Four Years in Rebel Capitals | Page 5

Old Friends. The
Emigration Mania. Fortunate Collapse of Agreement. The Negro's
Status. To Work, or Starve. Woman's Aid. Dropping the Curtain.

FOUR YEARS IN REBEL CAPITALS.
CHAPTER I.
THE FOREHEAD OF THE STORM.
The cloud no bigger than a man's hand had risen.
It became visible to all in Washington over the southern horizon. All
around to East and West was but the dull, dingy line of the storm that
was soon to burst in wild fury over that section, leaving only seared
desolation in its wake. Already the timid and wary began to take in sail
and think of a port; while the most reckless looked from the horizon to
each other's faces, with restless and uneasy glances.
In the days of 1860, as everybody knows, the society of Washington
city was composed of two distinct circles, tangent at no one point. The
larger, outer circle whirled around with crash and fury several months
in each year; then, spinning out its centrifugal force, flew into minute
fragments and scattered to extreme ends of the land. The smaller
one--the inner circle--revolved sedately in its accustomed grooves,
moving no whit faster for the buzz of the monster that surrounded and

half hid it for so long; and when that spun itself to pieces moved on as
undisturbed as Werther's Charlotte.
The outer circle drew with it all the outside population, all the
"dwellers in tents," from the busiest lobbyman to the laziest looker-on.
All the "hotel people"--those caravans that yearly poured unceasing
into the not too comfortable caravanserai down town--stretched eager
hands toward this circle; for, to them, it meant Washington. Having
clutched an insecure grasp upon its rim, away they went with a fizz and
a spin, dizzy and delighted--devil take the hindmost! Therein did the
thousand lobbyists, who yearly came to roll logs, pull wires and juggle
through bills, find their congenial prey.
Who shall rise up and write the secret history of that wonderful
committee and of the ways and means it used to prey impartially upon
government and client? Who shall record the "deeds without a name,"
hatched out of eggs from the midnight terrapin; the strange secrets
drawn out by the post-prandial corkscrew? Who shall justly calculate
the influence the lobby and its workings had in hastening that
inevitable, the war between the states?
Into this outer circle whirled that smaller element which came to the
Capital to spend money--not to make it. Diamonds flash, point lace
flounces flaunt! Who will stop that mighty whirligig to inspect whether
the champagne is real, or the turtle is prime?
Allons! le jeu est fait!
Camp-followers and hangers-on of Congress, many of its members
from the West, claim agents from Kansas, husbandless married women
from California and subterranean politicians from everywhere herein
found elements as congenial as profitable. All stirred into the great olla
podrida and helped to "Make the hell broth boil and bubble."
The inner circle was the real society of Washington. Half submerged
for half of each year by accumulating streams of strangers, it ever rose
the same--fresh and unstained by deposit from the baser flood. Therein,
beyond doubt, one found the most cultured coteries, the courtliest

polish and the simplest elegance that the drawing-rooms of this
continent could boast. The bench and the bar of the highest court lent
their loftiest intellects and keenest wits. Careful selections were there
from Congress of those who held senates on their lips and kept together
the machinery of an expanding nation; and those "rising men," soon to
replace, or to struggle with them, across the narrow Potomac near by.
To this society, too, the foreign legations furnished a strong element.
Bred in courts, familiar with the theories of all the world, these men
must prove valuable and agreeable addition to any society into which
they are thrown.
It is rather the fashion just now to inveigh against foreigners in society,
to lay at their door many of the peccadilloes that have crept into our
city life; but the diplomats are, with rare exceptions, men of birth,
education and of proved ability in their own homes. Their ethics may
be less strict than those which obtain about Plymouth Rock, but
experience with them will prove that, however loose their own code,
they carefully conform to the custom of others; that if they have any
scars across their morals, they have also the tact and good taste to keep
them decorously draped from sight.
In the inner circle of Washington were those officers of the army and
navy, selected for ability or service--or possibly "by grace of
cousinship"--to hold posts near the government; and, with full
allowance for favoritism, some of these were men of culture, travel and
attainment--most of them were gentlemen. And the nucleus, as well as
the amalgam