afterwards restored. Unlike the nation, or the enormous public buildings that surround and dwarf it, the White House has in no sense grown, but remains as it was designed in the lifetime of Washington. It is nevertheless a comfortable man sion, though rigid in simplicity. The parlor of the house, the " East Room," is the finest apartment, oc cupying the whole of that side, and is kept open for visitors during most of the day. The public wander through it in droves, walk upon the carpets and re cline in the soft chairs, awaiting the President's coming to his almost daily reception and handshak- THE WHITE HOUSE. 19 ing ; for they greatly prize this joint occupancy, as it were, and close communion with their highest ruler. This is an impressive room, and in earlier times was the scene of various inauguration feasts, when Presidents kept open house for their political friends and admirers. The "East Room" was a famous entertainment hall in President Jackson's time. On the evening of his inauguration day it was open to all comers, who were served with orange punch and lemonade. The crowds were large, and the punch was mixed in bar rels, being brought in by the bucketful, the thirsty throngs rushing after the waiters, and in the turmoil upsetting the punch and ruining dresses and carpets. The punch receptacles were finally taken out into the gardens, and in this way the boisterous crowds were drawn off, and it became possible to serve cake and wine to the ladies. Various traditions are still told of this experience, and also of the monster cheese, as big as a hogshead, that was served to the multitude at Jackson's farewell reception. It was cut up with long saw-blades, and each guest was given about a pound of cheese, this feast being the talk of the time. Jackson's successor was Martin Van Buren, who came from New York, the land of big cheeses. Being bound to emulate his predecessor, an even larger cheese was sent him, and cut up in the " East Room." The crowds trampled the greasy crumbs into the carpets and hangings, and all the furniture 20 AMERICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. and fittings were ruined. Now no guest comes un bidden to dine at the White House j but the change in the fashion aided in defeating Van Buren, who was a candidate for a second election in 1840. He stopped keeping open house in order to save the fur niture and get some peace, and during several months preceding the election many persons arrived at the White House for breakfast or dinner and threatened to vote against Van Buren unless they were enter tained. This, with the fact noised abroad that he had become such an aristocrat that his table service in cluded gold spoons, then an unheard of extravagance, proved too much for him. Van Buren was beaten for re-election by " Old Tippecanoe " General Wil liam Henry Harrison. A corridor leads westward from the " East Room/' through the centre of the White House, to the con servatories, which are prolonged nearly two hundred feet farther westward. A series of fine apartments, called the Green, Blue and Red Rooms, from the predominant colors in their decorations, are south of this corridor, with their windows opening upon the gardens. These apartments open into each other, and finally into the State Dining Hall on the western side of the building, which is adjoined by a conservatory. North of the corridor the first floor contains the family rooms, and on the second floor are the sleeping-rooms and also the public offices. The Cabinet Room, about in the centre of the build- ELABOKATE PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 21 ing, is a comparatively small apartment, where the Cabinet meetings assemble around a long table. On one side of it, at the head of a broad staircase, are the offices of the secretaries, over the East Room; and on the other side, the President's private apart ment, which is called the Library. Here the Presi dent sits, with the southern sun streaming through the windows, to give audience to his visitors, who are passed in by the secretaries. One of the desks, which is usually the President's personal work-table, has a history. The British ship " Resolute," years ago, after many hardships in the fruitless search for Sir John Franklin, had to be abandoned in the Arctic seas. Portions of her oaken timbers were taken back to England, and from these, by the Queen's command, the desk was made and presented to President Grant, and it has since been part of the furniture in the Library. An adjacent chamber, wherein the Prince of Wales slept on his only visit to America, and the chamber adjoining, are the two sleeping-rooms which have been usually occupied by the greatest Presidents. The accommodations are so restricted, however, that a movement is afoot for constructing another presiden tial residence, on higher land in the suburbs, so that the White House may be exclusively used for the execu tive offices. ELABORATE PUBLIC BUILDINGS. The great public buildings used for Government purposes are among the chief adornments of Wash- 22 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. ington. To the eastward of the White House is the Treasury Building, extending over five hundred feet along Fifteenth Street, enriched by a magnificent Ionic colonnade, three hundred and fifty feet long, modelled from that of the Athenian Temple of Minerva. Each end has an elaborate Ionic portico, while the western front, facing the White House, has a grand central entrance. This was the first great building constructed for a Government department, and is the headquarters of the Secretary of the Treasury. Upon the western side of the White House is the most splendid of all the department buildings, accommo dating three of them, the State, War and Navy De partments. It is Roman Doric, built of granite, four stories high, with Mansard and pavilion roofs and porticoes, covering a surface of five hundred and sixty-seven by three hundred and forty-two feet. The Salon of the Ambassadors, or the Diplomatic Reception Room, is its finest apartment, and is the audience chamber of the Secretary of State, who oc cupies the adjoining Secretary's Hall, also a splendid room. This great building is constructed around two large interior courts, the Army occupying the north ern and western wings, and the Navy the eastern side, where among the great attractions are the models of the famous warships of the American Navy. To the northward of the White House park and fur nishing a fine front view is Lafayette Square, con taining a bronze equestrian statue of General Jack- ELABOEATE PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 23 son by Clark Mills ; beyond, on the western side, is the attractive Renaissance building of the Corcoran Art Gallery, amply endowed by the late banker, William W. Corcoran, and containing his valuable art collections, which were given to the public. The foundation of his fortune was laid over a half-century ago, when he had the pluck to take a Government loan which seemed slow of sale. His modest banking house still exists as the Riggs Bank, facing the Treasury. The most admired of the newer public buildings in Washington is the Congressional Library, on the plateau southeast of the Capitol, an enormous struc ture in Italian Renaissance, a quadrangle four hun dred and seventy feet long and three hundred and forty feet wide, enclosing four courts and a central rotunda. It was finished in 1897, and cost about $6,- 200,000. Its elevated gilded dome and lantern are conspicuous objects in the view. This great Library, the largest in the country, is appropriately orna mented, and its book-stacks have accommodations for about five millions of volumes, the present number approximating one million, with nearly three hun dred thousand pamphlets. The Pension Building is another huge structure, northwest of Capitol Hill, built around a covered quadrangle, which is used quadrennially for the " Inauguration Ball," a promi nent Washington official-social function, which was adopted to relieve the White House from the former 24 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. feasting on the inauguration night. This house, ac commodating the army of pension clerks, has running around the walls, over the lower windows, a broad band, exhibiting in relief a marching column of troops, with representations of every branch of the service. Seventh Street, which crosses Pennsylvania Avenue about midway between the Capitol and the Treasury, has to the northward the imposing Corin thian Post-office Building, formerly the headquarters of the postal service. Behind this is the Department of the Interior, popularly known as the Patent Office, as a large part of it is occupied by patent models. This is a grand Doric structure, occupying two blocks and embracing about three acres of buildings, the main entrance being a magnificent portico, seen from Pennsylvania Avenue. The new General Post-office Department Building is on Pennsylvania Avenue, covering a surface of three hundred by two hundred feet, and having a tower rising three hundred feet. It has just been completed. The Government Print ing Office, where the public printing is done, and the Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where all the Government money issues and revenue stamps are made, are large and important buildings, though not specifically attractive in architecture. THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. Upon the Mall stands the Smithsonian Institution, of world-wide renown, one of the most interesting - In the Congressional Library, Washington, D. C. I'm mi. THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. ' 25 public structures in Washington, its turrets and towers rising above the trees. The origin of this famous scientific establishment was the bequest of an Englishman, James Smithson, a natural son of Hugh Smithson, Duke of Northumberland, born in 1765. He was known as Louis Macie at Oxford, graduating under that name j early developed scientific tastes j was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the friend and associate of many of the most learned men of his time, and lived usually in Paris, where in the latter part of the last century he took the family name of his father. He died in Italy in 1829. In Washing ton's Farewell Address, issued in 1796, there occurs the phrase, " An institution for the increase and dif fusion of knowledge," and it was well known that the Father of his Country cherished a project for a national institution of learning in the new Federal City. This was evidently communicated to Smith- son by one of his intimates in Paris, Joel Barlow, a noted American, who was familiar with Washing ton's plan, and in this way originated the residuary bequest, which was contained in the following clause of Smithson's will: "I bequeath the whole of my property to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and dif fusion of knowledge among men." Upon the death of Smith son's nephew, without heirs, in 1835, this bequest became operative, and the United States 26 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. Legation in London was notified that the estate, then amounting in value to about 100,000, was held in possession of the Accountant-General of the Court of Chancery. This was something novel in America, and when the facts became public opposition arose in Congress to accepting the gift, eminent men, headed by John C. Calhoun, arguing that it was beneath the dignity of the United States to receive presents. Others, however, led by John Quincy Adams, ar dently advocated acceptance. The latter carried the day ; Richard Rush was sent to London, as agent, to prosecute the claim in the Court of Chancery, in the name of the President of the United States ; and the legacy was obtained and delivered at the Mint in Philadelphia, September 1, 1838, in the sum of 104,- 960 British sovereigns, and was immediately recoined into United States money, producing $508,318.46, the first installment of the legacy. There were sub sequent additional installments, and the total sum in 1867 reached $650,000. This original sum was de posited in the Federal Treasury in perpetuity, at six per cent, interest, and the income has been devoted to the erection of the buildings, and, with other sub sequently added sums, to the support of the vast es tablishment which has grown from the original gift. The Smithsonian Institution was formally created by Act of Congress, August 10, 1846, the corpora tion being composed of the President, Vice-President, members of the Cabinet and Chief Justice, who are THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. ' 27 constituted the "establishment," made responsible for the duty of " the increase and diffusion of knowl edge among men." The Institution is administered by a Board of Regents, including in addition three Senators, three members of the House, and six citi zens appointed by Congress ; the presiding officer, called the " Chancellor," being usually the Chief Jus tice, and the secretary of the board is the Executive Officer. The late eminent Professor Joseph Henry was elected secretary in 1846, and he designed the plan and scope of the Institution, continuing as its executive head until his death in 1878. His statue stands in the grounds near the entrance. Two other secretaries followed him, Spencer F. Baird (who was twenty-seven years assistant secretary), and upon his death Samuel P. Langley, in 1888. The ornate building of red Seneca brownstone, a fine castellated structure in the Renaissance style, was designed in 1847 and finished in 1855. Its grand front stretches about four hundred and fifty feet, and its nine towers and turrets, rising from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty feet, stand up prettily behind the groves of trees. This original building contains a museum of natural history and anthropology. In connection with it there is another elaborate structure over three hundred feet square the National Museum con taining numerous courts, surrounding a central ro tunda, beneath which a fountain plashes. This is under the same management, and directly supported 28 AMEKICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. by the Government, the design being to perfect a col lection much like the British Museum, but paying more attention to American antiquities and products. This adjunct museum began with the gifts by foreign Governments to the Philadelphia Centennial Expo sition in 1876, most of them being still preserved there. The Smithsonian Trust Fund now approxi mates $1,000,000, and there are various other gifts and bequests held in the Treasury for various scien tific purposes similarly administered. Briefly stated, the plan of Professor Henry was to " increase knowledge " by original investigations and study, either in science or literature, and to " diffuse knowledge " not only through the United States, but everywhere, and especially by promoting an inter change of thought among the learned in all nations, with no restriction in favor of any one branch of knowledge. A leading feature of his plan was " to assist men of science in making original researches, to publish them in a series of volumes, and to give a copy of them to every first-class library on the face of the earth." There is said to be probably not a scientific observer of any standing in the United States to whom the Institution has not at some time extended a helping hand, and this aid also goes liber ally across the Atlantic. As income grew, the scope has been enlarged. In the various museums there is a particularly good collection of American ethnology, and a most elaborate display of American fossils, THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 29 minerals, animals, birds and antiquities. There are also shown by the Fish Commission specimens of the fishing implements and fishery methods of all nations, an exhibition which is unexcelled in these special de partments. Many specifically interesting things are in the National Museum. The personal effects of Washington, Jackson and General Grant are there. Benjamin Franklin ? s old printing-press is preserved in a somewhat dilapidated condition, and there is also the first railway engine sent from England to the United States, the original "John Bull/ 7 built by Stephenson & Son at Newcastle-on-Tyne in June, 1831, and sent out as "Engine No. 1" for the Camden and Amboy Railroad crossing New Jersey, now a part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It weighs ten tons, and has four driving-wheels of fifty-four inches diameter. This relic, after being used on the railroad for forty years, until improved machinery superseded it, has been given the Government as a national heirloom. Among the anthropological col lections is a chronologically arranged series illus trating American history from the period of the discovery to the present day. This includes George Catlings famous collection of six hundred paintings, illustrating the manners and customs of the North American Indians. One of the most important fea tures of the work of this most interesting establish ment is its active participation in all the great International Expositions by the loan to them of 30 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. valuable exhibits under Government direction and control. THE SOLDIERS' HOME AND WASHINGTON MONUMENT. The city of Washington, with progressing years, is becoming more and more the popular residential city of the country. It is one of the most beautiful and attractive, the admirable plan, with the wide asphalted streets, lined with trees, opening up vista views of grand public buildings, statues, monuments or leafy parks, making it specially popular. The northern and northwestern sections, on the higher grounds, have consequently spread far beyond the Executive Mansion, being filled with rows of elabo rate and costly residences, the homes of leading pub lic men. The streets are kept scrupulously clean, while at the intersections are " circles," triangles and little squares, which are availed of for pretty parks, and usually contain statues of distinguished Ameri cans. Among the noted residence streets are Ver mont, Massachusetts and Connecticut Avenues and K Street and Sixteenth Street, all in the northwestern district. Among the many statues adorning the small parks and " circles " are those of Washington, Far- ragut, Scott, Thomas, McPherson, Dupont, Logan, Franklin, Hancock, Grant, Rawlins and Martin Lu ther, the latter a replica of the figure in the Refor mation Monument at Worms. To the northward the suburbs rise to Columbia SOLDIEKS' HOME WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 31 Heights, with an elevated plateau beyond, where there is a Government park covering nearly a square mile of rolling surface, and surrounding one of the noted rural retreats on the borders of the Capital, the " Soldiers' Home." This is an asylum and hospital for disabled and superannuated soldiers of the Ameri can regular army, containing usually about six hun dred of them, and founded by "General Winfield Scott, whose statue adorns the grounds. Its cottages have been favorite retiring-places of the Presidents in the warm weather. Amid lovely surroundings the veterans are comfortably housed, and in the adjacent cemetery thousands of them have been buried. Scott's statue stands upon the southern brow of the plateau, where a ridge is thrust out in a commanding situation ; and from here the old commander of the army forty and fifty years ago gazes intently over the lower ground to the city three miles away, with the lofty Capitol dome and Washington Monument rising to his level, while beyond them the broad and placid Potomac winds between its wooded shores. This is the most elevated spot near Washington, overlooking a wide landscape. In the cemetery at the Soldiers' Home sleeps General Logan, among the thousands of other veterans. To the westward the beautiful gorge of Rock Creek is cut down, and be yond is Georgetown, with its noted University, founded by the Jesuits in 1789, and having about seven hundred students. In the Oak Hill Cemetery, 32 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. at Georgetown, is the grave of John Howard Payne, the author of " Home, Sweet Home," who died in 1852. Far away over the Potomac, in the Arling ton National Cemetery, are the graves of Generals Sherman and Sheridan. Down near the Potomac, on the Mall, to the west ward of the Smithsonian turrets, is the extensive brick and brownstone building representing the dom inant industry of the United States, which gives the politicians so much anxiety in catering for votes the Agricultural Department. Here are spacious gardens and greenhouses, an arboretum and herba rium, the adjacent buildings also containing an agri cultural museum. As over three-fifths of the men in the United States are farmers and farm-workers, and many others are in the adjunct industries, it has be come a popular saying in Washington that if you wish to scare Congress you need only shake a cow's tail at it. This department has grown into an enormous distributing office for seeds and cuttings, crop reports and farming information. Among its curiosities is the " Sequoia Tree Tower," formed of a section of a Sequoia or Big Tree of California, which was three hundred feet high and twenty-six feet in diameter at the base. Behind the Agricultural Department, and rising almost at the river bank, and in front of the Execu tive Mansion, is the noted Washington Monument, its pointed apex elevated five hundred and fifty-five SOLDIERS' HOME WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 33 feet. This is a square and gradually tapering shaft, constructed of white Maryland marble, the walls fifteen feet thick at the base and eighteen inches at the top, the pyramidal apex being fifty-five feet high and capped with a piece of aluminum. Its construc tion was begun in 1848, abandoned in 1855, resumed in 1877 and finished in 1884, at a total cost of $1,- 300,000. The lower walls contain stones contributed by public corporations and organizations, many being sent by States and foreign nations, and bearing suit able inscriptions in memory of Washington. A fatiguing stairway of nine hundred steps leads to the top, and there is also a slow-moving elevator. From the little square windows, just below the apex, there is a grand view over the surrounding country. Afar off to the northwest is seen the long hazy wall of the Blue Ridge or Kittatinny Mountain range, its prominent peak, the Sugar Loaf, being fifty miles distant. To the eastward is the Capitol and its sur mounting dome, over a mile away, while the city spreads all around the view below, like a toy town, its streets crossing as on a chess-board, and cut into gores and triangles by the broad, diagonal avenues lined with trees, the houses being interspersed with many foliage-covered spaces. Coming from the northwest the Potomac passes nearly at the foot of the monument, with Arlington Heights over on the distant Virginia shore, and the broad river channel flowing away to the southwest until lost among the VOL. I. 3 34 AMEKICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. winding forest-clad shores below Alexandria. From this elevated perch can be got an excellent idea of the peculiarities of the town, its vast plan and long intervals of space, so that there is quite plainly shown why the practical Yankee race calls it the " City of Magnificent Distances." Possibly one of the best descriptions of Washington and its characteristics is that of the poet in the Washington Post : A city well named of magnificent distances ; Of boulevards, palaces, fountains and trees ; Of sunshine and moonlight whose subtle insistence is " Bask in our radiance ! Be lulled by our breeze 1" A city like Athens set down in Arcadia ; White temples and porticoes gleaming 'mid groves ; Where nymphs glide and smile as though quite unafraid o* you, The home of the Muses, the Graces, the Loves ; The centre of Politics, Letters and Sciences ; Elysium of Arts, yet the Lobbyist's Dream ; Where gather the clans whose only reliance is Gold and the dross that sweeps down with its stream ; An isle of the lotus, where every-day business Sails on its course all unvexed by simoons ; No bustle or roar, no mad-whirling dizziness O'er velvety streets like Venetian lagoons ; A town where from nothing whatever they bar women, From riding a bicycle tending a bar ; Ex-cooks queen society ladies are charwomen For such the plain facts as too often they are. A city where applicants, moody, disconsolate, Swoop eager for office and senseless to shame ; The "heeler" quite certain of getting his consulate, Although, to be sure, he can't sign his name ; A town where all types of humanity congregate ; The millionaire lolling on cushions of ease ; THE POTOMAC AND THE ALLEGHENIES. 35 The tramp loping by at a wolfish and hungry gait ; And mankind in general a' go as you please. A city in short of most strange inconsistencies ; Condensing the history of man since the fall ; A city, however, whose piece de resistance is This 'tis the best and the fairest of all. THE POTOMAC AND THE ALLEGHENIES. The Potomac is one of tlie chief among the many rivers draining the Allegheny Mountains. It origi nates in two branches, rising in West Virginia and uniting northwest of Cumberland j is nearly four hundred miles long; has remarkably picturesque scenery in the magnificent gorges and reaches of its upper waters ; breaks through range after range of the AHeghenies, and after reaching the lowlands be comes a tidal estuary for a hundred miles of its final course, broadening to six and eight and ultimately sixteen miles wide at its mouth in the Chesapeake. Washington is near the head of tidewater, one hun dred and twenty-five miles from the bay ; and for almost its entire course the Potomac is an interstate boundary, between Maryland and West Virginia and Virginia. Its name is Indian, referring to its use in their primitive navigation, the original word u Peto- mok " meaning " they are coming by water " " they draw near in canoes." The Alleghenies, where this noted river originates, are a remarkable geological formation. The Atlantic Coast of the United States has a general trend from the northeast to the south- 36 AMERICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. west, with bordering sand beaches, and back of them a broad band of pines. Then, towards the north west, the land gradually rises, being formed in suc cessive ridges, with intervening valleys, until it reaches the Alleghenies. The great ranges of this mountain chain, which is geologically known as the Appalachian System, run almost parallel to the coast for over a thousand miles, from the White Mountains of New Hampshire down to Alabama. They are noted mountains, not very high, but of remarkable construction, and are said to be much older in geo logical formation than the Alps or the Andes. They are composed of series of parallel ridges, one beyond the other, and all following the same general course, like the successive waves of the ocean. For long distances these ridges run in perfectly straight lines, and then, as one may curve around into a new direc tion, all the others curve with it. The intervening valleys are as remarkable in their parallelism as the ridges enclosing them. From the seaboard to the mountains the ranges of hills are of the same general character, but with less elevation, gentler slopes, and in most cases narrower and much more fertile val leys. The South Mountain, an irregular and in some parts broken-down ridge, is the outpost of the Alle ghenies, while the great Blue Ridge is their eastern buttress. The latter is about twenty miles north west of the South Mountain, and is the famous Kit- THE POTOMAC AND THE ALLEGHENIES. 37 tatinny range, named by the Indians, and in their figurative language meaning "the endless chain of hills." It stretches from the Catskills in New York southwest to Alabama, a distance of eight hundred miles, a veritable backbone for the Atlantic seaboard, its rounded ridgy peaks rising sometimes twenty-five hundred feet north of the Carolinas, and much higher in those States. It stands up like a great blue wall against the northwestern horizon, deeply notched where the rivers flow out, and is the eastern border for the mountain chain of numerous parallel ridges of varying heights and characteristics that stretch in rows behind it, covering a width of a hundred miles or more. Within this chain is the vast store of minerals that has done so much to create Ameri can wealth the coal and iron, the ores and metals, that are in exhaustless supply, and upon the surface grew the forests of timber that were used in building the seaboard cities, but are now nearly all cut off. The great Atlantic Coast rivers rise among these mountain ridges, break through the Kittatinny and flow down to the ocean, while the streams on their western slopes drain into the Mississippi Valley. The Hudson breaks through the Kittatinny outcrop at the West Point Highlands, the Delaware forces a passage at the Water Gap, the Lehigh at the Lehigh Gap, below Mauch Chunk; the Schuylkill at Port Clinton, the Susquehanna at Dauphin, above Harris- burg, and the Potomac at Harper's Ferry. All these 38 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. rivers either rise among or force their winding pas sages through the various ranges behind the great Blue Ridge, and also through the South Mountain and the successive parallel ranges of lower hills that are met on their way to the coast, so that all in their courses display most picturesque valleys. HARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN. The Potomac, having flowed more than two hun dred miles through beautiful gorges and the finest scenery of these mountains, finally breaks out at Harper's Ferry, receiving here its chief tributary, the Shenandoah, coming up from Virginia, the Poto mac River passage of the Blue Ridge being described by Thomas Jefferson as " one of the most stupendous scenes in nature." The Shenandoah its name mean ing " the stream passing among the spruce-pines " flows through the fertile and famous " Valley of Vir ginia," noted for its many battles and active move ments of troops during the Civil War, when the rival forces, as fortunes changed, chased each other up and down the Valley ; and Harper's Ferry, at the con fluence of the rivers, and the towering Maryland Heights on the northern side and the Loudon Heights on the Virginia side, the great buttresses of the river passage, being generally held as a northern border fortress. These huge mountain walls rise fifteen hundred feet above the town, which has a population of about two thousand. HARPER'S FERRY AND JOHN BROWN. - 39 Harper's Ferry was also the scene of " John Brown's raid," which was practically the opening act of the Civil War, although actual hostilities did not begin until more than a year afterwards. " Old John Brown of Osawatomie " was a tanner, an unsettled and adventurous spirit and foe of slavery, born in Connecticut in 1800, but who, at the same time, was one of the most upright and zealous men that ever lived. In his wanderings he migrated to Kansas in 1855, where he lived at Osawatomie, and fought against the pro-slavery party. His house was burnt and his son killed in the Kansas border wars, and he made bloody reprisals. Smarting under his wrongs, he became the master-spirit of a convention which met at Chatham, Canada, in May, 1859, and organ ized an invasion of Virginia to liberate the slaves. Having formed his plans, he rented a farmhouse in July about six miles from Harper's Ferry, and gath ered his forces together. On the night of October 16th, with twenty-two associates, six being negroes, he crossed the bridge into Harper's Ferry, and cap tured the arsenal and armory of the Virginia militia, intending to liberate the slaves and occupy the heights of the Blue Ridge as a base of operations against their owners. A detachment of United States marines were next day sent to the aid of the militia, and, after two days' desultory hostilities, some of his party were killed, and Brown and the survivors were captured and given up to the Virginia authorities for 40 AMEEICA, PICTUBESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. trial. His final stand was made in a small engine- house, known as " John Brown's Fort," which was exhibited at the Chicago Exposition in 1893. Brown and six of his associates were hanged at the county- seat, Charlestown, seven miles southwest of Harper's Ferry, on December 2d, Brown facing death with the greatest serenity. His raid failed, but it was poten tial in disclosing the bitter feeling between the North and the South, and it furnished the theme for the most popular and inspiring song of the Civil War : "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, But his soul goes marching on." THE GREAT FALLS AND ALEXANDRIA. The Potomac continues its picturesque course below Harper's Ferry, and passes the Point of Rocks, a promontory of the Catoctin Mountain, a prolonga tion of the Blue Ridge. There were battles fought all about, the most noted being at South Mountain and Antietam, to the northward, in September, 1862; while it was at Frederick, fifteen miles away, during this campaign, that Barbara Frietchie was said to have waved the flag as Stonewall Jackson marched through the town, immortalized in Whittier's poem. Here is buried Francis Scott Key, author of the " Star-Spangled Banner," who died in 1843, and a handsome monument was erected to his memory in 1898. The Potomac reaches its Great Falls about fifteen miles above Washington, where it descends THE GKEAT FALLS AND ALEXANDEIA. 41 eighty feet in about two miles, including a fine cata ract thirty-five feet high. Below this is the " Cabin John Bridge/ 7 with one of the largest stone arches in the world, of two hundred and twenty feet span, built for the Washington Aqueduct, carrying the city water supply from the Great Falls. On Wesley Heights, to the northward, the new American Uni versity of the Methodist Church is being constructed. Below Washington, the river passes the ancient city of Alexandria, a quaint old Virginian town, which was formerly of considerable commercial im portance, but is now quiet and restful, and cherishing chiefly the memory of Greorge Washington, who lived at Mount Vernon, a few miles below, and was its almost daily visitor to transact his business and go to church and entertainments. The tradition is that Madison, who was chairman of the Committee of Con gress, selected Alexandria for the "Federal City," intending to erect the Capitol on Shooters' Hill, a mile out of town, as grand an elevation as the hill in Washington ; but he was overruled by the President because the latter hesitated to thus favor his native State. Had Madison had his way, the town probably would not now be so sleepy. The modest little steeple of Christ Church, where Washington was a vestry man, rises back of the town, and his pew, No. 5, is still shown, for which, when the church was built and consecrated in 1773, the records show that he paid thirty-six pounds, ten shillings. To construct 42 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. this church and another at the Falls, the vestry of Fairfax parish, in 1766, levied an assessment of 31,185 pounds of tobacco, and the rector's salary was also paid in tobacco. After the Revolution, to help support the church, Washington and seven others signed an agreement in the vestry-book to each pay five pounds annual rental for the pews they owned. Robert E. Lee was baptized and confirmed and at tended Sunday-school in this old church, and tablets in memory of Washington and Lee were inserted in the church wall in 1870. At the Carey House, near the river, Washington, in 1755, received from Gen eral Braddock, who had come up there from Hamp ton Roads, his first commission as an aide to that commander, with the rank of Major, just before start ing on the ill-starred expedition into Western Penn sylvania. Alexandria has probably fifteen thousand people, and on the outskirts is another mournful relic of the Civil War, a Soldiers' Cemetery, with four thousand graves. Below Alexandria, the Hunting Creek flows into the Potomac, this stream having given Washington's home its original name of the " Hunting Creek Estate." Mount Vernon, the home and burial-place of George Washington, is seventeen miles below the city of Washington, the mansion-house, being in full view, standing among the trees on the top of a bluff, rising WASHINGTON'S HOME AND TOMB. 43 about two hundred feet above the river. As the steamboat approaches, its bell is tolled, this being the universal custom on n earing or passing Washington's tomb. It originated in the reverence of a British officer, Commodore Gordon, who, during the invasion of the Capital in August, 1814, sailed past Mount Vernon, and as a mark of respect for the dead had the bell of his ship, the " Sea Horse," tolled. The " Hunting Creek Estate " was originally a domain of about eight thousand acres ; and Augustine Wash ington, dying in 1743, bequeathed it to Lawrence Washington^ who, having served in the Spanish wars under Admiral Vernon, named it Mount Vernon in his honor. George Washington was born in 1732, in Westmoreland County, farther down the Potomac, and when a boy lived near Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock River. In 1752 he inherited Mount Vernon from Lawrence, and after his death the estate passed to his nephew, Bushrod Washington, subse quently descending to other members of the family. Congress repeatedly endeavored to have Washing ton's remains removed to the crypt under the rotunda of the Capitol originally constructed for their recep tion, but the family always refused, knowing it was his desire to rest at Mount Vernon. The grounds and buildings being in danger of falling into dilapi dation, and the estate passing under control of strangers, a patriotic movement began throughout the country for the purchase of the portion contain- 44 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. ing the tomb and mansion. The Virginia Legisla ture, in 1856, passed an act authorizing the sale, and under the auspices of a number of energetic ladies who formed the " Mount Vernon Association," assisted by the oratory of Edward Everett, who traversed the country making a special plea for help, a tract of two hundred acres was bought for $200,000, being enlarged by subsequent gifts to two hundred and thirty-five acres. These ladies and their successors have since taken charge, restoring and beautifying the estate, which is faithfully preserved as a patri otic heritage and place of pilgrimage for visitors from all parts of the world. The steamboat lands at Washington's wharf at the foot of the bluff, where he formerly loaded his barges with flour ground at his own mill, shipping most of it from Alexandria to the West Indies. The road from the wharf leads up a ravine cut diagonally in the face of the bluff, directly to Washington's tomb, and along side the ravine are several weeping willows that were brought from Napoleon's grave at St. Helena. Wash ington's will directed that his tomb " shall be built of brick," and it is a plain square brick structure, with a wide arched gateway in front and double iron gates. Above is the inscription on a marble slab, " Within this enclosure rests the remains of General George Washington." The vault is about twelve feet square, the interior being plainly seen through the gates. It has upon the floor two large stone coffins, that on the WASHINGTON'S HOME AND TOMB. 45 right hand containing Washington, and that on the left his widow Martha, who survived him over a year. In a closed vault at the rear are the remains of numerous relatives, and in front of the tomb monuments are erected to several of them. No monument marks the hero, but carved upon the coffin is the American coat-of-arms, with the single word " Washington." The road, farther ascending the bluff, passes the original tomb, with the old tombstone antedating Washington and bearing the words " Washington Family." This was the tomb, then containing the remains, which Lafayette visited in 1824, escorted by a military guard from Alexandria to Mount Vernon, paying homage to the dead amid salvos of cannon reverberating across the broad Potomac. It is a round-topped and slightly elevated oven-shaped vault. The road at the top of the bluff reaches the mansion, standing in a commanding position, with a fine view over the river to the Maryland shore. It is a long wooden house, with an ample porch facing the river. It is built with simplicity, two stories high, and contains eighteen rooms, there being a small surmounting cupola for a lookout. The central portion is the original house built by Lawrence Washington, who called it his " villa," and afterwards George Washington extended it by a large square wing at each end, and when these were added he gave it the more dignified title of the "Mansion." 46 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. The house is ninety-six feet long and thirty feet wide, the porch, extending along the whole front, fifteen feet wide, its top being even with the roof, thus covering the windows of both stories. Eight large square wooden columns support the roof of the porch. Behind the house, on either side, curved colonnades lead to the kitchens, with other outbuild ings beyond. There are various farm buildings, and a brick barn and stable, the bricks of which it is built having been brought out from England about the time Washington was born, being readily carried in those days as ballast in the vessels coming out for Virginia tobacco. The front of the mansion faces east, and it has within a central hall with apartments on either hand. At the back, beyond the outbuild ings and the barn, stretches the carriage road, which in Washington's time was the main entrance, off to the porter's lodge, on the high road, at the boundary of the present estate, about three-quarters of a mile away. Everything is quiet, and in the thorough re pose befitting such a great man's tomb j and this is the modest mansion on the banks of the Potomac that was the home of one of the noblest Americans. THE WASHINGTON RELICS. As may be supposed, this interesting building is filled with relics. The most valuable of all of them hangs on the wall of the central hall, in a small glass case shaped like a lantern the Key of the Bastille THE WASHINGTON KELICS. 47 which was sent to Washington, as a gift from Lafay ette, shortly after the destruction of the noted prison in 1789. This is the key of the main entrance, the Porte St. Antoine, an old iron key with a large handle of peculiar form. This gift was always highly prized at Mount Vernon, and in sending it Lafayette wrote : " It is a tribute which I owe as a son to my adopted father j as an aide-de-camp to my general ; as a mis sionary of liberty to its patriarch." The key was confided to Thomas Paine for transmission, and he sent it together with a model and drawing of the Bastille. In sending it to Washington Paine said : " That the principles of America opened the Bastille is not to be doubted, and therefore the key comes to the right place." The model, which was cut from the granite stones of the demolished prison, and the drawing, giving a plan of the interior and its ap proaches, are also carefully preserved in the house. The Washington relics are profuse portraits, busts, old furniture, swords, pistols and other weapons, camp equipage, uniforms, clothing, books, autographs and musical instruments, including the old harpsichord which President Washington bought for two hundred pounds in London, as a bridal present for his wife's daughter, Eleanor Parke Custis, whom he adopted. There is also an old armchair which the Pilgrims brought over in the "Mayflower" in 1620. Each apartment in the house is named for a State, and cared for by one of the Lady-Regents of the 48 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVR Association. In the banquet-hall, which is one of the wings Washington added, is an elaborately-carved Carrara marble mantel, which was sent him at the time of building by an English admirer, Samuel Vaughan. It was shipped from Italy, and the tale is told that on the voyage it fell into the hands of pirates, who, hearing it was to go to the great American Washington, sent it along without ransom and unin jured. Rembrandt Peale's equestrian portrait of Washington with his generals covers almost the entire end of this hall. Here also is hung the original proof- sheet of Washington's Farewell Address. Up stairs is the room where Washington died; the bed on which he expired and every article of furniture are preserved, including his secretary and writing-case, toilet-boxes and dressing-stand. Just above this chamber, under the peaked roof, is the room in which Mrs. Washington died. Not wishing to occupy the lower room, after his death, she selected this one, because its dormer window gave a view of his tomb. The ladies who have taken charge of the place de serve great credit for their complete restoration; they hold the annual meeting of the Association in the mansion every May. As the visitor walks through the old house and about the grounds, solemn and impressive thoughts arise that are appropriate to this great American shrine. From the little wooden cupola there is seen the same view over the broad Potomac upon which MAEY, THE MOTHEE OF WASHINGTON. 49 Washington so often gazed. The noble river, two miles wide, seems almost to surround the estate with its majestic curve, flowing between the densely- wooded shores. Above Mount Vernon is a project ing bluff, which Fort Washington surmounts on the opposite shore a stone work which he planned hardly seeming four miles off, it is so closely visible across the water. In front are the Maryland hills, and the river then flows to the southward, its broad and winding reaches being seen afar off, as the south ern shores slope upward into the forest-covered hills of the sacred soil of the proud State of Virginia. And then the constantly broadening estuary of the grand Potomac stretches for more than a hundred miles, far beyond the distant horizon, until it becomes a wide inland sea and unites its waters at Point Lookout with those of Chesapeake Bay. MARY, THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON. To the southward of the Potomac a short distance, and flowing almost parallel, is another noted river of Virginia, the Rappahannock, rising in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and broadening into a wide estu ary in its lower course. Its chief tributary is the stream which the colonists named after the " good Queen Anne," the Rapid Ann, since condensed into the Rapidan. The Indians recognized the tidal es tuary of the Rappahannock, for the name means "the current has returned and flowed again," re- VOL. I. 4 50 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. ferring to the tidal ebb and flow. Upon this stream, southward from Washington, is the quaint old city of Fredericksburg, which has about five thousand in habitants, and five times as many graves in the great National Cemetery on Marye's Heights and in the Con federate Cemetery, mournful relics of the sanguinary battles fought there in 1862-63. The town dates from 1727, when it was founded at the head of tide water on the Rappahannock, where a considerable fall furnishes good water-power, about one hundred and ten miles from the Chesapeake. But its chief early memory is of Mary Ball, the mother of Wash ington, here having been his boyhood home. A monument has been erected to her, which it took the country more than a century to complete. She was born in 1706 on the lower Rappahannock, at Epping Forest, and Sparks and Irving speak of her as " the belle of the Northern Neck " and " the rose of Epping Forest." In early life she visited England, and the story is told that one day while at her brother's house in Berkshire a gentleman's coach was over turned nearby and its occupant seriously injured. He was brought into the house and carefully nursed by Mary Ball until he fully recovered. This gentle man was Colonel Augustine Washington, of Virginia, a widower with three sons, and it is recorded in the family Bible that " Augustine Washington and Mary Ball were married the 6th of March, 1730-31." He brought her to his home in Westmoreland County, WILLIAMSBUKG AND YOEKTOWN. 51 where George was born the next year. His house there was accidentally burnt and they removed to Fredericksburg, where Augustine died in 1740 ; but she lived to a ripe old age, dying there in 1789. When her death was announced a national move ment began to erect a monument, but it was per mitted to lapse until the Washington Centenary in 1832, when it was revived, and in May, 1833, Presi dent Jackson laid the corner-stone with impressive ceremonies in the presence of a large assemblage of distinguished people. The monument was started and partially completed, only again to lapse into desuetude. In 1890 the project was revived, funds were collected by an association of ladies, and in May, 1894, a handsome white marble obelisk, fifty feet high, was created and dedicated. It bears the simple inscription, "Mary, the Mother of Wash ington." WILLIAMSBURG AND YORKTOWN. Again we cross over southward from the Rappa- hannock to another broad tidal estuary, an arm of Chesapeake Bay, the York River. This is formed by two comparatively small rivers, the Mattapony and the Pamunkey, the latter being the Indian name of York River. It is quite evident that the Indians who originally frequented and named these streams did not have as comfortable lives in that region as they could have wished, for the Mattapony means " no bread at all to be had," and the Pamunkey means 52 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. "where we were all sweating." To the southward of York River, and between it and James River, is the famous " Peninsula," the locality of the first set tlements in Virginia, the theatre of the closing scene of the War of the Revolution, and the route taken by General McClellan in his Peninsular campaign of 1862 against Richmond. Williamsburg, which stands on an elevated plateau about midway of the Penin sula, three or four miles from each river, was the ancient capital of Virginia, and it has as relics the old church and magazine of the seventeenth century, and the venerable College of William and Mary, chartered in 1693, though its present buildings are mainly modern. This city was named for ' King William HI., and was fixed as the capital in 1699, the government removing from Jamestown the next year. In 1780 the capital was again removed to Richmond. This old city, which was besieged and captured by McClellan in his march up the Peninsula in May, 1862, now has about eighteen hundred in habitants. Down on the bank of York River, not far from Chesapeake Bay, with a few remains of the British entrenchments still visible, is Yorktown, the scene of Cornwallis's surrender, the last conflict of the American Revolution. Sir Henry Clinton, the Brit ish commander-in-chief in 1781, ordered Lord Corn- wallis to occupy a strong defensible position in Vir ginia, and he established himself at Yorktown on WILLIAMSBURG AND YORKTOWN. 53 August 1st, with his army of eight thousand men, supported by several warships in York River, and strongly fortified not only Yorktown, but also Glou cester Point, across the river. In September the American and French forces effected a junction at Williamsburg, marching to the investment of York- town on the 28th. Washington commanded the besieging forces, numbering about sixteen thousand men, of whom seven thousand were Frenchmen. Upon their approach the British abandoned the out works, and the investment of the town was completed on the 30th. The first parallel of the siege was es tablished October 9th, and heavy batteries opened with great effect, dismounting numerous British guns, and destroying on the night of the 10th a frigate and three large transports. The second parallel was opened on the llth, and on the 14th, by a brilliant movement, two British redoubts were captured. The French fleet, under Count De Grasse, in Chesapeake Bay, prevented escape by sea, and CornwalhVs posi tion became very critical. On the 16th he made a sortie, which failed, and on the 17th he proposed capitulation. The terms being arranged, he surren dered October 19th, this deciding the struggle for American independence. When the British troops marched out of the place, and passed between the French and American armies, it is recorded that their bands dolefully played " The World Turned Upside Down." Considering the momentous results follow- 54 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. ing the capitulation, this may be regarded as pro phetic. Yorktown was again besieged in 1862 by McClellan, and after several weeks was taken in May, the army then starting on its march up the Peninsula. THE NATURAL BRIDGE. The chief river of Virginia is the James, a noble stream, rising in the Alleghenies and flowing for four hundred and fifty miles from the western border of the Old Dominion until it falls into Chesapeake Bay at Hampton Koads. Its sources are in a region noted for mineral springs, and the union of Jackson and Cowpasture Rivers makes the James, which flows to the base of the Blue Ridge, and there receives a smaller tributary, not inappropriately named the Calfpasture River. The James breaks through the Blue Ridge by a magnificent gorge at Balcony Falls. Seven miles away, spanning the little stream known as Cedar Brook, is the famous Natural Bridge, the wonderful arch of blue limestone two hundred and fifteen feet high, ninety feet wide, and having a span of a hundred feet thrown across the chasm, which has given to the county the name of Rockbridge. Overlooking the river and the bridge and all the country roundabout are the two noble Peaks of Otter, rising about four thousand feet, the highest moun tains in that part of the Alleghenies. This wonder ful bridge is situated at the extremity of a deep chasm, through which the brook flows, across the top is was tak uoble 1 flowing for four Bay and an a h hich " and all aksofO , the hi The Natural ^Bridge, <: 0irgima THE NATUEAL BEIDGE. 55 of which extends the rocky stratum in the form of a graceful arch. It looks as if the limestone rock had originally covered the entire stream bed, which then flowed through a subterranean tunnel, the rest of the limestone roof having fallen in and been gradually washed away. The bridge is finely situated in a grand amphitheatre surrounded by mountains. The crown of the arch is forty feet thick, the rocky walls are perpendicular, and over the top passes a public road, which, being on the same level as the imme diately adjacent country, one may cross it in a coach without noticing the bridged chasm beneath. Vari ous large forest trees grow beneath and under the arch, but are not tall enough to reach it. On the rocky abutments of the bridge are carved the names of many persons who had climbed as high as they dared on the steep face of the precipice. Highest of all, for about seventy years, was the name of Washington, who, in his youth, ascended about twenty-five feet to a point never before reached j but this feat was surpassed in 1818 by James Piper, a college student, who actually climbed from the foot to the top of the rock. In 1774 Thomas Jefferson obtained a grant of land from George III. which in cluded the Natural Bridge, and he was long the owner, building the first house there, a log cabin with two rooms, one being for the reception of strangers. Jefferson called the bridge "a famous place that will draw the attention of the world 5" 56 AMERICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. Chief Justice Marshall described it as " God's great est miracle in stone ;" and Henry Clay said it was "The bridge not made with hands, that spans a river, carries a highway, and makes two moun tains one." THE JAMES RIVER AND POWHATAN. Following down James River, constantly receiving accessions from mountain streams, we soon come to Lynchburg, most picturesquely built on the sloping foothills of the Blue Ridge, and having fine water- power for its factories, a centre of the great tobacco industry of Virginia, supporting a population of about twenty thousand people. Lynchburg was a chief source of supply for Lee's army in Eastern Virginia until, in February, 1865, Sheridan, by a bold raid, destroyed the canal and railroads giving it communication ; and, after evacuating Richmond, Lee was endeavoring to reach Lynchburg when he surrendered at Appomattox, about twenty miles to the eastward, on April 9, 1865, thus ending the Civil War. The little village of Appomattox Court House is known in the neighborhood as Clover Hill. When Lee surrendered, casualties, captures and desertions had left him barely twenty-seven thousand men, with only ten thousand muskets, thirty cannon and three hundred and fifty wagons. The James River, east of the Blue Ridge, drains a grand agricultural district, and its coffee-colored THE JAMES EIVER AND POWHATAN. 57 waters tell of the rich red soils through which it comes in the tobacco plantations all the way past Lynchburg to Richmond. In its earlier history this noted river was called the Powhatan, and it bears that name on the older maps. Powhatan, the original word, meant, in the Indian dialect, the " falls of the stream" or "the falling waters," thus named from the falls and rapids at Richmond, where the James, in the distance of nine miles, has a descent of one hundred and sixteen feet, furnishing the magnificent water-power which is the source of much of the wealth of Virginia's present capital. The old Indian sachem whose fame is so intertwined with that of Virginia took his name of Powhatan from the river. His original name was Wahunsonacock when the colonists first found him, and he then lived on York River ; but it is related that he grew in power, raised himself to the command of no less than thirty tribes, and ruled all the country from southward of the James to the eastward of the Potomac as far as Chesapeake Bay. When he became great, for he was unques tionably the greatest Virginian of the seventeeth century, he changed his name and removed to the James River, just below the edge of Richmond, where, near the river bank, is now pointed out his home, still called Powhatan. It was here that the Princess Pocahontas is said to have interfered to save the life of Captain John Smith. Here still stands a precious relic in the shape of an old chim- 58 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. ney, believed to have been originally built for the Indian king's cabin by his colonist friends. It is of solid masonry, and is said to have outlasted several successive cabins which had been built up against it in Southern style. A number of cedars growing alongside, tradition describes as shadowing the very stone on which Smith's head was laid. It may not be generally known that early in the history of the colony Powhatan was crowned as a king, there having been brought out from England, for the spe cial purpose, a crown and " a scarlet cloke and ap- parrell." The writer recording the ceremony says quaintly : a Foule trouble there was to make him kneele to receive his crowne. At last, by leaning hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and three having the crowne in their hands, put it on his head. To congratulate their kindnesse, he gave his old shoes and his mantell to Captaine Newport, telling him take them as presents to King James in return for his gifts." THE INDIAN PRINCESS POCAHONTAS. The James River carries a heavy commerce below Richmond, and the channel depths of the wayward and very crooked stream are maintained by an elaborate system of jetties, constructed by the Gov ernment. Both shores show the earthworks that are relics of the war, and Drewry's Bluff, with Fort Dar ling, the citadel of the Confederate defence of the THE INDIAN PKINCESS POCAHONTAS. 59 river, is projected across the stream. Below is Dutch Gap, where the winding river, flowing in a level plain, makes a double reverse curve, going around a considerable surface without making much actual progress. Here is the Dutch Gap Canal, which General Butler cut through the narrowest part of the long neck of land, thus avoiding Confederate batteries and saving a detour of five and a half miles j it is now used for navigation. Just below is the large plantation of Varina, where the Indian Princess Pocahontas lived after her marriage with the Englishman, John Rolfe. Its fine brick colonial mansion was the headquarters for the exchange of prisoners during the Civil War. The brief career of Pocahontas is the great romance of the first settlement of Virginia. She was the daughter and favorite child of Powhatan, her name being taken from a running brook, and meaning the " bright streamlet between the hills." When the In dians captured Captain John Smith she was about twelve years of age. He made friends of the Indian children, and whittled playthings for them, so that Pocahontas became greatly interested in him, and the tale of her saving his life is so closely interwoven with the early history of the colony that those who declare it apocryphal have not yet been able to obliterate it from our school-books. Smith being afterwards liberated, Pocahontas always had a long ing for him, was the medium of getting the colonists 60 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. food, warned them of plots, and took an interest in them even after Smith returned to England. The tale was then told her that Smith was dead. In 1614 Pocahontas, about nineteen years old, was kid napped and taken to Jamestown, in order to carry out a plan of the Governor by which Powhatan, to save his daughter, would make friendship with the colony, and it resulted as intended. Pocahontas remained several weeks in the colony, made the ac quaintance of the younger people, and fell in love with Master John Rolfe. Pocahontas returned to her father, who consented to the marriage j she was baptized at Jamestown as Lady Rebecca, and her uncle and two brothers afterwards attended the wedding, the uncle giving the Indian bride away in the little church at Jamestown, April 5, 1614. A peace of several years' duration was the consequence of this union. Two years afterwards Pocahontas and her husband proceeded to England, where she was an object of the greatest interest to all classes of people, and was presented at Court, the Queen warmly receiving her. Captain Smith visited her in London, and after saluting him she turned away her face and hid it in her hands, thus continuing for over two hours. This was due to her surprise at seeing Smith, for there is no doubt her husband was a party to the deception, he probably thinking she would never marry him while Smith was living. The winter climate of England was too severe for her, SHIELEY, BERKELEY AND WESTOVEE. 61 and when about embarking to return to Virginia she suddenly died at Gravesend, in March, 1617, aged about twenty-two. She left one son, Thomas Rolfe, who was educated in London, and in after life went to Virginia, where he became a man of note and influence. From him are descended the famous children of Pocahontas the " First Families of Vir ginia" the Randolph, Boiling, Fleming and other families. SHIRLEY, BERKELEY AND WESTOVER. The winding James flows by Deep Bottom and Turkey Bend, and one elongated neck of land after another, passing the noted battlefield of Malvern Hill, which ended General McClelland disastrous " Seven Days" of battles and retreat from the Chicka- hominy swamps in 1862. The great ridge of Mal vern Hill stretches away from the river towards the northwest, and in that final battle which checked the Confederate pursuit it was a vast amphitheatre ter raced with tier upon tier of artillery, the gunboats in the river joining in the Union defense. Below, on the other shore, are the spacious lowlands of Ber muda Hundred, where, in General Grant's significant phrase, General Butler was " bottled up." Here, on the eastern bank, is the plantation of Shirley, one of the famous Virginian settlements, still held by the descendants of its colonial owners the Carters. The wide and attractive old brick colonial house, with its 62 AMEEICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. hipped and pointed roof, stands behind a fringe of trees along the shore, with numerous outbuildings constructed around a quadrangle behind. It is built of bricks brought out from England, is two stories high, with a capacious front porch, and around the roof are rows of dormer windows, above which the roof runs from all sides up into a point between the tall and ample chimneys. The southern view from Shirley is across the James to the mouth of Appo- mattox River and City Point. The Appomattox originates in the Blue Ridge near Lynchburg, and flows one hundred and twenty miles eastward to the James, of which it is the chief tribu tary. It passes Petersburg twelve miles southwest of its point of union with the James, this union being at a high bluff thrust out between the rivers, with abrupt slopes and a plateau on the top, which is well shaded. Here is the house the home of Dr. Epps used by General Grant as his headquarters during the operations from the south side of the James against Petersburg and Lee's army in 1864-65. Grant occupied two little log cabins on top of the bluff, just east of the house ; one his dwelling and the other his office. One is still there in dilapida tion, and the other is preserved as a relic in Fair- mount Park, Philadelphia. A short distance away is the little town of City Point, with its ruined wharves, where an enormous business was then done in landing army supplies. To the eastward the SHIELEY, BEEKELEY AND WESTOVEE. 63 James flows, a steadily broadening stream, past the sloping shores on the northern bank, where, at Har rison's Landing, McClellan rested his troops after the " Seven Days," having retreated there from the bat tle at Malvern Hill. His camps occupied the planta tions of Berkeley and Westover, the former having been the birthplace of General William Henry Har rison, who was President of the United States for a few weeks in 1841, the first President who died in office. The Berkeley House is a spacious and com fortable mansion, but it lost its grand shade-trees during the war. A short distance farther down is the quaint old Queen Anne mansion of red brick, with one wing only, the other having been burnt during the war j with pointed roof and tall chimneys, stand ing at the top of a beautifully sloping bank West- over House, the most famous of the old mansions on the James. It was the home of the Byrds grand father, father and son noted in Virginian colonial history, whose arms are emblazoned on the iron gates, and who sleep in the little graveyard alongside. The most renowned of these was the second, the " Honourable William Byrd of Westover, Esquire," who was the founder of both Richmond and Peters burg. William Byrd was a man of imposing personal ap pearance and the highest character, and his full- length portrait in flowing periwig and lace ruffles, after Van Dyck, is preserved at Lower Brandon, 64 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. farther down the river. He inherited a large landed estate over fifty thousand acres and ample for tune, and was educated in England, where he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, and made a Fellow of the Koyal Society. The inscription on his Westover tomb tells that he was a friend of the learned Earl of Orrery. He held high offices in Vir ginia, and possessed the largest private library then in America. In connection with one Peter Jones, in 1733, he laid out both Richmond and Petersburg on lands he owned, at the head of navigation respec tively on the James and the Appomattox. He left profuse journals, published since as the Westover Manuscripts, and they announce that Petersburg was gratefully named in honor of his companion-founder, Peter Jones, and that Richmond's name came from Byrd's vivid recollection of the outlook from Rich mond Hill over the Thames in England, which he found strikingly reproduced in the soft hills and far- stretching meadows adjoining the rapids of the James, with the curving sweep of the river as it flowed away from view behind the glimmering woods. He died in 1744. Westover House was McClellan's headquarters in 1862. The estates have gone from Byrd's descendants, but the house has been com pletely restored, and is one of the loveliest spots on the James. Major Augustus Drewry, its recent owner, died in July, 1899, at an advanced age. Coggins Point projects opposite Westover, and noted THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. 65 plantations and mansions line the river banks, bear ing, with the counties, well-known English names. Here is the ruined stone Fort Powhatan, a relic of the War of 1812, with the Unionist earthworks of 1864-65 on the bluff above it. Then we get among the lowland swamps, where the cypress trees elevate their conical knees and roots above the water. The James has become a wide estuary, and the broad Chickahominy flows in between low shores, draining the swamps east of Richmond and the James. This was the " lick at which turkeys were plenty," the Indians thus recognizing in the name of the river the favorite resort of the wild turkey. THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. We have now come to the region of earliest Eng lish settlement in America, where Newport and Smith, in 1607, planted their colony of Jamestown upon a low yellow bluff on the northern river bank. It is thirty-two miles from the mouth of the James River, and the bluff, by the action of the water, has been made an island. The location was probably selected because this furnished protection from at tacks. The later encroachments of the river have swept away part of the site of the early settlement, and a portion of the old church tower and some tombstones are now the only relics of the ancient town. The ruins of the tower can be seen on top of the bluff, almost overgrown with moss and vines. VOL. L 5 66 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. Behind is the wall of the graveyard where the first settlers were buried. A couple of little cabins are the only present signs of settlement, the mansion of the Jamestown plantation being some distance down the river. When the English colony first came to Jamestown in 1607, they were hunting for gold and for the "northwest passage" to the East Indies. In fact, most of the American colonizing began with these objects. They had an idea in Europe that America was profuse in gold and gems. In 1605 a play of " Eastward, Ho " was performed in London, in which one of the characters said: "I tell thee golde is more plentifull in Virginia than copper is with us, and for as much redde copper as I can bring, I will have thrice the weight in golde. All their pannes and pottes are pure gould, and all the chaines with which they chaine up their streetes are massie gould j all the prisoners they take are fettered in golde j and for rubies and diamonds they goe forth in holidays and gather them by the seashore to hang on their children's coates and sticke in their children's caps as commonally as our children wear saffron, gilt brooches, and groates with hoales in them." The whole party, on landing at Jamestown, started to hunt for gold. Smith wrote that among the English colonists there was " no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, bade gold." They found some shining pyrites that deceived them, and THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. 67 therefore the first ship returning to England carried away a cargo of shining dirt, found entirely worth less on arrival. The second ship, after a long de bate, they more wisely sent back with a cargo of cedar. They hunted for the " northwest passage," first going up the James to the falls at the site of Richmond, but returning disappointed. It was this same hunt for a route to the Pacific which after wards took Smith up the Chickahominy, where he got among the swamps and was captured by the Indians. The Jamestown colonists met with great dis couragements. Most of them were unfitted for pio neers, and the neighboring swamps gave them mala ria in the hot summer, so that nearly half perished. Smith, by his courage and enterprise, however, kept the colony alive and took charge, being their leader until captured by the Indians, and also afterwards, until his return to England. Among the first con structions at Jamestown were a storehouse and a church. These, however, were soon burnt, and a second church and storehouse were erected in Sep tember, 1608. This church was like a barn in ap pearance, the base being supported by crotched stakes, and the walls and roof were made of rafts, sedge and earth, which soon decayed. When Smith left Jamestown for England in 1609 the place con tained about sixty houses, and was surrounded by a stockade. Smith early saw the necessity of raising 68 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. food, and determined to begin the growing of maize, or Indian corn. Consequently, early in 1608 he pre vailed upon two Indians he had captured to teach the method of planting the corn. Under their direction a tract of about forty acres was planted in squares, with intervals of four feet between the holes which received the Indian corn for seed. This crop grew and was partly harvested, a good deal of it, however, being eaten green. Thus the Indian invented the method of corn-planting universally observed in the United States, and this crop of forty acres of 1608 was the first crop of the great American cereal grown by white men. Wheat brought out from England was first planted at Jamestown in 1618 on a field of about thirty acres, this being the first wheat crop grown in the United States. Captain John Smith, before he left Jamestown, estimated that there were about fifty-five hundred Indians within a radius of sixty miles around the colony, and in his works he enumerates the various tribes. Describing their mode of life, he wrote that they grew fat or lean according to the season. When food was abundant, he said, they stuffed themselves night and day ; and, unless unforeseen emergencies compelled them to arouse, they dropped asleep as soon as their stomachs were filled. So ravenous were their appetites that a colonist employing an In dian was compelled to allow him a quantity of food double that given an English laborer. In a period of THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. 69 want or hardship, when no food was to be had, the warrior simply drew his belt more tightly about his waist to try and appease the pangs of hunger. The Indians, when the colonists arrived, were found to divide the year into five seasons, according to its varying character. These were, first, Cattapeuk, the season of blossoms ; second, Cohattayough, the season when the sun rode highest in the heavens 5 third, Nepenough, the season when the ears of maize were large enough to be roasted ; fourth, Taquetock, the season of the falling leaves, when the maize was gathered j and fifth, Cohonk, the season when long lines of wild geese appeared, flying from the north, uttering the cry suggesting the name, thus heralding the winter. The colony was very unfortunate, and in 1617 was reduced to only five or six buildings. The church had then decayed and fallen to the ground, and a third church, fifty by twenty feet, was after wards built. Additional settlers were sent out from England in the next two years, and the Virginians were granted a government of their own, the new Governor, Sir George Yeardley, arriving in the spring of 1619. The Company in London also sent them a communication " that those cruell laws, by which the ancient planters had soe long been governed, were now abrogated in favor of those free laws which his majesties subjects lived under in Englande." It continued by stating " That the planters might have 70 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. a hande in the governing of themselves yt was granted that a generall assemblie should be held yearly once, whereat to be present the governor and counsell with two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be elected by the inhabitants thereof, this assemblie to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever laws and orders should by them be thought good and profitable for their subsistence." The Governor con sequently summoned the first " House of Burgesses" in Virginia, which met at Jamestown, July 30, 1619, the first legislative body in America. Twenty-two members took their seats in the new church at James town. They are described as wearing bright-colored silk and velvet coats, with starched ruffs, and as having kept their hats on as in the English House of Commons. The Governor sat in the choir, and with him were several leading men who had been ap pointed by the Company on the Governor's Council. They passed various laws, chiefly about tobacco and taxes, and sent them to England, where the Company confirmed them, and afterwards, in 1621, granted the " Great Charter," which was the first Constitution of Virginia. The colonists got into trouble with the Indians in 1622, and having killed an Indian who murdered a white man, Jamestown was attacked and the inhabit ants massacred, three hundred and forty-five being killed. Governor Butler, who visited the place not long after the massacre, wrote that the houses were THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN. 71 the " worst in the world," and that the most wretched cottages in England were equal, if not superior, in appearance and comfort to the finest dwellings in the colony. The first houses were mostly of bark, imi tating those of the Indian ; and, there being neither sawmills to prepare planks nor nails to fasten them, the later constructions were usually of logs plastered with mud, with thatched roofs. The more preten tious of these were built double " two pens and a passage," as they have been described. As late as 1675 Jamestown had only a few families, with not more than seventy-five population. Labor was always in demand there, and at first the laborers were brought out from England. There was no money, and having early learnt to raise tobacco from the Indians, this became the chief crop, and, being sure of sale in England, became the standard of value. Tobacco was the great export, twenty thousand pounds being exported in 1619, forty thousand in 1620 and sixty thousand in 1622. Everything was valued in tobacco, and this continued the practical currency for the first century. They imported a lot of copper, however, with which to make small coins for circulation. As the tobacco fluctuated in price in England, it made a very unstable standard of value. Gradually, afterwards, large amounts of gold and silver coin came into Virginia in payment for produce, thus supplanting the tobacco as a standard. 72 AMEEICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. THE VIRGINIAN PLANTERS. Land was cheap in Virginia in the early days. In 1662 the King of Mattapony sold his village and five thousand acres to the colonists for fifty match- coats. During the seventeenth century the value of land reckoned in tobacco, as sold in England, averaged for cleared ground about four shillings per acre, the shilling then having a purchasing power equal to a dollar now. It was at this time that most of the great Virginian estates along James River were formed, the colonists securing in some cases large grants. Thus, John Carter of Lancaster took up 18,570 acres, John Page 5000 acres, Richard Lee 12,000 acres, William Byrd 15,000 acres, after wards largely increased 5 Robert Beverley 37,000 acres and William Fitzhugh over 50,000 acres. These were the founders of some of the most famous Virginian families. The demand for labor naturally brought Virginia within the market of the slave trader, but very few negroes were there in the earlier period. The first negroes who arrived in Virginia were disembarked at Jamestown from a Dutch pri vateer in 1619 twenty Africans. In 1622 there were twenty-two there, two more having landed ; but it is noted that no negro was killed in the James town massacre. In 1649 there were only three hundred negroes in Virginia, and in 1671 there were about two thousand. In the latter part of the seven- THE VIKGINIAN PLANTEKS. 73 teenth century the arrivals of negro slaves became more frequent labor being in demand. The records show that the planters had great difficulty in supply ing them with names, everything being ransacked for the purpose mythology, history and geography and hence the peculiar names they have conferred in some cases on their descendants. In 1640 a robust African man when sold commanded 2700 pounds of tobacco, and a female 2500 pounds, aver aging, at the then price of tobacco, about seventeen pounds sterling for the men. Prices afterwards ad vanced to forty pounds sterling for the men. In 1699 all newly arrived slaves were taxed twenty shillings per head, paid by the master of the vessel. As the colony developed, the typical dwelling be came a framed log building of moderate size, with a big chimney at each end, there being no cellar and the house resting on the ground. The upper and lower floors were each divided into two rooms. Such a house, built in 1679, measuring forty by twenty feet, cost twelve hundred pounds of tobacco. Finally, when more prosperity came in the eighteenth cen tury, the houses were developed and enlarged into more pretentious edifices, built of bricks brought out from England. These were the great colonial houses of the wealthy planters, so many of which exist until the present day. The most prosperous time in colonial Virginia was the period from 1710 until 1770. The exports of tobacco to England and flour 74 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. and other produce to the West Indies made the for tunes of the planters, so that their vast estates and large retinues of slaves made them the lordly barons whose fame spread throughout Europe, while their wealth enabled them to gather all the luxuries of fur niture and ornament for their houses then attainable. It was in these noble colonial mansions, surrounded by regiments of negro servants, that the courtly Vir ginians of the olden time dispensed a princely hos pitality, limited only by their ability to secure what ever the world produced. The stranger was always welcome at the bountiful board, and the slave children grew up amid plenty, hardly knowing what work was. This went on with more or less variation until the Civil War made its tremendous upheaval, which scattered both whites and blacks. But the typical Virginian is unchanged, continuing as open-hearted and hospitable, though his means now are much less. To all he has, the guest is welcome j but it is usually with a tinge of regret that he recalls the good old time when he might have done more. HAMPTON ROADS AND FORTRESS MONROE. The constantly broadening estuary of the James assumes almost the proportions of an inland sea, and in the bays encircled by the low shores are planted the seed oysters, which are gathered by fleets of small vessels for transplanting into salt-water beds. In front, near the mouth of the river, is thrust out HAMPTON ROADS AND FORTRESS MONROE. 75 the long point of Newport News, with its grain ele vators and shipyards, dry-docks and iron-works, the great port of the James River, which is the busy ter minal of railways coming from the West. Here is a town of thirty thousand people. It was almost op posite, that in the spring of 1862 the Confederate ram " Merrimac " (then called the " Virginia "), ar mored with railroad rails, came suddenly out from Norfolk, and sank or disabled the American wooden naval vessels in Hampton Roads ; the next day, however, being unexpectedly encountered by the novel little turret iron-clad "Monitor," which had most opportunely arrived from the upper Hudson River, where Ericsson had built her. The " Merri mac" was herself soon disabled and compelled to retire. This timely and dramatic appearance of " the little Yankee cheese-box on a raft " made a sudden and unforeseen revolution in all the naval methods and architecture of the world. Around the point of Newport News the James River debouches into one of the finest harbors of the Atlantic Coast, Hampton Roads, named from the town of Hampton on the northern shore. This is the location of a Veteran Soldiers 7 Home, with two thousand inmates, an extensive Soldiers' Cemetery, and of the spacious buildings of the Normal and Agricultural Institute for Negroes and Indians, where there are eight to nine hundred scholars, this being a foundation originally established by the Freedmen's Bureau, the chief ob- 76 AMERICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. ject being the training of teachers for colored and Indian schools. The little peninsula of Old Point Comfort, which makes the northern side of the mouth of the James and juts out into Chesapeake Bay, has upon it the largest and most elaborate fortification in the United States Fortress Monroe. It is related that when Newport and Smith first entered the bay in 1607, and were desirous of ascending the James, they coasted along the southern shore and found only shallow water. Starting out in a boat to hunt for a channel up which their ships could pass, they rowed over to the northern shore and discovered deeper water entering the James, close to this little peninsula, there being twelve fathoms depth, which so encouraged Smith that it confirmed him in naming the place Point Comfort. This channel, close inshore, could be readily defended, as it was the only passage for vessels of any draft, and consequently when the colony got established at Jamestown they built Fort Algernon at Point Comfort to protect the entrance to the James. In 1611 this fort was described as consisting of stock ades and posts, without stone or brick, and containing seven small iron guns, with a garrison of forty men. After the British invasion of Chesapeake Bay, in 1814, when they burnt the Capitol and White House at Washington, it was quickly decided that no foreign foe should be again permitted to do such a thing, and that an elaborate work should be built to defend the HAMPTON KOADS AND FOKTEESS MONKOE. 77 entrance to the bay. General Simon Bernard, one of Napoleon's noted engineers, offered his services to the United States after the downfall of the Emperor, and he was placed in charge, with the duty of con structing, at the mouth of James River, a fortification which would command the channel into that river and to the Norfolk Navy Yard, and at the same time be a base of operations against any fleet attempting to enter the bay and menace the roadstead. Bernard built in 1819, and several following years, an elabo rate fortress, with a broad moat and outlying water- battery, enclosing eighty acres, the ramparts being over two miles in circumference. It was called Fort ress Monroe, after the then President James Monroe, of Virginia. Out upon an artificial island, known as the Rip-raps, built upon a shoal some two miles off shore, and in the harbor entrance, the smaller works of Fort Wool were subsequently constructed, and the two make a complete defense for the Chesapeake Bay entrance. During all the years this fortress has ex isted it has never had occasion to fire a gun at an enemy, but its location and strength were invaluable to the North, who held it during the Civil War. It is the seat of the Artillery School of the army. To the southward, at the waterside, are the hotels of Old Point Comfort, which is one of the favorite seaside watering-places of the South. In front is the great Hampton roadstead, usually containing fleets of wind- bound vessels and some men-of-war. 78 AMEEICA, PICTUBESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. Over on the southern side of Chesapeake Bay is the Elizabeth River, in reality a tidal arm of the sea, curving around from the south to the east, and hav ing Norfolk on its northern bank and Portsmouth op posite. The country round about is flat and low- lying, and far up the river are Gosport and the Navy Yard, the largest possessed by the United States. There are probably sixty thousand popula tion in the three towns. The immediate surround ings are good land and mostly market gardens, but to the southward spreads the great Dismal Swamp, covering about sixteen hundred square miles, in tersected by various canals, and yielding cypress, juniper and other timber. It is partly drained by the Nansemond River, on which, at the edge of the swamp, is the little town of Suffolk, whence the Jericho Run Canal leads into Lake Drummond, a body of water covering eighteen square miles and twenty-one feet above tidewater. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has woven much of the romance of this weird fastness and swamp into her tale of Dred. The Dismal Swamp Canal, twenty-two miles long, and recently enlarged and deepened, passes through it from Elizabeth River to the Pasquotank River of North Carolina, and the Albemarle Canal also con nects with Currituck Sound. This big swamp was first explored by Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, NOKFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBOKHOOD. 79 in 1728, when he surveyed the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina. All about the Norfolk wharves are cotton bales, much timber, tobacco and naval stores, and immense quantities of food and garden products, not forget ting a profusion of " goobers," all awaiting shipment, for this, next to Savannah, is the greatest export port for food and other supplies on the Southern At lantic. The u goober," or peanut, is the special crop of this part of Virginia and Carolina. The cotton compresses do a lively business in the cotton season, the powerful hydraulic pressure squeezing the bale to barely one-fourth its former size, and binding it firmly with iron bands, thus giving the steamers increased cargo. In the spring the ship ment North of early fruits and vegetables is enor mous, vast surfaces being devoted to their growth, the strawberry beds especially covering many acres. The oyster trade is also large. The settlement of Norfolk began in 1680, and in 1736 it was made a borough. Portsmouth was established later, but the starting of the navy yard there, which has become so extensive, gave it great impetus. Portsmouth claims that in the Civil War, in proportion to size, it sent more soldiers to the Southern armies and had more dead than any other city. The capacious naval hospital and its fine grove of trees front Portsmouth towards the harbor. Norfolk has St. Paul's Church, founded in 1730, as its chief Revolutionary relic an 80 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. ancient building, with an old graveyard, and having in its steeple the indentation made by a cannon-shot, when a British fleet in 1776 bombarded and partly burnt the town. An old-fashioned round ball rests in the orifice ; not, however, the one originally sent there by the cannoneers. Relic-hunters visiting the place have a habit of clandestinely appropriating the cannon-ball, so the sexton, with an eye to business, has some on hand ready to put into the cavity, and thus maintain the old church's patriotic reputation. A novel sight in Norfolk is its market, largely served by negroes old " mammies " with bright bandannas tied about their heads and guarding piles of luscious fruits ; funny little pickaninnies who execute all man ner of athletic gyrations for stray pennies, queer old market wagons, profusions of flowers, and such a col lection of the good things of life, all set in a picture so attractive that the sight is long remembered. THE EASTERN SHORE. Northward from Old Point Comfort and Hampton Roads the great Chesapeake Bay stretches for two hundred miles. It bisects Virginia and Maryland, and receives the rivers of both States, extending within fourteen miles of Pennsylvania, where it has as its head the greatest river of all, the Susquehanna, which the Indians appropriately called their " great island river." Its shores enclose many islands, and are indented with innumerable bays and inlets, the THE EASTERN SHOEE. 81 alluvial soils being readily adapted to fruit and vege table growing, and its multitudes of shallows being almost throughout a vast oyster bed. It has, all about, the haunts of wild fowl and the nestling-places of delicious fish. These shores were the home first on the eastern side and afterwards on the western of the Nanticokes, or " tidewater Indians/' who ultimately migrated to New York to join the Iroquois or Five Nations, making that Confederacy the " Six Nations." From Cape Charles, guarding the northern entrance to the Bay, extends northward the well-known peninsula of the " Eastern Shore," a land of market gardens, strawberries and peaches, which feeds the Northern cities, and having its rail road, a part of the Pennsylvania system, running for miles over the level surface in a flat country, which enabled the builders to lay a mathematically straight pair of rails for nearly ninety miles, said to be the longest railway tangent in existence. Chesapeake Bay is now patrolled by the oyster fleets of both Virginia and Maryland, each State having an " oyster navy " to protect its beds from predatory forays ; and occasionally there arises an " oyster war " which expands to the dignity of a newspaper sensation, and sometimes results in blood shed. The wasteful methods of oyster-dredging are said to be destroying the beds, and they are much less valuable than formerly, although measures are being projected for their protection and restoration VOL. I. 6 82 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. under Government auspices. We are told that a band of famished colonists who went in the early days to beg corn from the Indians first discovered the value of the oyster. The Indians were roasting what looked like stones in their fire, and invited the hungry colonists to partake. The opened shells dis closed the succulent bivalve, and the white men found there was other good food besides corn. All the sites of extinct Indian villages along the Chesa peake were marked by piles of oyster shells, show ing they had been eaten from time immemorial. The English colonists at Jamestown were told by the Indians of the wonders of the " Mother of Waters," as they called Chesapeake Bay, about the many great rivers pouring into it, the various tribes on its shores, and the large fur trade that could be opened with them ; so that the colonists gradually came to the opinion that the upper region of the great bay was the choicest part of their province. Smith explored it and made a map in 1609, and others followed him, setting up trading-stations upon the rivers as far as the Potomac and the Patuxent. Soon this new country and its fur trade attracted the cupidity of William Claiborne, who had been ap pointed Treasurer of Virginia, and was sent out when King James I. made it a royal province, the king telling them they would find Claiborne " a per son of qualitie and trust." He was also agent for a London Company the king had chartered to make CALVEET AND MAEYLAND. 83 discoveries and engage in the fur trade. Claiborne, in 1631, established a settlement on Kent Island, the largest in the bay, about opposite Annapolis, and one hundred and thirty miles north of the James, which thrived as a trading station and next year sent its burgesses to the Assembly at Jamestown. CALVERT AND MARYLAND. Sir George Calvert, who had been private secre tary to Lord Cecil in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and also held office under King James, upon retiring was created Baron of Baltimore in Ireland, and purchased part of Newfoundland, which he called Avalon. He sent out a colony and afterwards visited Avalon j but, being discouraged by the cold climate, he abandoned the colony, and persuaded the next king, Charles I., to give him land on both sides of Chesapeake Bay north of the Potomac. Before the deed was signed, however, Baron Baltimore died, and his son, Cecilius Calvert, succeeded him and received the grant. This was one of the greatest gifts of land ever made, ex tending northward from the Potomac River, includ ing all Maryland, a broad strip of what is now Penn sylvania, all of Delaware, and a good deal of West Virginia. The charter made the grant a Palatinate, giving Lord Baltimore and his heirs absolute control of the country, freedom to trade with the whole world and make his own laws, or allow his colonists to do this. The price was the delivery of two In- 84 AMEKICA, PICTUBESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. dian arrows a year at the Castle of Windsor, and one-fifth of all the gold and silver found. This grant was dated on June 20, 1632, and the name first in tended by Calvert for his colony was Crescentia; but in the charter it was styled Terra Marice, after Queen Henrietta Maria, or "Mary's Land." The expedition came out the following winter, leaving the Isle of Wight in November in two vessels, named the "Ark" and the "Dove," under command of Leonard Calvert, CeciPs brother, there being two hundred emigrants, nearly all Roman Catholics, like their chief, and mostly gentlemen of fortune and re spectability. While the colony was Catholic, Cecil Calvert inculcated complete toleration. In his letter of instructions he wrote : " Preserve unity and peace on shipboard amongst all passengers j and suffer no offence to be given to any of the Protestants ; for this end cause all acts of the Roman Catholic religion to be done as privately as may be " and he also told his brother, the Governor, " to treat all Protestants with as much mildness and favor as justice would permit," this to be observed " at land as well as at sea." In March, 1633, they entered the Chesapeake and sailed up to the Potomac River, landing at an island and setting up a cross, claiming the country for Christ and for England. The " Ark " anchored, and the smaller " Dove " was sent cruising along the shore of the Potomac above Point Lookout, "to make choice of a place CALVERT AND MAEYLAND. 85 probable to be healthfull and fruitful!," which might be easily fortified, and "convenient for trade both with the English and savages." The little "Dove" sailed some distance up the Potomac, examining the shore, and encountered various Indians, who were astonished when they saw the vessel, diminutive, yet so much larger than their canoes, and said they would like to see the tree from which that great canoe was hollowed out, for they knew nothing of the method of construction. The colonists talked with the In dians, having an interpreter, and Leonard Calvert asked a chief: "Shall we stay here, or shall we go back f To this a mysterious answer was made : " You may do as you think best." Calvert did not like this, and decided to land nearer the bay, so his vessel dropped down the river again, and they finally landed on a stream where they found the Indian vil lage of Yoacamoco. The Indians were very friendly, sold part of their village for some axes and bright cloth, gave up their best wigwams to Calvert and his colonists, and in one of these the Jesuit fathers held a solemn service, dedicating the settlement to St. Mary ; and thus was founded the capital of the new Palatinate of Maryland. Under Calvert's wise rule the colony prospered, kept up friendliness with the Indians, enjoyed a lucrative trade, and, after a long struggle, ultimately managed to make Claiborne abandon the settlement on Kent Island, which be came part of Maryland. To the northward of them 86 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. was the estuary of the Patuxent River, meaning " the stream at the little falls." St. Mary's County is the peninsula between the Patuxent and the Poto mac, terminating at Point Lookout, and a quiet and restful farming country to-day. Leonardstown, on the Patuxent, named after Leonard Calvert, is the county-seat ; but the ancient village of St. Mary's, the original colony and capital, afterwards superseded by Annapolis, still exists, though only a few scattered bricks remain to mark the site of the old fort and town. At St. Inigoe's is the quaint colonial home of the Jesuit fathers who accompanied Calvert, and its especial pride is a sweet-toned bell, brought out from England in 1685, which still rings the Angelus. At Kent Island scarcely a vestige remains of Clai- borne's trading-post and settlement. THE MARYLAND CAPITAL. The settlers of Maryland were not all Roman Catholics, however, for Puritan refugees came in there. Above the Patuxent is the estuary of the Severn River, and here, in a beautiful situation, is Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, which has about eight thousand inhabitants, and was originally colon ized in 1649 by Puritans driven from the James River in Virginia by the Episcopalians in control there. The settlement was at first called Provi dence, and Richard Preston, the eminent Quaker, was long its commander. Afterwards it was named THE MAKYLAND CAPITAL. 87 Anne Arundel Town, after Lady Baltimore, which still is the name of its county, although the town came to be finally known as Annapolis, from Queen Anne, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, who gave it valuable presents. It is now best known as the seat of the United States Naval Academy, which has a fine establishment there, founded by George Bancroft, the historian, when he was Secre tary of the Navy, in 1845. Its ancient defensive work, Fort Severn, has been roofed over, and is the Academy gymnasium. The city was made the capi tal of Maryland in 1794, the government being then removed from St. Mary's, and the State Capitol is a massive brick structure, standing on an eminence, with a lofty dome and cupola, from which there is a fine view of the surrounding country and over Chesa peake Bay. In the Senate Chamber General Wash ington surrendered his Commission to the American Colonial Congress which met there in December, 1783, and in it also assembled the first Constitu tional Convention of the United States, in 1786. In front of the building is a colossal statue of Chief Justice Taney, of the Supreme Court of the United States, a native of Maryland, who died in 1864. Annapolis formerly had an extensive com merce and amassed much wealth, until eclipsed by the growth of Baltimore, and now its chief trade, like so many of the towns of the Chesapeake, is in oysters. 88 AMEKICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. THE MONUMENTAL CITY. The head of Chesapeake Bay, on either side of the Susquehanna River, is composed of various broad estuaries, with small streams entering them. To the eastward the chief is Elk River, and to the westward are the Gunpowder and Bush Rivers, with others. Not far above the Severn is the wide tidal estuary of the Patapsco, so named by the Indians to describe its peculiarity, the word meaning " a stream caused by back or tidewater containing froth." A few miles up this estuary is the great city and port of the Chesapeake, Baltimore, so named in honor of Lord Baltimore, and containing, with its suburbs, over six hundred thousand people. The spreading arms of the Patapsco, around which the city is built, provide an ample harbor, their irregular shores making plenty of dock room, and the two great railways from the north and west to Washington, which go under the town through an elaborate system of tunnels, give it a lucrative foreign trade in produce brought for ship ment abroad. From the harbor there are long and narrow docks, and an inner " Basin " extending into the city, and across the heads of these is Pratt Street. This highway is famous as the scene of the first bloodshed of the Civil War. The Northern troops, hastily summoned to Washington, were marching along it from one railway station to the other on April 19, 1861, when a Baltimore mob, sympathizing THE MONUMENTAL CITY. 89 with the South, attacked them. In the riot and con flict that followed eleven were killed and twenty-six were wounded. A creek, called Jones's Falls, com ing down a deep valley from the northward into the harbor, divides the city into two almost equal sec tions, and in the lower part is walled in, with a street on either side. Colonel David Jones, who was the original white inhabitant of the north side of Balti more harbor, gave this stream his name about 1680, before anyone expected even a village to be located there. A settlement afterwards began eastward of the creek, known as Jonestown, while Baltimore was not started until 1730, being laid out westward of the creek and around the head of the " Basin," the plan covering sixty acres. This was called New Town, as the other was popularly termed Old Town, but they subsequently were united as Baltimore, having in 1752 about two hundred people. Baltimore is rectangular in plan and picturesque, covering an undulating surface, the hills, which are many, inclining either to Jones's Falls or the harbor. Its popular title is the " Monumental City," given because it was the first American city that built fine monuments. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the State of Maryland erected on Charles Street a monument to General Washington, rising one hundred and ninety-five feet, a Doric shaft of white marble surmounted by his statue and upon a base fifty feet square. This splendid monument 90 AMEEICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. stands in a broadened avenue and at the summit of a hill, surrounded by tasteful lawns and flower gar dens, with a fountain in front. It makes an attrac tive centre for Mount Vernon Place, which contains one of the finest collections of buildings in the city, and presents a scene essentially Parisian. Here are the Peabody Institute and the Garrett Mansion, both impressive buildings. Baltimore has a "Battle Monument," located on Calvert Street, in Monument Square, a marble shaft fifty-three feet high, marking the British invasion of 1814, and erected in memory of the men of Baltimore who fell in battle just outside the city, when the British forces marched from Elk River to Washington and burnt the Capitol, and the British fleet came up the Patapsco and shelled the town. The city also has other fine monuments, so that its popular name is well deserved. The City Hall is the chief building of Baltimore, a marble structure in Renaissance, costing $2,000,000, its elaborate dome rising two hundred and sixty feet, and giving a magnificent view over the city and harbor. There are two noted churches, the Mount Vernon Methodist Church, of greenstone, with buff and red facings and polished granite columns, being the finest, although the First Presbyterian Church, nearby, is regarded as the most elaborate specimen of Lancet-Gothic architecture in the country, its spire rising two hundred and sixty-eight feet. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is an attractive granite church, THE MONUMENTAL CITY. 91 containing paintings presented by Louis XVI. and Charles X. of France. Cardinal Archbishop Gib bons, of Baltimore, is the Roman Catholic Primate of the United States. The greatest charities of the city are the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins University, endowed by a Baltimore mer chant who died in 1873, the joint endowments being $6,500,000. Hopkins was shrewd and penurious, and John W. Garrett persuaded him to make these princely endowments, much of his fortune being in vested in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, of which Garrett was President in its days of greatest pros perity. This railroad is the chief Baltimore institu tion, giving it a direct route to the Mississippi Val ley, and was the first started of the great American trunk railways, its origin dating from 1826, when the movement began for its charter, which was granted by the Maryland Legislature the next year. This charter conferred most comprehensive powers, and the story is told that when it was being read in that body one of the members interrupted, saying : " Stop, man, you are asking more than the Lord's Prayer." The reply was that it was all necessary, and the more asked, the more would be secured. The interrupter, convinced, responded: "Right, man ; go on." The corner-stone of the railway was laid July 4, 1828, beginning the route from Balti more, up the Potomac and through the Alleghenies to the Ohio River. 92 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. Baltimore is proud of the great art collection of Henry Walters in Mount Vernon Place, exhibited for a fee for the benefit of the poor ; and it also has had as a noted resident Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, who married, and then discarded by- Napoleon's order, Miss Patterson, a Baltimore lady. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has remarked that three short American poems, each the best of its kind, were written in Baltimore : Poe's Raven, Randall's Maryland, My Maryland, and Key's Star-Spangled Banner. It is also proud of its park " Druid Hill " a splendid pleasure-ground of seven hundred acres, owing much of its beauty to the fact that it had been preserved and developed as a private park for a century before passing under control of the city. The route to it is by the magnificent Eutaw Place, and the stately entrance gateway opens upon an avenue lined on either hand by long rows of flower vases on high pedestals, laid out alongside Druid Lake, the chief water-reservoir. The Park has an undulating surface of woodland and meadow, with grand old trees and splendid lawns, making a scene decidedly English, not overwrought by art, but mainly left in its natural condition. The mansion- house of the former owner, now a restaurant, occu pies a commanding position, and on the northern side the land rises to Prospect Hill, with an expan- DKUID HILL AND FOKT M'HENBY. 93 sive view all around the horizon and eastward to Chesapeake Bay. In this beautiful park the higher grounds are used for water-reservoirs. Baltimore has the advantage of receiving its supply by gravity from the Gun powder River to the northward, where a lake has been formed, the pure water being brought through a tunnel for seven miles to the reservoirs, of which there are eight, with a capacity of 2,275,000,000 gallons, and capable of supplying 300,000,000 gal lons daily. These reservoirs appear as pleasant lakes, Montebello and Roland, with Druid Lake, being the chief. Across the ravine of Jones's Falls is Baltimore's chief cemetery, Greenmount, a pretty ground, with gentle hills and vales. Here, in a spot selected by herself, is buried Jerome's discarded wife, Madame Patterson-Bonaparte, whose check ered history is Baltimore's chief romance. Here also lie Junius Brutus Booth, the tragedian, and his family, among them John Wilkes Booth, who mur dered President Lincoln. The most significant sight of Baltimore, however, is its old Fort McHenry down in the harbor, on the extreme end of Locust Point, originally called Whet stone Point, where the Pa,tapsco River divides built on a low-lying esplanade, with green banks sloping almost to the water. It was the strategic position of this small but strong work, thoroughly controlling the city as well as the harbor entrance, that held Balti- 94 AMEEICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. more during the early movements of the Civil War, and maintained the road from the North to Washing ton. Its greatest memory, however, and, by the as sociation, probably the greatest celebrity Baltimore enjoys, comes from the flag on the staff now quietly waving over its parapets. Whetstone Point had been fortified during the Revolution, but in 1794 Maryland ceded it to the United States, and the peo ple of Baltimore raised the money to build the pres ent fort, which was named after James McHenry, who had been one of the framers of the Federal Con stitution and was Secretary of War under President Washington. When Admiral Cockburn's British fleet came up the Chesapeake in September, 1814, the Maryland poet, Francis Scott Key, was an aid to General Smith at Bladensburg. An intimate friend had been taken prisoner on board one of the ships, and Key was sent in a boat to effect his release by exchange. The Admiral told Key he would have to detain him aboard for a day or two, as they were proceeding to attack Baltimore. Thus Key re mained among the enemy, an unwilling witness of the bombardment on September 12th, which con tinued throughout the night. In the early morning the attack was abandoned, the flag was unharmed, and the British ships dropped down the Patapsco. Key wrote his poem on the backs of letters, with a barrel-head for a desk, and being landed next day he showed it to friends, and then made a fresh DEFENCE OF FOET M'HENRY. 95 copy. It was taken to the office of the Baltimore American and published anonymously in a handbill, afterwards appearing in the issue of that newspaper on September 21, 1814. The tune was " Anacreon in Heaven/ 7 and there was a brief introduction de scribing the circumstances under which it was written. It was first sung in the Baltimore Theatre, October 12th of that year, and afterwards became popular. The flag which floated over Fort McHenry on that memorable night is still preserved. Fired by patri otic impulses, various ladies of Baltimore had made this flag, among them being Mrs. Mary Pickersgill, who is described as a daughter of Betsy Ross, of Philadelphia, who made the original sample-flag dur ing the Revolution. The Fort McHenry flag con tains about four hundred yards of bunting and is nearly square, measuring twenty-nine by thirty-two feet. It has fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, which was then the official regulation, there being fifteen States in the American Union. The poem of the Star- Spangled Banner , thus inspired and written, has become the great American patriotic anthem, and has carried everywhere the fame of the fort, the city, and the flowery flag of the United States. The following is the song, with title and introduction, as first published : DEFENCE OF FORT MCHENRY. TUNE "Anacreon in Heaven." O ! say can you see by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, 96 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watch' d, were so gallantly streaming? And the Rockets' red glare, the Bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our Flag was still there ; O ! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ? On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes ; What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully glows, half conceals, half discloses ? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream. 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O ! long may it wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave 1 And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country should leave us no more ? Their blood has washed out their foul steps pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave, And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave 1 O ! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation, Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land, Praise the Power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation I Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this is our motto : " In God is our Trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave I THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE CIVIL WAR. TOL. I 7 II. THE GEEAT THEATEE OF THE CIVIL WAE. On to Eichmond Horace Greeley's Editorial Standard The Conflict's Ebb and Flow The Two Battles of Bull Eun Arlington Manassas McDowell against Beauregard Lee and Jackson against Pope Antietam The Emancipation Proclamation Fredericksburg Burnside against Lee Chan- cellorsville Lee and Jackson against Hooker Death of Stonewall Jackson Guinney Station The Wilderness Mine Eun Grant's Southern March Battles of the Wilderness Spottsylvania Hanover Court-House Ashland Eichmond The Capitol Washington's Statues Stonewall Jackson's Statue Confederate White House General Lee's House The First House St. John' s Church Patrick Henry Libby Hill and Prison Belle Isle Eocketts Hollywood Cemetery Noted Graves McClellan's Siege of Eichmond Drewry's Bluff Chickahominy Swamps Fair Oaks Seven Days' Bat tles Games' Mill Cold Harbor Malvern Hill Harrison's Landing Grant's Siege of Eichmond Second Battle of Cold Harbor Bermuda Hundred Petersburg Capture of Eich mond Kilpatrick' s Eaid Piedmont Charlottesville Uni versity of Virginia Monticello Thomas Jefferson Shen- andoah Valley Cross Keys Jackson's Exploits Cedar Mountain General Sheridan Cedar Creek Sheridan against Early Luray Cavern Battlefield of Gettysburg Lee Marches into Pennsylvania Hooker Eesigns Meade against Lee Gettysburg Topography Seminary Eidge Cemetery Eidge The Eound Tops Confederate Advance to Carlisle and the Susquehanna Three Days' Battle Eey- nolds Killed The Eound Tops Attacked General Sickles Wounded in Peach Orchard Ewell Eepulsed at Cemetery Pickett's Charge and Eepulse Gushing and Armistead Killed High- Water Mark Monument Lee Eetreats Gettysburg (99) 100 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. Monuments Jenny Wade National Cemetery Lincoln's Immortal Dedication Valley of Death Massachusetts Color- Bearer The Reunited Union. ON TO RICHMOND. Lay down the Axe ; fling by the spade : Leave in its track the toiling plough ; The rifle and the bayonet blade For arms like yours were fitter now ; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman's crooked brand, and rein The charger on the battlefield. THUS trumpeted William Cullen Bryant in " Our Country's Call," while the most powerful American editor of the time of the Civil War, Horace Greeley, raised his standard at the head of the New York Tribune's editorial page early in 1861 with the words " On to Richmond." The region between Washing ton and Richmond, and much of the adjacent coun try stretching southward beyond James River and northward into Pennsylvania, will always be historic because of the momentous movements, sanguinary conflicts and wonderful strategy of the great Ameri can Civil War from 1861 to 1865. We have de scribed the environment of Chesapeake Bay, and now proceed to a consideration of this noted region west of the bay, where the tide of battle repeatedly ebbed and flowed. The first northern invasion of the Virginia Peninsula and the abortive siege of Richmond in the summer of 1862 were followed by THE TWO BATTLES OF BULL KUN. 101 McClelland retreat, Pope's defeat and the southern invasion of Maryland, which was checked at Antie- tam in the autumn. The northern attacks at Fred- ericksburg in December and at Chancellors ville in the spring of 1863 were followed by the invasion of Pennsylvania, checked at Gettysburg, the "high- water mark " of the rebellion ; and Grant's march down through " the Wilderness in 1864, Mowed by his gradual advances south of the James, forced the evacuation of Richmond, and Lee's final sur render at Appomattox in 1865. THE TWO BATTLES OF BULL RUN. The main route from Washington to the South crossed the Potomac, then as now, by the "Long Bridge," passing in full view of the yellow Arlington House, fronted by its columned porch. This historic building was the home of General Eobert E. Lee in his early life, the chief Confederate Commander during the Civil War. The estate is now a vast cemetery, and upon it and all about to the westward are the remains of the forts and earthworks erected for the defence of Washington. After the war began, in April, 1861, the Northern troops were gradually assembled in and around Washington ; but there came an imperative demand from the country that they should go forth and give the Confederates battle and capture Richmond before their Congress could meet, the opening of the session being fixed 102 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. for July 20th. The Southern armies were entrenched at Manassas Junction, west of Washington, and at Winchester to the northwest, and they were making forays almost in sight of Washington. General McDowell, with nearly forty thousand men, marched out of the Washington fortifications on July 17th to attack General Beauregard at Manassas. The Con federates brought their Winchester army hastily down, and took position along the banks of Bull Run, a tributary of the Occoquan, their lines stretch ing for about eight miles. McDowell attacked on the morning of the 21st, each side having about twenty-eight thousand available men. The conflict lasted with varying success most of the day, McDowell being finally beaten and retreating to Washington. Thirteen months later, after McClelland retreat from Richmond, was fought in almost the same place, on August 29 and 30, 1862, the second battle of Bull Run. General Pope had a considerable force in Northern Virginia, and when McClellan, whom Pope superseded, retreated from before Richmond, and started on his return from James River, Lee moved nearly his whole army up from Richmond, hoping to fall upon Pope before McClellan could join him. On August 22d the opposing forces confronted each other along the Rappahannock, when General Stuart, with the Confederate cavalry, made a raid around Pope's lines to the rear, reaching that general's head quarters and capturing his personal baggage, in which THE TWO BATTLES OF BULL EUN. 103 was his despatch book describing the position of the whole Northern army. This gave Lee such valuable information that on the 25th he sent Stonewall Jack son with thirty thousand men, who, by a forced march, went around the western side of the Bull Run Mountains, came east again by the Thorough fare Gap, and on the night of the 27th was in Pope's rear, and had cut his railroad connections and cap tured his supplies at Manassas. Pope, discovering the flanking movement, began falling back towards Manassas, and Jackson then withdrew towards the Gap, waiting for Lee to come up. There were vari ous strategic movements afterwards, with fighting on the 29th ; and on the 30th the Confederate wings had enclosed as in a vise Pope's forces to the west of Bull Run, when, after some terrific combats, Pope retreated across Bull Run towards Washington. Pope had about thirty-five thousand men and Lee forty-six thousand engaged in this battle. During the night of September 2d Jackson made a reconnoissance towards Washington, in which the Union Generals Stevens and Kearney were killed at Chantilly, and the authorities became so apprehensive of an attack upon the Capital that they ordered the whole army to fall back behind the Washington defenses. Pope was then relieved, at his own request, and the com mand restored to McClellan. The Confederates marched northward across the Potomac and McClel lan followed, ending with the battles of South Moun- 104 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCKIPTIVE. tain and Antietam, later in September, when Lee re treated and recrossed the Potomac into Virginia on the 18th. The significant result of this conflict and withdrawal was the issue of the famous Emancipa tion Proclamation. President Lincoln had made a vow that if Lee was driven back from Maryland he would issue a proclamation abolishing slavery, which was done September 22, 1862. FREDERICKSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS. The route from Washington to Richmond skirts the Potomac for a long distance south of Alexandria, winding among hills and forests, crossing various broad creeks and bayous, among them the Occoquan, the outlet of Bull Run, and then diverges towards the Rappahannock. This is more historic ground, for the terrible battle of Fredericksburg was fought here in December, 1862, and the battle of Chancel- lorsville, to the westward, in May, 1863, where Stone wall Jackson lost his life. The " Wilderness " is to the southward of the Rappahannock, occupying about two hundred square miles, a plateau sloping to culti vated lowlands on every side. The original forests were long ago cut off, and a dense growth of scrub timber and brambles covered nearly the whole sur face, with an occasional patch of woodland or a clear ing. After the battle of Antietam the anxiety for another forward movement to Richmond led the Ad ministration to remove McClellan, and then General FEEDEEICKSBUKG AND THE WILDEENESS. 105 Burnside took command. His troops crossed the Kappahannock in December to attack General Lee's Confederate position on the Heights of Marye, where they were strongly entrenched ; but the attack failed, the shattered army after great carnage withdrawing to the north bank of the river, and it lay there for months in winter quarters. Burnside was superseded by General Hooker, and in May, 1863, the Northern army again crossed the Rappahannock at several fords above Fredericksburg and started for Rich mond. Lee quickly marched westward from Freder icksburg, and Lee and Hooker faced each other at Chancellorsville. Then came another of Stonewall Jackson's brilliant flank movements. Chancellors ville is on the eastern border of the Wilderness, and Jackson, making a long detour to the south and west through that desolate region, got around and behind Hooker's right flank, surprised him, and sent General Howard's entire corps in panic down upon the rest of the Union forces, making the greatest surprise of the war. During that same night Jackson, after his victory, was accidentally shot by his own men, a blow from which the Confederacy never recovered. Twelve miles south of Fredericksburg, at Guinney Station, is the little house where Jackson died. He and his aides, after reconnoitering, had returned with in the Confederate lines, and the pickets, mistaking them for the enemy, fired into the party. Several of his escort were killed and Jackson was shot in 106 AMEKICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. three places, an arm being shattered. Being put upon a litter one of the bearers stumbled, and Jack son was additionally injured by being thrown to the ground. The arm was amputated, but afterwards pneumonia set in, which was the immediate cause of his death. He lingered a week, dying May 10th, in his fortieth year, his last words, dreamily spoken, being : " Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees." It is said this loss of his ablest lieutenant had such an effect upon Lee that he afterwards aged rapidly, and his hair quickly whitened. The spot where Jackson was shot is alongside the Orange Plank Road, and is marked by a granite monument. Jackson is buried at Lexington, Virginia, where he had previously been a professor in the Military Academy. Hooker withdrew across the Rappahannock, Lee started northward, Hooker was succeeded by Meade, and the battle of Gettys burg was fought at the beginning of July. Then came another movement towards Richmond, late in the year 1863. Meade marched down to the Wilderness in November, had heavy skirmishing and fought the battle of Mine Run on its western border, and then went back and into winter quarters. Gen eral Grant came from the West, took command, and early in May, 1864, started on his great march to Richmond through the Wilderness, with Lee con stantly fighting on his right flank and front. There followed during that month a series of sanguinary FEEDEEICKSBUEG AND THE WILDEENESS. 107 battles, in this inhospitable region, in which the losses of the two armies exceeded sixty thousand men. While moving southward, Grant faced and fought generally westward. It took him ten days to pro gress a dozen miles, and he could only move during the lulls in the fighting, the advance being usually made by changing one corps after another from the right to the left by marching in the rear of the main body, thus gradually prolonging the left wing south ward through the forbidding country. Lee pressed forward into the vacated space, fortifying and fight ing, his object being to force Grant eastward and away from Richmond, which was towards the south. " More desperate fighting has not been witnessed upon this Continent," said Grant of this struggle in the Wilderness ; and later he wrote to Washington the famous declaration of his intention " to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." The whole of this desolate region south and west of Fredericks- burg and down to Spottsylvania is filled with the re mains of the fortifications constructed in these memor able battles. Grant said that " In every change of position or halt for the night, whether confronting the enemy or not, the moment arms were stacked the men entrenched themselves," adding, "It was wonderful how quickly they could construct defenses of considerable strength." Thus the way was worked, by shovel and shell and musket and axe, through the Wilderness. There is a plan afoot for acquiring 108 AMEKICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. these battlefields and the connecting roads, so as to preserve this historic ground as a public reserva tion. The railway route to Richmond goes through the Wilderness, thinly peopled, sparsely cultivated, and exhibiting a few negro settlements, where they sun themselves alongside their cabins and watch the trains go by. There is an occasional horse or cow, but almost the only animals visible are the nimble- footed and hungry-looking "razor-backed" hogs that range the scrub timber in search of a precarious living. Once in awhile is seen an old homestead that has survived the ruin of the war, but the few buildings are generally most primitive, the favorite style being a small wooden cabin set alongside a huge brick chimney. It is said the chimney is first built, and if the draught is all right they then build the little cabin over against it and move in the family. The agriculture does not appear much better until Richmond is approached, where the surface of the country improves. At Hanover Court House are more signs of battlefields, for here McClellan had his early conflicts in besieging Richmond in 1862, while Grant came down from the Wilderness and had the battles of the North Anna near the end of May, 1864, and of Cold Harbor in June, after which he moved his army to the south side of James River. Ashland, sixteen miles north of Richmond, is in an attractive region, and is a favorite place of suburban residence. THE CITY OF EICHMOND. 109 This was the birthplace of Henry Clay, in 1777, and is the seat of Randolph Macon College. THE CITY OF RICHMOND. Richmond, the capital of Virginia, has about one hundred and thirty thousand population, and occu pies a delightful situation. The James River flows around a grand curve from the northwest to the south, and pours over falls and rapids, which display many little cascades among a maze of diminutive islands. There are on the northern bank two or three large hills and several smaller ones, and Richmond is built upon these, it is said like Rome upon her seven hills. The State Capitol and a broad white penitentiary crown two of the highest. The town was founded at the falls of the James in 1737, and the capital of Vir ginia was moved here from Williamsburg in 1779, when there was only a small population. The place did not have much history, however, until it became the Capital of the Confederacy, and then the strong efforts made to capture it and the vigorous defence gave it world- wide fame. Beginning in 1862 it was made an impregnable fortress, and its fall, when the Confederate flank was turned in 1865 through the capture of Petersburg, resulted from General Lee's retreat westward and his final surrender at Appo- mattox. When Lee abandoned Petersburg there was a panic in Richmond, with riot and pillage ; the bridges, storehouses and mills were fired, and nearly 110 AMEEICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. one-third of the city burnt. It has since, however, been rebuilt in better style, and has extensive manu factures and a profitable trade. The centre of Richmond is a park of twelve acres, surrounding the Capitol, a venerable building upon the summit of Shockoe Hill, and the most conspicu ous structure in the city. It was built just after the American Revolution, the plan having been brought from France by Thomas Jefferson, and modelled from the ancient Roman temple of the Maison Carree at Nismes, the front being a fine Ionic portico. From the roof, elevated high above every surrounding building, there is an excellent view, disclosing the grand sweep of the river among the islands and rapids, going off to the south, where it disappears among the hills behind Drewry's Bluff, below the town. The square-block plan with streets crossing at right angles is well displayed, and the abrupt sides of some of the hills, where they have been cut away, disclose the high-colored, reddish-yellow soils which have been so prolific in tobacco culture, and give the scene such brilliant hues, as well as dye the river a chocolate color in times of freshet. The city spreads over a wide surface, and has populous suburbs on the lower lands south of the James. This Capitol was the meeting-place of the Confederate Congress, and the locality of all the statecraft of the " Lost Cause." It contains the battle-flags of the Virginia troops and other relics, and in a gallery built around the rotunda THE CITY OF BICHMOND. Ill are hung the portraits of the Virginia Governors and of the three great military chiefs, Lee, Johnston and Jackson. Upon the floor beneath is Houdon's famous statue of Washington, made while he was yet alive. In 1785, the talented French sculptor accompanied Franklin to this country to prepare the model for the statue, which had been ordered by the Virginia Gov ernment. He spent two weeks at Mount Vernon with Washington, taking casts of his face, head and upper portion of the body, with minute measure ments, and then returned to Paris. The statue was finished in 1788, and is regarded as the most accu rate reproduction of Washington existing. A statue of Henry Clay and a bust of Lafayette are also in the rotunda. On the esplanade north of the Capitol is Craw ford's bronze equestrian statue of Washington upon a massive granite pedestal, one of the most attractive and elaborate bronzes ever made. The horse is half thrown upon his haunches, giving the statue ex ceeding spirit, while upon smaller pedestals around stand six heroic statues in bronze of Virginia states men of various periods Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, George Mason, Andrew Lewis and Chief Justice John Marshall the whole adorned with appropriate emblems. This artistic masterpiece was constructed at a cost of $260,000. In the centre of the esplanade is Foley's bronze statue of Stonewall Jackson, sent from London in 112 AMEEICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. 1875 by a number of his English admirers as a gift to the State of Virginia. It is of heroic size, stand ing upon a pedestal of Virginia granite, and is a striking reproduction. The inscription is : " Pre sented by English gentlemen as a tribute of admira tion for the soldier and patriot, Thomas J. Jackson, and gratefully accepted by Virginia in the name of the Southern people." Beneath is inscribed in the granite the remark giving his sobriquet, which was made at the first battle of Bull Run in 1862, where Jackson commanded a brigade. At a time when the day was apparently lost, his troops made so firm a stand that some one, in admiration, called out the words that became immortal : " Look, there is Jack son standing like a stone wall !" A short distance from the Capitol is the " Confederate White House," a square-built dwelling, with a high porch in the rear and a small portico in front. Here lived Jefferson Davis during his career as President of the Con federacy ; it is now a museum of war relics. Nearby is St. PauFs Episcopal Church, where Davis was at tending service on the eventful Sunday morning in April, 1865, when he was brought the fateful tele gram from General Lee which said that Richmond must be immediately evacuated. In the central part of the residential quarter, on Franklin Street, is the plain brick house which during the Civil War was the home of General Lee. It is related that after the Appomattox surrender, when he returned to this I Washington cMonument, ^chmond, THE CITY OF KICHMOND. 113 house, the people of Richmond got an idea that he was suffering privations and his family needed the necessaries of life. His son, Fitz Hugh Lee, after wards said that the people then vied with each other in sending him everything imaginable. So generous were the gifts that the upper parts of the house were filled with barrels of flour, meats and many other things, and the supplies became so bountiful that Lee directed their distribution among the poor. This house is now occupied by the Virginia Historical Society. A magnificent equestrian statue of General Lee was erected on Park Avenue in 1890. Some Richmond memorials, however, antedate the Civil War. Its "first house" a low, steep-roofed stone cabin on the Main street, said to have been there when the town site was first laid out is an ob ject of homage. The popular idea is that the Indian King Powhatan originally lived in this house, but it was probably constructed after his time. Not far away, upon Richmond or Church Hill, stands St. John's Church among the old gravestones in a spacious churchyard. It was built in 1740 a little wooden church with a small steeple. Here the first Virginian Convention was held which paved the way for the Revolution in 1775, and listened to Patrick Henry's impassioned speech " Give me liberty or give me death." The pew in which he stood while speaking is still preserved. An adjoining eminence is called Libby Hill, where lived Luther Libby, who VOL. L 8 114 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. owned most of the land thereabout. Under its shadow was the Libby Prison of the Civil War, since removed to Chicago for exhibition. It had been a tobacco warehouse, occupied by Libby & Co., but during the war it held at various times over fifty thousand Northern prisoners. All the captured soldiers were first taken to Libby, the commissioned officers remaining there, while the privates were sent to points in the interior. The most noted event in the history of this prison was the boring of a tunnel through the eastern wall, in February, 1864, by which one hundred and nine prisoners, led by Colonel Streight, managed to escape into an adjoining stable and storehouse, and though more than half of them were recaptured, the others got safely out of Richmond and into the Union lines. The water power of the James River supplies huge flour mills and other factories, and alongside the stream are the extensive Tredegar Iron Works at the base of Gamble Hill, one of the largest iron and steel works in the Southern States. Here were made the Confederate cannon, shot and shell, and the primitive armor plates for their few warships. This hill also overlooks the James River and Kana- wha Canal, an interior water way going westward beyond the Alleghenies. In mid-river above is Belle Isle, a broad, flat island, which during the war was a place of imprisonment for private soldiers, but upon it is now an iron mill. Along the lower river are the THE CITY OF BICHMOND. 115 wharves and shipping, in the section called Rock- etts, and here are also the tobacco storehouses and factories, the chief Richmond industry, for it is the world's leading tobacco mart, receiving and distribut ing most of the product of the rich soils of Virginia, Kentucky and Carolina. The pungent odor gener ally pervades the town, for whichever way the wind may blow it wafts the perfume of a tobacco or ciga rette factory. The Tobacco Exchange is the business centre, and this industry is of the first importance. The modern-built City Hall, adjacent to the Capitol Park, is one of Richmond's finest buildings. In the western suburbs, upon the river bank, and in a lovely position, is the famous Hollywood Ceme tery, the terraced sides of its ravines being occupied by mausoleums and graves, while in front the rushing rapids roar a requiem for the dead. The foliage is luxuriant ; and, while occupying only about eighty acres, it is a most beautiful burial-place. Here are interred two Virginia Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler. An elaborate monument marks the former, and a magnificent tree is planted at Tyler's grave his daughter, buried nearby, having for a monument a tasteful figure of the Virgin. The Hollywood Cemetery Association is to place a monu ment on Tyler's grave. Here are also buried Con federate Generals A. P. HiU, J. E. B. Stuart, the dashing cavalryman, and George E. Pickett, who led the desperate Confederate charge of the Virginia 116 AMEKICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. Division at Gettysburg. It also contains the graves of the eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke ; Com modore Maury, the navigator ; Henry A. Wise, Gov ernor of Virginia when the State seceded, and Thomas Ritchie, long editor of the Richmond En quirer, a most powerful writer and political leader in the early part of the nineteenth century, who is re garded in Virginia as the u Father of the Democratic Party." There are crowded into this cemetery in one place twelve thousand graves of Confederate soldiers, and in the centre of the ghastly plot there rises a huge stone pyramid, ninety feet high, erected as a memorial by the Southern women. Vines overrunning it almost conceal the rough joints of the stones. No name is upon it, for it was built as a monument for the unnamed dead. On three sides are inscriptions ; on one " To the Confederate Dead ;" on another " Memoria in Sterna," and on a third "Numini et Patrise Asto." As they fell on the adjacent battlefields or died in the hospitals, un claimed, they were brought here and buried in rows. In one urgent, terrible season, time not being given to prepare separate graves, the bodies were interred on the hillside in long trenches. This sombre pyra mid and its immediate surroundings are impres sive memorials of the great war. From any of the Richmond hills can be seen other grim mementos. Almost all the present city parks were then army hospitals or cemeteries ; all the chief highways lead M'CLELLAN'S SIEGE OF KICHMOND. 117 out to battlefields, and most of them in the suburbs are bordered with the graves of the dead of both armies. All around the compass the outlook is upon battlefields, and on all sides but the north upon cemeteries. M'CLELLAN'S SIEGE OF RICHMOND. The great memory of Richmond for all time will be of the Civil War, when for three years battles raged around it. The first movement against the city was McClellan's siege in 1862, and the environs show abundant remains of the forts, redoubts and long lines of earthworks by which the Confederate Capital was so gallantly defended. The earliest at tack was by Union gunboats in May, 1862, against the batteries defending Drewry's Bluff on James River, seven miles below the town, the defensive works being so strong that little impression was made, but enough was learned to prevent any sub sequent naval attack there. McClellan came up the Peninsula between James and York Rivers, ap proached Richmond from the east, and extended his army around to the north, enveloping it upon a line which was the arc of a circle, from seven miles east to five miles north of the city. The Chickahominy flows through a broad and swampy depression in the table-land north and east of Richmond, bordered by meadows, fens and thickets of underbrush. It thus divided McClellan's investing army, and the first 118 AMEKICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCKIPTIVE. great battle near Richmond was begun by the Con federates, who took advantage of a heavy rain late in May which had swollen the river and swamps. They fell upon the Union left wing on May 31st, and the indecisive battle of Fair Oaks, in which the losses were ten thousand men, was fought southwest of the Chickahominy. General Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate Commander, was badly wounded, and General Lee succeeded him, continuing in com mand until the war closed. Extensive cemeteries now mark this battlefield among the swamps. Dur ing June the heat and malaria filled McClellan's hos pitals with fever cases, and he had to move the greater portion of his army to higher ground north of the Chickahominy, where he erected protective earthworks. These still exist, with the formidable ranges of opposing Confederate works on the south side of the river. One of the most brilliant Confederate movements of the war followed. McClellan's right wing stretched around to the village of Mechanicsville, five miles north of Richmond, and Lee determined to over whelm this wing. Stonewall Jackson had been driv ing the Union troops out of the Shenandoah Valley northwest of Richmond, and late in June began a combined movement with Lee's army at Richmond. Longstreet and Hill crossed the Chickahominy above Mechanicsville and attacked the Union right, begin ning the " Seven Days' Battles," lasting from June M'CLELLAN'S SIEGE OF RICHMOND. 119 25 to July 1, 1862. Jackson was to have got down the same day from the Shenandoah Valley, but his march was delayed, and this gave time for McClellan to withdraw his wing and extensive baggage trains across the swamps below, the stubborn defense by his rear guards making the fierce conflict of Graines* Mill, on the second day, during which Jackson, coming from the northward and joining the others, compelled the Union lines to change front, the con test thus turning into the first battle of Cold Harbor, in which the rear held their ground until the retreat was completed across the Chickahominy, and with drew, destroying roads and bridges behind them. McClellan then made a further retreat, for which these obstructive tactics gave time, across the White Oak Swamp down the river, moving on a single road, leading to higher ground, which was held by hasty defenses. The Confederate attacks upon this new line made the battles of Savage Station, Charles City Cross Roads, and Frazier's Farm, the pursuit being checked long enough to permit another retreat and the formation of lines of defense on Malvern Hill, fifteen miles southeast of Richmond, adjoining James River. The Confederates again attacked, but met a disastrous check ; and, wearied by a week of battles and marches, they then desisted, closing the seven days 7 fighting, in which both sides were worn out, and the losses were forty thousand men. McClel- lan's army, having retreated from around Richmond, 120 AMERICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. afterwards withdrew farther down James River to Harrison's Landing, and here they rested. Subse quently they were removed by vessels to Washing ton for the later campaign which resulted in the second battle of Bull Run, McClellan being super seded for a brief period by Pope. This brilliant Confederate movement against McClellan raised the siege and relieved Richmond, emboldening them to make their subsequent aggressive campaigns across the Potomac, which were checked at Antietam and at Gettysburg. GRANT'S SIEGE OF RICHMOND. There were no Union attacks directly against Richmond in 1863. The second great movement upon the Confederate Capital began in June, 1864, when Grant came down through the Wilderness, as already described, and attacked the Confederates at Cold Harbor. Lee was entrenched there in almost the same defensive position occupied by McClellan's rear when protecting his retreat across the Chicka- hominy two years before. Grant made little impres sion, but in a brief and bloody battle lost fifteen thousand men. He then turned aside from this almost impregnable position to the northeast of Rich mond, went south to the James River, and, crossing over, started a new attack from a different quarter. This removed the seat of war to the south of Rich mond, and in September, 1864, General Butler's GKANT'S SIEGE OF EICHMOND. 121 Unionist troops from Bermuda Hundred captured Fort Harrison, a strong work on the northeast side of the James, opposite Drewry's Bluff, and not far from Malvern Hill. The campaign then became one of stubborn persistence. Throughout the autumn and winter Grant gradually spread his lines west ward around Petersburg, so that the later movements were more a siege of that city than of Richmond. City Point, at the mouth of the Appomattox, flowing out from Petersburg to the James, became his base of supplies. As the Union lines were extended steadily westward, one railway after another, leading from the far South up to Petersburg and Richmond, was cut off, and Lee was ultimately starved out, forc ing the abandonment of Petersburg in the early spring of 1865, and the evacuation of Richmond on April 3d, with the retreat of Lee westward, and the final surrender at Appomattox six days later, caus ing the downfall of the Confederacy, and ending the war. From the top of Libby Hill in Richmond the route is still pointed out by which the swiftly moving Union troops, after that fateful Sunday of the evacu ation, advanced over the level lands from Petersburg towards the burning city. The bridges across the James were burnt, and acres of buildings in the business section were in flames when they came to the river bank and found that the greater portion of the affrighted people had fled. The Yankees quickly 122 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. laid a pontoon bridge, crossed to Shockoe Hill, rushed up to the Capitol, and raised the Union " Stars and Stripes " on the roof, replacing the Con federate " Stars and Bars." Then they went vigor ously to work putting out the fires, and the new infu sion of life given the city by its baptism of blood imparted an energy which has not only restored it, but has given it an era of great prosperity. It is a curious fact that the nearest approach any Northern troops made to Richmond during the progress of the war was in March, 1864. A precursor to Grant's march through the Wilderness was a dashing cavalry raid from the northward, the troopers crossing the Chickahominy, then unguarded, and advancing to a point about one mile from the city limits. Here they met some resistance, and, learning of defensive works farther ahead, General Kilpatrick, who commanded the raiders, retreated. General Lee's troops were then fifty miles away from Richmond, guarding the lines along the Rappahannock. PIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. In the great strategic movements of the opposing armies of the Civil War they repeatedly traversed a large part of Virginia and Maryland to the north west of the route between Washington and Rich mond. Like the general coastal formation east of the Alleghenies, Virginia rises into successive ridges parallel with the mountains. The first range of low PIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. 123 broken hills stretching southwest from the Potomac are called in different parts the Kittoctin, Bull Run and other mountains extending down to the Carolina boundary. From these, what is known as the Pied mont district stretches all across the State, and has a width of about twenty-five miles to the base of the Blue Ridge, being a succession of picturesque val leys and rolling lands, the general elevation gradu ally increasing towards the northwest, where it is bordered by the towering Blue Ridge and its many spurs and plateaus, with passages through at various gaps. The Blue Ridge is elevated about fifteen hun dred feet at the Potomac, but Mount Marshall, at Front Royal, rises nearly thirty-four hundred feet, and the Peaks of Otter, farther southwest, are much higher. Beyond this is the great Appalachian Val ley, which stretches from New England to Alabama, the section here being known as the " Valley of Vir ginia," and its northern portion as the Shenandoah Valley. This is a belt of rolling country, with many hills and vales, diversified by streams that wind among the hillsides, and having a varying breadth of ten to fifty miles in different parts. Beyond it, to the northwest, are the main Allegheny Mountain ranges. The opposing troops marched and fought over all this country in connection with the greater military movements, and here was the special thea tre of Stonewall Jackson's exploits and his wonder ful marches and quick manosuvres which made his 124 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. troops proudly style themselves his " foot cavalry." The memory of Jackson is cherished by the South ern people more than that of any other of their leaders in the Civil War, and his brilliant exploits and inopportune death have made him their special hero. In the Piedmont region, to the southeast and in front of the Blue Ridge, are the towns of Leesburg, Manassas, Warrenton, Culpepper, Orange and Char- lottesville, all well known in connection with the op posing military movements. Charlottesville, about sixty-five miles northwest of Richmond, in a beauti ful situation, was an important Confederate base of supplies. Here are now about six thousand people, and the town has its chief fame as the seat of the University of Virginia and the home of Thomas Jefferson. The University was founded mainly through the exertions of Jefferson, and has some five hundred students. Its buildings are a mile out of town, and the original ones were constructed from Jefferson's designs and under his supervision, the chief being the Rotunda, recently rebuilt, and the modern structures for a Museum of Natural History and an Observatory. Jefferson was proud of this institution, and in the inscription which he prepared for his tomb described himself as the " author of the Declaration of Independence, and of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia." Among its most famous PIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. 125 students was Edgar Allan Poe, and a fine bronze bust of him was unveiled at the University in 1899, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. Thomas Jefferson lived at Monticello, the old house being an interesting specimen of early Virginia archi tecture, and standing on a hill southeast of the town. Here he died just fifty years after the Declaration was promulgated, July 4, 1826, and he is buried in the family graveyard near the house. Monticello is now celebrated for its native wines. The Shenandoah Valley during the war was noted for the way in which the opposing forces chased each other up and down, with repeated severe battles. Here was fought, in June, 1862, the battle of Cross Keys, near the forks of the Shenandoah. Jackson had previously retreated up the Valley, but by a series of brilliant movements, begun after the battle of Fair Oaks before Richmond, he was able to meet and defeat in detail the various armies under Banks, Fremont, McDowell and Shields, thus managing to foil or hold in check seventy thousand men, while his own troops were never more than twenty thousand. Then coming southward out of the Valley, he joined in turning McClellan's right wing before Richmond at the end of June, afterwards following up Banks in August, and defeating him at Cedar Mountain, near Culpepper ; then joining in the defeat of Pope at the second battle of Bull Run ; then capturing Harper's Ferry and eleven thousand men September 15th ? 126 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. and finally taking part in the battle of Antietam two days later. When Grant began his siege of Rich mond after the second battle of Cold Harbor, in 1864, he made General Sheridan commander of the troops in the Shenandoah Valley, and fortune turned. Sheridan opposed Early, and in September and Oc tober had a series of brilliant victories, the last one at Cedar Creek, where he turned a rout into a vic tory by his prompt movements. Sheridan had been in Washington, and came to Winchester, " twenty miles away," where he heard " the terrible grumble and rumble and roar " of the battle, and made his noted ride, the exploit being so conspicuous that he received the thanks of Congress. Early in 1865 he made a cavalry raid from Winchester, in the Valley, down to the westward of Richmond, around Lee's lines, and rejoined the army at Petersburg, having destroyed the James River and Kanawha Canal and cut various important railway connections in the Con federate rear. The Shenandoah Valley to-day is very much in its primitive condition of agriculture, but has been opened up by railway connections which develop its resources, and its great present attraction is the Cave of Luray. This cavern is about five miles from the Blue Ridge, and some distance south west of Front Royal. It is a compact cavern, well lighted by electricity, and is more completely and profusely decorated with stalactites and stalagmites than any other in the world. Some of the chambers THE BATTLEFIELD OF GETTYSBUKG. 127 are very imposing, and all the more important for mations have been appropriately named. The scenery of the neighborhood is picturesque, and the cavern has many visitors. THE BATTLEFIELD OF GETTYSBURG. In considering the great theatre of the Civil War, attention is naturally directed to the chief contest of all, and the turning-point of the rebellion, the battle of Gettysburg, fought at the beginning of July, 1863. After the victory at Chancellorsville in May the Confederates determined to carry the war north ward into the enemy's country. Gettysburg is seven miles north of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and over forty miles from the Potomac River. To the westward is the long curving range of the South Mountain, and beyond this the great Appalachian Valley, a continuation of the Shenandoah Valley, crossing Central Pennsylvania in a curve, and here called the Cumberland Valley. In the latter are two prominent towns, Chambersburg in Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown in Maryland, on the Potomac. General Lee, in preparation for the march north ward, gathered nearly ninety thousand men at Cul- pepper in Virginia, including Stuart's cavalry force of ten thousand. General Hooker's Union army, which had withdrawn across the Rappahannock after Chancellorsville, was then encamped opposite Freder- icksburg, and one hundred and fifty miles south of 128 AMEKICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. Gettysburg. Lee started northward across the Po tomac, but Hooker did not discover it for some days, and then rapidly followed. The Confederates crossed between June 22d and 25th, and concentrated at Hagerstown, in the Cumberland Valley, up which they made a rapid march, overrunning the entire valley to the Susquehanna River, and appearing op posite Harrisburg and Columbia. Hooker, being late in movement, crossed the Potomac lower down than Lee, on June 28th, thus making a northern race, up the curving valleys, with Lee in advance, but on the longer route of the outer circle. There was a garrison of ten thousand men at Harper's Ferry on the Potomac, and Hooker asked that they be added to his army j but the War Department de clined, and Hooker immediately resigned, being suc ceeded by General George G. Meade, who thus on the eve of the battle became the Union commander. There are two parallel ridges bordering the plain on which Gettysburg stands. The long Seminary Ridge, stretching from north to south about a mile west of the town, gets its name from the Lutheran Theological Seminary standing upon it ; and the Cemetery Ridge to the south of the town, which partly stretches up its slopes, has on its northern flat-topped hill the village cemetery, wherein the principal grave then was that of James Gettys, after whom the place was named. There is an outlying eminence called Gulp's Hill farther to the east, mak- THE BATTLEFIELD OF GETTYSBUKG. 129 ing, with the Cemetery Ridge, a formation bent around much like a fish-hook, with the graveyard at the bend and Gulp's Hill at the barb, while far down at the southern end of the long straight shank, as the ridge extends for two miles away, with an interven ing rocky gorge called the Devil's Den, there are two peaks, formed of tree-covered crags, known as the Little Round Top and the Big Round Top. These long parallel ridges, with the intervale and the country immediately around them, are the battle field, which the topographical configuration well dis plays. It covers about twenty -five square miles, and lies mainly southwest of the town. It was on June 28th that General Meade unex pectedly assumed command of the Union army, and he was then near the Potomac. General Ewell with the Confederate advance guard had gone up the Cumberland Valley as far as Carlisle, and his troopers were threatening Harrisburg. Nobody had opposed them, and the Confederate main body, which had got much ahead of Hooker, was at Chambersburg. Lee being far from his base, and hearing of the Union pursuit, then determined to face about and cripple his pursuers, fixing upon Gettysburg as the point of concentration. He ordered Ewell to march south from Carlisle, and the other commanders east from Chambersburg through the mountain passes. The Union cavalry advance under General Buford reached Gettysburg on June 30th, ahead of the Confederates, VOL. I. 9 130 AMEKICA, PICTTJKESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. and Meade's army was then stretched over the ground for more than forty miles back to the Po tomac, all coming forward by forced marches. As soon as Meade became aware of Lee's changed tac tics he concluded that this extended formation was too risky, and decided to concentrate in a strong position upon the Pipe Creek hills in Maryland, about fifteen miles south of Gettysburg, and issued the necessary orders. Thus the battle opened, with each army executing a movement for concentration. THE GREAT BATTLE. The battle began on July 1st, the Union Cavalry, which had gone out to the west and north of Gettys burg, becoming engaged with the Confederate ad vance approaching the town from the passes through the South Mountain. The cavalry, at first victori ous, was soon overwhelmed by superior numbers, and infantry supports arrived, under General Rey nolds ; but he was killed, and they were all driven back and through Gettysburg to the cemetery and Gulp's Hill, which were manned by fresh troops that had come up. Meade was then at Pipe Creek, lay ing out a defensive line, but when he heard of Rey nolds 7 death and the defeat, he sent General Hancock forward to take command, who decided that the Cemetery Ridge was the place to give battle. Ewell had in the meantime extended the Confederate left wing around to the east of Gulp's Hill and held THE GREAT BATTLE. 131 Gettysburg, but active operations were suspended, and the night was availed of by both sides to get their forces up and into position, which was mainly accomplished by morning. When the second day, July 2d, opened, the armies confronted each other in line of battle. The Union troops were along the Cemetery Ridge and the Con federates upon the Seminary Ridge, across the inter vale to the west, their lines also stretching around through Gettysburg to the north of the cemetery, and two miles east along the base of Gulp's Hill. In the long intervening valley, and in the ravines and upon the slopes of the Cemetery Ridge and Gulp's Hill, the main battle was fought. The attack began by General Longstreet advancing against the two Round Tops, but after a bloody contest he was re pulsed. General Sickles, who held the line to the south of the Little Round Top, then thought he could improve his position by advancing a half-mile into the valley towards the Seminary Ridge, thus making a broken Union line, with a portion dangerously thrust forward. The enemy soon took advantage of this, and fell upon Sickles, front and flank, almost overwhelming his line in the " Peach Orchard," and driving it back to the adjacent u Wheat Field." Re inforcements were quickly poured in, and there was a hot conflict, Sickles being seriously wounded and his troops almost cut to pieces. About the same time Ewell made a terrific charge out of Gettysburg 132 AMEKICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. upon the Cemetery and Gulp's Hill, with the " Louisi ana Tigers " and other troops, effecting a lodgement, although the defending soldiers wrought great havoc by a heavy cannonade. The Union gunners on Lit tle Round Top ultimately cleared the " Wheat Field," and then the combatants rested. Lee was much in spirited by his successes, and determined to renew the attack next morning. Upon the third and last day, July 3d, General Meade opened the combat early in the morning by driving out EwelPs forces, who had effected a lodge ment on Gulp's Hill. General Lee did not learn of this, but he was full of the idea that both the Union centre and right wing had been weakened the pre vious day, and during the night he planned an attack in front, to be accompanied by a cavalry movement around the Union right to assail the rear, thus fol lowing up EwelPs supposed advantage. To give Stuart with the cavalry time to get around to the rear, the front attack was not made until afternoon. During the morning each side got cannon into posi tion, Lee having one hundred and twenty guns along Seminary Ridge, and Meade eighty in the Cemetery and southward, along a low, irregular stone pile, forming a sort of rude wall bordering the road lead ing from Gettysburg south to Taneytown, in Mary land. The action began about one o'clock in the afternoon, when the Confederates opened fire, and the most terrific artillery duel of the war took place THE GREAT BATTLE. 133 across the intervening valley, six guns being dis charged every second. The troops suffered little, as they kept down in the ground, but several Union guns were dismounted. After two hours deafening cannonade Lee ordered his grand attack, the cele brated charge by General Pickett, a force of fourteen thousand men with brigade front advancing across the valley. They marched swiftly, and had a mile to go, but before they were half-way across all the available Union guns had been trained upon them. Their attack was directed at an umbrella-shaped clump of trees on the Cemetery Kidge at a low place where the rude stone wall made an angle, with its point outside. General Hancock commanded this portion of the Union line. The grape and canister of the Union cannonade ploughed furrows through Pickett's ranks, and when his column got within three hundred yards, Hancock opened musketry fire with terrible effect. Thousands fell, and the brigades broke in disorder ; but the advance, headed by Gen eral Armistead on foot, continued, and about one hundred and fifty men leaped over the stone piles at the angle to capture the Union guns. Lieutenant Gushing, mortally wounded in both thighs, ran his last serviceable gun towards the wall, and shouting to his commander, " Webb, I will give them one more shot !" he fired the gun and died. Armistead put his hand on the cannon, Waved his sword, and called out, " Give them the cold steel, boys !" then, pierced 134 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. by bullets, he fell dead alongside of Gushing. Both lay near the clump of trees, about thirty yards inside the wall, their corpses marking the farthest point to which Pickett's advance penetrated. There was a hand to hand conflict ; Webb was wounded, and also Hancock, and the slaughter was dreadful. The Con federates were overwhelmed, and not one-fourth of the gallant charging column, composed of the flower of the Virginia troops, escaped, the remnant retreat ing in disorder. Stuart's cavalry failed to cooperate as intended, having met the Union cavalry about four miles to the east of Gettysburg, and the conflict ensuing prevented their attacking the Union rear. After Pickett's retreat there was a general Union ad vance, closing the combat. The point within the angle of the stone wall where Gushing and Armistead fell has been commemorated by what is known as the " High- Water Mark Monu ment," for it was placed at the point reached by the top of the flood-tide of the rebellion, as afterwards there was a steady ebb. During the night of July 3d Lee began a retreat, and aided by heavy rains, usually following great battles, the Confederates next day withdrew through the mountain passes towards Hagerstown, and afterwards escaped across the Po tomac. Upon the day of Lee's retreat, Vicksburg surrendered to General Grant, and these two events began the Confederacy's downfall. There were en gaged in the battle of Gettysburg about eighty thou- THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS. 135 sand men on each side, the Union army having three hundred and thirty-nine cannon and the Confeder ates two hundred and ninety -three. It was the larg est battle of the Civil War in the actual numbers en gaged, and one of the most hotly contested. The Union loss was twenty-three thousand and three killed, wounded and prisoners, and the Confederate loss twenty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty- eight. THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS. The battlefield of Gettysburg is better marked, both topographically and by monuments, than prob ably any other battlefield in the world. Over a mil lion dollars have been expended on the grounds and monuments. The " Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association," representing the soldiers engaged, has marked all the important points, and the tracts along the lines, over four hundred and fifty acres, have been acquired, so as to thoroughly preserve all the land marks where the most important movements were executed. There are some five hundred monuments upon the field, placed with the utmost care in the exact localities, and standing in woods or on open ground, by the roadsides, on stony heights and ridges in gardens, and of all designs, executed in bronze, marble, granite, on boulders and otherwise. Marking- posts also designate the positions of the various or ganizations in the opposing armies. To the north and west of Gettysburg is the scene of the first day's 136 AMEKICA, PICTUEESQUE AND DESCKIPTIVE. contest, but the more interesting part is to the south ward. Ascending the Cemetery Hill, there is passed, by the roadside, the house of Jenny Wade, the only woman killed in the battle, accidentally shot while baking bread. The rounded Cemetery Hill is an elevated and strong position having many monu ments, and here, alongside the little village grave yard, the Government established a National Ceme tery of seventeen acres, where thirty -five hundred and seventy -two soldiers are buried, over a thousand being the unknown dead. A magnificent battle monument is here erected, surmounted by a statue of Liberty, and at the base of the shaft having figures of War, History, Peace and Plenty. This charming spot was the centre of the Union line, then a rough, rocky hill. The cemetery was dedicated in Novem ber, 1863, Edward Everett delivering the oration, and the monument on July 1, 1869. At the ceme tery dedication President Lincoln made the famous " twenty-line address " which is regarded as the most immortal utterance of the martyr President, and has become an American classic. The British Westminster Review described it as an oration having but one equal, in that pronounced upon those who fell during the first year of the Peloponnesian War, and as being its superior, because " natural, fuller of feeling, more touching and pathetic, and we know with an absolute certainty that it was really de livered." The President was requested to say a few THE GETTYSBUKG MONUMENTS. 137 words by way of dedication, and drawing from his pocket a crumpled piece of paper on which he had written some notes, he spoke as follows : "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new Nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the un finished work that they have thus far so nobly car ried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of de votion that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that 138 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." A mile across the valley the Lutheran Seminary is seen, the most conspicuous landmark of the Confed erate line. To the southeast from the cemetery is Gulp's Hill, strewn with rocks and boulders and cov ered with trees. The Emmettsburg road goes south ward down the valley, gradually diverging from the Union line, and crossing the fields that were the battleground on the second and third days. It is bordered by numerous monuments, some of great merit, and leads to the " Peach Orchard," where the line bends sharply back. Peach trees are replanted here as the old ones fall. The "Wheat Field" is alongside, now grass-grown. Beyond it the surface goes down among the crags and broken stones of the "Devil's Den," a ravine through which flows a stream, coming from the orchard and wheat field, and separating them from the rocky " Round Tops," the sandstone cliffs of the "Little Round Top" rising high above the ravine. The fields sloping to the stream above the Den are known as the " Valley of Death." Among these rocks there are many monuments, made of the boulders that are so numer ous. A toilsome path mounts the " Big Round Top " beyond, and an Observatory on the summit gives a good view over almost the entire battlefield. This summit, more than three miles south of Gettysburg, has tall timber, preserved as it was in the battle. THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS. 139 There are cannon surmounting the " Round Tops/' representing the batteries in action. Across the valley to the west is the long fringe of timber that masked the Confederate position on Seminary Ridge. A picnic-ground, with access by railway, is located alongside the " Round Tops." The lines of breast works are maintained, and upon the lower ground, not far away, are preserved the rough stone walls, and to the northward is the little umbrella-shaped grove of trees at which Pickett's charge was directed. The Twentieth Massachusetts regiment brought here a huge conglomerate boulder from New England and set it up as their monument, their Colonel, Paul Revere, being killed in the battle. There was no fighting along the Confederate line on Seminary Ridge until the scene of the first day's conflict is reached, to the northwest of Gettysburg. Here is marked where General Reynolds fell, just within a grove of trees, and a fine equestrian statue of him has been erected on the field. From his un timely death, Reynolds is regarded as the special Union hero of the battle, as Armistead was the Southern. Nearby a spirited statue, the " Massachu setts Color-Bearer/' holds aloft the flag of the Thir teenth Massachusetts regiment, standing upon a slope, thus marking the spot where he fell at the opening of the conflict. Such is the broad and impressive scene of one of the leading battles of the world, and the greatest ever fought in America. But happily 140 AMEKICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. the passions which caused it have been stilled, and the combatants are now again united in their patri otic devotion to a common country. As Longfellow solemnly sounds his invocation in the Building of the Ship, so now do all the people in the reunited Union : "Thus too, sail on, O Ship of State ! Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate 1" THE VALLEY OF THE DELAWARE m. THE VALLEY OF THE DELAWARE. Delaware Bay Cape May Cape Henlopen Delaware Break water Maurice Biver Cove The Pea Patch Newcastle Mason and Dixon's Line Fort Christina Wilmington The Duponts Brandywine William Penn West Jersey Pennsylvania Upland The Ship " Welcome" Philadel phia Shackamaxon The Lenni Lenapes The City Hall Independence Hall Benjamin Franklin Betsy Ross and the American Flag Stephen Girard Girard College Nota ble Charities and Buildings Christ Church Old Swedes' Church Longfellow's Evangeline Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul University of Pennsylvania City of Homes John Bartram and his Garden Fairmount Park Laurel Hill Wissahickon Creek Germantown Johannes Kelpius The Schuylkill Biver Tom Moore Pennsylvania Dutch Valley Forge Beading Port Clinton Pottsville Anthra cite Coal-fields New Jersey Coast Besorts Atlantic City- Ocean Grove Asbury Park Long Branch St. Tammany Poquessing Kancocas The Neshaminy The Log College Bristol Burlington Pennsbury Manor Bordentown Ad miral Stewart Joseph Bonaparte Camden and Amboy Bail- road Delaware and Baritan Canal Trenton Gravel Tren ton, its Potteries, Crackers and Battle The Swamp Angel Morrisville General Moreau Princeton and its Battle General Mercer Princeton University Jonathan Edwards Marshall's Walk Pennsylvania Palisades Forks of the Delaware Easton Lafayette College Ario Pardee Phil- lipsburg Morris Canal Lake Hopatcong Lehigh River Bethlehem Lehigh University The Moravians Count Zln- zendorf Teedyuscung Allentown Lehigh Gap Mauch Chunk Asa Packer Coal Mining Summit Hill The (143) 144 AMEEICA, PICTUKESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. Switchback Nescopec Mountain Wyoming Valley Wilkesbarre Harvey's Lake Scranton Wyoming Massacre The Foul Kift The Terminal Moraine The Great Gla cier Belvidere Delaware Water Gap The Wind Gap Minsi and Tammany The Minisink The Buried Valleys Nicholas Depui George La Bar Stroudsburg Pocono Knob Bushkill Walpack Bend Pike County Dingman's Choice Waterfalls Milford Tom Quick, the Indian Killer Tri-States Corner Neversink River Port Jervis Dela ware and Hudson Canal High Point The Catskill Flags Hawk's Nest Shohola The Lacka waxen and its Battle The Sylvania Society Horace Greeley Blooming Grove Pocono High Knob Hawley The Wallenpaupack The In dian Orchard Honesdale Washington Irving The Gravity Railroad Carbondale Mast Hope Narrowsburg Cochec- ton Hancock Delaware Headwaters Popacton River Mohock River Deposit Oquaga Creek and Lake Lake Utsyanthia Ote-se-on-teo, Source of the Delaware. DELAWARE BAY. THE famous navigator of the Dutch East India Company, Hendrick Hudson, was the first white man who entered Delaware Bay. He discovered it on August 28, 1609, two weeks before he entered Sandy Hook Bay and found the Hudson River. When Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, Governor of Virginia, was driven by stress of weather into the bay in 1611, his name was given the river. In 1614 another redoubtable old skipper of the Dutch East India Company, Captain Carolis Jacobsen Mey, searching, like all the rest of the navigators of those days, for the northwest passage to Asia and the In dies, came along there with a small fleet of sixty-ton DELAWAKE BAY. 145 frigates, and tried to give the river and its capes his names j but only one of these has survived, Cape May. The southern portal at the entrance, which he wished to make Cape Carolis, was named a few years afterwards, by the Swedes, Cape Henlopen. The Indians called the river " Lenape-wihituck," or the " river of the Lenapes," meaning " the origi nal people," or, as sometimes translated, the " manly men," the name of the aboriginal confederation that dwelt upon its banks. It had various other names, for when the Swedes came, the Indians about the bay called it " Pantoxet." In an early deed to William Penn it is called " Mackeriskickon," and in another document the " Zunikoway." Some of the tribes up the river named it " Kithanue," meaning the " main stem," as distinguished from its tributaries, and those on the upper waters called it the "Lemase- pose," or the " Fish River," for the Upper Delaware was then a famous salmon stream, and its early Dutch explorers thus came to calling it the " Fish River " also. The Delaware, from its source in the Catskills to the sea, is about three hundred and sixty miles in length. The estuary of Delaware Bay is about sixty miles long and thirty miles broad in the widest part, con tracting towards the north to less than five miles. The capes at the entrance are about fifteen miles apart. As a protection to shipping, the Government began, on the Cape Henlopen side, in 1829, the VOL. I. 10 146 AMEEICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. construction of the famous Delaware Breakwater. It consists of a stone breakwater about twenty-six hundred feet long facing the northeast, and an ice breaker about fourteen hundred feet long, at right angles, facing the upper bay. These were completed in 1870, there being an opening between them of about sixteen hundred feet width, which was after wards filled up. The surface protected covers three hundred and sixty acres, and the whole work cost about $3,500,000. It was estimated in 1871 that fully twenty thousand vessels every year availed of the protection of this breakwater, the depth of water being twenty -four feet behind it sufficient for most of the shipping of that day. But as vessels have become larger and of deeper draft, they have not been able to use it, and the Government has re cently begun the construction of another and larger breakwater for a harbor of refuge in deeper water adjoining the regular ship channel, some distance to the northward. Delaware Bay divides the States of Delaware and New Jersey. The first settlement in Delaware was made by the Dutch near Lewes in 1630, but the Indians destroyed the colony ; and in 1638 a colony of Swedes and Finns came out under the auspices of the Swedish West India Company, landed and named Cape Henlopen, and purchased from the Indians all the land from there up to the falls at Trenton, finally locating their fort near the mouth of Christiana Creek, and naming the country DELAWARE BAY. 147 Nya Sveriga, or New Sweden. The Swedes and Dutch quarrelled about their respective rights until New York was taken by the English in 1664, after which England controlled. The first settlement in New Jersey was made by Captains Mey and Jorisz in 1623, who built the Dutch Fort Nassau a short distance below Philadelphia ; but it did not last. Delaware Bay is an expansive inland sea, subject to fierce storms, and broadening on its eastern side into Maurice River Cove, noted for its oysters. A deep ship channel conducts commerce through the centre of the bay, marked by lighthouses built out on mid-bay shoals, and, as the shores approach, by range lights on the banks, the Delaware Bay and River being regarded as the best marked and lighted stream in the country. Up at the head of the bay, years ago, a ship loaded with peas and beans sank, and this in time made at first a shoal, and afterwards an island, since known as the " Pea Patch." Here and on the adjacent shores the Government has lately erected formidable forts, which make, with their tor pedo stations in the channel, a complete system of defensive works in the Delaware, first put into active occupation during the Spanish War of 1898, as a pro tection against a hostile fleet entering the river. Over in the " Diamond State " of Delaware, near here, on the river shore, is the aged town of Newcastle, quiet and yet attractive, having in operation, and evidently to the popular satisfaction, the whipping-post and 148 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. stocks, a method of punishment which is a terror to all evil-doers, and is said to be most successful in pre venting crime, as thieves and marauders give New castle a wide berth. This was originally a Swedish settlement, the standard of the great Gustavus Adolphus being unfurled there in 1640, when it was called Sandhuken, or Sandy Hook, it being a point of land jutting out between two little creeks. The Dutch soon captured it, changing the name to New Amstel ; and about 1670 the settlement, then containing nearly a hundred houses, became New Castle, under English auspices. The northern bound ary of the State of Delaware, dividing it from Penn sylvania, is an arc of a circle, made by a radius of twelve miles described around the old Court House at Newcastle, which still has in its tower the bell pre sented by Queen Anne. In coming over by railroad from the Chesapeake to the Delaware, the train, after crossing the broad Susquehanna and the head of Elk, and rounding in Maryland the Northeast Arm of Chesapeake Bay, soon enters the State of Delaware near the north eastern corner of the former State. This corner is at the termination of the crescent-shaped northern boundary of Delaware. The northern boundary of Maryland here beginning and laid down due west, to separate it from Pennsylvania, is the famous " Mason MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 149 and Dixon's Line," surveyed by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two noted English mathematicians and astronomers in the eighteenth century. This boundary gained great notoriety because it so long marked the northern limit of slavery in the United States. For almost a century there were conflicts about their respective limits between the rival pro prietaries of the two States, producing sometimes riot and bloodshed, until, in 1763, these men were brought over from England, and in December began laying out the line on the parallel of latitude 39 43' 26.3" North. They were at the work several years, sur veying the line two hundred and forty -four miles west from the Delaware River, and within thirty-six miles of the entire distance to be run, when the French and Indian troubles began, and they were attacked and driven off, returning to Philadelphia in December, 1767. At the end of every fifth mile a stone was planted, graven with the arms of the Penn family on one side and of Lord Baltimore on the other. The intermediate miles were marked by smaller stones, having a P on one side and an M on the other, all the stones thus used for monuments being sent out from England. After the Revolution, in 1782, the remainder of the line was laid down, and in 1849 the original surveys were revised and found substan tially correct. When the little colony of Swedes and Finns under Peter Minuet came into Christiana Creek in April, 150 AMEEICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCEIPTIVE. 1638, and established their fort, they began the first permanent settlement in the valley of the Delaware. It was built upon a small rocky promontory, and they named it Christina, in honor of the daughter of Gus- tavus Adolphus. The Dutch afterwards captured it and called it Fort Altena ; but the town retained part of the original name in Christinaham, and the creek also retained the name, the English taking possession in 1664. The Swedes, however, regardless of the flag that might wave over them, still remained 5 and their old stone church, built in 1698, still stands, down near the promontory by the waterside, in a yard filled with time-worn gravestones. This old Swedes' Church of the Holy Trinity, the oldest now on the Delaware, was dedicated on Trinity Sunday, 1699, and Rev. Ericus Tobias Biorck came out from Sweden to take charge as rector. It was sixty by thirty feet and twenty feet high, and a little bell tower was afterwards added. The ancient church was recently thoroughly restored to its original condition, with brick floor, oaken benches, and stout rafters support ing the roof. This interesting church building is in a factory district which is now part of Wilmington, the chief city of Delaware, a busy manufacturing community of sixty-five thousand people, built on the Christiana and Brandywine Creeks, which unite about a mile from the Delaware. This active city was laid out above the old settlement, in 1731, by William Shipley, who came from Leicestershire, WILLIAM PENN. 151 England. Ships, railway cars and gunpowder are the chief manufactures of Wilmington. The Brandy- wine Creek, in a distance of four miles, terminating in the city, falls one hundred and twenty feet, pro viding a great water power. Up this stream are the extensive Dupont powder-mills, among the largest in the world, founded by the French statesman and economist, Pierre Samuel Du Pont De Nemours, who, after the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, migrated with his family to the United States in 1799, and was received with distinguished consider ation. He afterwards was instrumental in securing the treaty of 1803 by which France ceded Louisi ana, and was in the service of Napoleon, but finally returned to America, where his sons were conducting the powder-works, and he died near Wilmington in 1817. Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont, of the American Navy, was his grandson. Farther up the Brandywine Creek, at Chadd's Ford and vicinity, was fought, in September, 1777, the battle of the Brandywine, where the English victory enabled them to subsequently take possession of Philadelphia. WILLIAM PENN. Above Wilmington, the Delaware River is a noble tidal stream of about a mile wide, flowing between gently sloping shores, and carrying an extensive commerce. The great river soon brings us to the famous Quaker settlements of Pennsylvania. Wil- 152 AMERICA, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. liam Penn, who had become a member of the Society of Friends, was bequeathed by his father, Admiral Sir William Perm, an estate of 1500 a year and large claims against the British Government. Fen- wick and Byllinge, both Quakers, who had propri etary rights in New Jersey, disputed in 1674, and submitted their difference to Penn's arbitration. He decided in favor of Byllinge, who subsequently be came embarrassed, and made over his property to Penn and two creditors as trustees. This seems to have turned Penn's attention to America as a place of settlement for the persecuted Quakers, and he en gaged with zeal in the work of colonization, and in 1681 obtained from the king, for himself and heirs, in payment of a debt of 16,000 due his father, a patent for the territory now forming Pennsylvania, on the fealty of the annual payment of two beaver skins. He wanted to call his territory New Wales, as many of the colonists came from there, and after wards suggested Sylvania as specially applicable to a land covered with forests ; but the king ordered the name Pennsylvania inserted in the grant, in honor, as he said, of his late friend the Admiral. In Feb ruary, 1682, Penn, with eleven others, purchased West Jersey, already colonized to some extent. Tradition says that some of these West Jersey colo nists sent Penn a sod in which was planted a green twig, to show that he owned the land and all that grew upon it. Next they presented him with a dish Byllinge, who sul 7 be- p er . his property to- Quakers, and he en- . iieable to g ordered the >d in the grant, in honor, as he d the Admiral. In Feb- . vtent. that some of these West Jersey eolo- Penn a sod in which was planted a owned the lan