The Reminiscences of an Astronomer Part 22

"Leverrier."

Delaunay was one of the most kindly and attractive men I ever met.

We spent our evenings walking in the grounds of the observatory, discussing French science in all its aspects. His investigation of the moon's motion is one of the most extraordinary pieces of mathematical work ever turned out by a single person. It fills two quarto volumes, and the reader who attempts to go through any part of the calculations will wonder how one man could do the work in a lifetime. His habit was to commence early in the morning, and work with but little interruption until noon. He never worked in the evening, and generally retired at nine. I felt some qualms of conscience at the frequency with which I kept him up till nearly ten.

I found it hopeless to expect that he would ever visit America, because he a.s.sured me that he did not dare to venture on the ocean.

The only voyage he had ever made was across the Channel, to receive the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for his work.

Two of his relatives--his father and, I believe, his brother--had been drowned, and this fact gave him a horror of the water.

He seemed to feel somewhat like the clients of the astrologists, who, having been told from what agencies they were to die, took every precaution to avoid them. I remember, as a boy, reading a history of astrology, in which a great many cases of this sort were described; the peculiarity being that the very measures which the victim took to avoid the decree of fate became the engines that executed it.

The death of Delaunay was not exactly a case of this kind, yet it could not but bring it to mind. He was at Cherbourg in the autumn of 1872. As he was walking on the beach with a relative, a couple of boatmen invited them to take a sail. Through what inducement Delaunay was led to forget his fears will never be known. All we know is that he and his friend entered the boat, that it was struck by a sudden squall when at some distance from the land, and that the whole party were drowned.

There was no opposition to the reappointment of Leverrier to his old place. In fact, at the time of my visit, Delaunay said that President Thiers was on terms of intimate friendship with the former director, and he thought it not at all unlikely that the latter would succeed in being restored. He kept the position with general approval till his death in 1877.

The only occasion on which I met Leverrier was after the incident I have mentioned, in the Academy of Sciences. I had been told that he was incensed against me on account of an unfortunate remark I had made in speaking of his work which led to the discovery of Neptune.

I had heard this in Germany as well as in France, yet the matter was so insignificant that I could hardly conceive of a man of philosophic mind taking any notice of it. I determined to meet him, as I had met Hansen, with entire unconsciousness of offense. So I called on him at the observatory, and was received with courtesy, but no particular warmth. I suggested to him that now, as he had nearly completed his work on the tables of the planets, the question of the moon's motion would be the next object worthy of his attention.

He replied that it was too large a subject for him to take up.

To Leverrier belongs the credit of having been the real organizer of the Paris Observatory. His work there was not dissimilar to that of Airy at Greenwich; but he had a much more difficult task before him, and was less fitted to grapple with it. When founded by Louis XIV. the establishment was simply a place where astronomers of the Academy of Sciences could go to make their observations. There was no t.i.tular director, every man working on his own account and in his own way. Ca.s.sini, an Italian by birth, was the best known of the astronomers, and, in consequence, posterity has very generally supposed he was the director. That he failed to secure that honor was not from any want of astuteness. It is related that the monarch once visited the observatory to see a newly discovered comet through the telescope. He inquired in what direction the comet was going to move. This was a question it was impossible to answer at the moment, because both observations and computations would be necessary before the orbit could be worked out. But Ca.s.sini reflected that the king would not look at the comet again, and would very soon forget what was told him; so he described its future path in the heavens quite at random, with entire confidence that any deviation of the actual motion from his prediction would never be noted by his royal patron.

One of the results of this lack of organization has been that the Paris Observatory does not hold an historic rank correspondent to the magnificence of the establishment. The go-as-you-please system works no better in a national observatory than it would in a business inst.i.tution. Up to the end of the last century, the observations made there were too irregular to be of any special importance.

To remedy this state of things, Arago was appointed director early in the present century; but he was more eminent in experimental physics than in astronomy, and had no great astronomical problem to solve.

The result was that while he did much to promote the reputation of the observatory in the direction of physical investigation, he did not organize any well-planned system of regular astronomical work.

When Leverrier succeeded Arago, in 1853, he had an extremely difficult problem before him. By a custom extending through two centuries, each astronomer was to a large extent the master of his own work.

Leverrier undertook to change all this in a twinkling, and, if reports are true, without much regard to the feelings of the astronomers.

Those who refused to fall into line either resigned or were driven away, and their places were filled with men willing to work under the direction of their chief. Yet his methods were not up to the times; and the work of the Paris Observatory, so far as observations of precision go, falls markedly behind that of Greenwich and Pulkova.

In recent times the inst.i.tution has been marked by an energy and a progressiveness that go far to atone for its former deficiencies.

The successors of Leverrier have known where to draw the line between routine, on the one side, and initiative on the part of the a.s.sistants, on the other. Probably no other observatory in the world has so many able and well-trained young men, who work partly on their own account, and partly in a regular routine. In the direction of physical astronomy the observatory is especially active, and it may be expected in the future to justify its historic reputation.

XII

THE OLD AND THE NEW WASHINGTON

A few features of Washington as it appeared during the civil war are indelibly fixed in my memory. An endless train of army wagons ploughed its streets with their heavy wheels. Almost the entire southwestern region, between the War Department and the Potomac, extending west on the river to the neighborhood of the observatory, was occupied by the Quartermaster's and Subsistence Departments for storehouses. Among these the astronomers had to walk by day and night, in going to and from their work. After a rain, especially during winter and spring, some of the streets were much like shallow ca.n.a.ls. Under the attrition of the iron-bound wheels the water and clay were ground into mud, which was at first almost liquid.

It grew thicker as it dried up, until perhaps another rainstorm reduced it once more to a liquid condition. In trying first one street and then another to see which offered the fewest obstacles to his pa.s.sage, the wayfarer was reminded of the a.s.surance given by a bright boy to a traveler who wanted to know the best road to a certain place: "Whichever road you take, before you get halfway there you'll wish you had taken t' other." By night swarms of rats, of a size proportional to their ample food supply, disputed the right of way with the pedestrian.

Across the Potomac, Arlington Heights were whitened by the tents of soldiers, from which the discharges of artillery or the sound of the fife and drum became so familiar that the dweller almost ceased to notice it. The city was defended by a row of earthworks, generally not far inside the boundary line of the District of Columbia, say five or six miles from the central portions of the city.

One of the circ.u.mstances connected with their plans strikingly ill.u.s.trates the exactness which the science or art of military engineering had reached. Of course the erection of fortifications was one of the first tasks to be undertaken by the War Department.

Plans showing the proposed location and arrangements of the several forts were drawn up by a board of army engineers, at whose head, then or afterward, stood General John G. Barnard. When the plans were complete, it was thought advisable to test them by calling in the advice of Professor D. H. Mahan of the Military Academy at West Point.

He came to Washington, made a careful study of the maps and plans, and was then driven around the region of the lines to be defended to supplement his knowledge by personal inspection. Then he laid down his ideas as to the location of the forts. There were but two variations from the plans proposed by the Board of Engineers, and these were not of fundamental importance.

Willard's Hotel, then the only considerable one in the neighborhood of the executive offices, was a sort of headquarters for arriving army officers, as well as for the thousands of civilians who had business with the government, and for gossip generally. Inside its crowded entrance one could hear every sort of story, of victory or disaster, generally the latter, though very little truth was ever to be gleaned.

The newsboy flourished. He was a bright fellow too, and may have developed into a man of business, a reporter, or even an editor.

"Another great battle!" was his constant cry. But the purchaser of his paper would commonly read of nothing but a skirmish or some fresh account of a battle fought several days before--perhaps not even this.

On one occasion an officer in uniform, finding nothing in his paper to justify the cry, turned upon the boy with the remark,--

"Look here, boy, I don't see any battle here."

"No," was the reply, "nor you won't see one as long as you hang around Washington. If you want to see a battle you must go to the front."

The officer thought it unprofitable to continue the conversation, and beat a retreat amid the smiles of the bystanders. This story, I may remark, is quite authentic, which is more than one can say of the report that a stick thrown by a boy at a dog in front of Willard's Hotel struck twelve brigadier generals during its flight.

The presiding genius of the whole was Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War. Before the actual outbreak of the conflict he had been, I believe, at least a Democrat, and, perhaps, to a certain extent, a Southern sympathizer so far as the slavery question was concerned.

But when it came to blows, he espoused the side of the Union, and after being made Secretary of War he conducted military operations with a tireless energy, which made him seem the impersonation of the G.o.d of war. Ordinarily his character seemed almost savage when he was dealing with military matters. He had no mercy on inefficiency or lukewarmness. But his sympathetic attention, when a case called for it, is strikingly shown in the following letter, of which I became possessed by mere accident. At the beginning of the war Mr. Charles Ellet, an eminent engineer, then resident near Washington, tendered his services to the government, and equipped a fleet of small river steamers on the Mississippi under the War Department. In the battle of June 6, 1862, he received a wound from which he died some two weeks later. His widow sold or leased his house on Georgetown Heights, and I boarded in it shortly afterward.

Amongst some loose rubbish and old papers lying around in one of the rooms I picked up the letter which follows.

War Department, Washington City, D. C., June 9, 1862.

Dear Madam,--I understand from Mr. Ellet's dispatch to you that as he will be unfit for duty for some time it will be agreeable to him for you to visit him, traveling slowly so as not to expose your own health.

With this view I will afford you every facility within the control of the Department, by way of Pittsburg and Cincinnati to Cairo, where he will probably meet you.

Yours truly, Edwin M. Stanton, _Secretary of War._

The interesting feature of this letter is that it is entirely in the writer's autograph, and bears no mark of having been press copied.

I infer that it was written out of office hours, after all the clerks had left the Department, perhaps late at night, while the secretary was taking advantage of the stillness of the hour to examine papers and plans.

Only once did I come into personal contact with Mr. Stanton.

A portrait of Ferdinand R. Ha.s.sler, first superintendent of the Coast Survey, had been painted about 1840 by Captain Williams of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., a son-in-law of Mr. G. W. P. Custis, and therefore a brother-in-law of General Lee. The picture at the Arlington house was given to Mrs. Colonel Abert, who loaned it to Mr. Custis. When the civil war began she verbally donated it to my wife, who was Mr. Ha.s.sler's grand-daughter, and was therefore considered the most appropriate depositary of it, asking her to get it if she could. But before she got actual possession of it, the Arlington house was occupied by our troops and Mr. Stanton ordered the picture to be presented to Professor Aga.s.siz for the National Academy of Sciences. On hearing of this, I ventured to mention the matter to Mr. Stanton, with a brief statement of our claims upon the picture.

"Sir," said he, "that picture was found in the house of a rebel in arms [General Robert E. Lee], and was justly a prize of war.

I therefore made what I considered the most appropriate disposition of it, by presenting it to the National Academy of Sciences."

The expression "house of a rebel in arms" was uttered with such emphasis that I almost felt like one under suspicion of relations with the enemy in pretending to claim the object in question.

It was clearly useless to pursue the matter any further at that time.

Some years later, when the laws were no longer silent, the National Academy decided that whoever might be the legal owner of the picture, the Academy could have no claim upon it, and therefore suffered it to pa.s.s into the possession of the only claimant.

Among the notable episodes of the civil war was the so-called raid of the Confederate general, Early, in July, 1864. He had entered Maryland and defeated General Lew Wallace. This left nothing but the well-designed earthworks around Washington between his army and our capital. Some have thought that, had he immediately made a rapid dash, the city might have fallen into his hands.

All in the service of the War and Navy departments who were supposed capable of rendering efficient help, were ordered out to take part in the defense of the city, among them the younger professors of the observatory. By order of Captain Gilliss I became a member of a naval brigade, organized in the most hurried manner by Admiral Goldsborough, and including in it several officers of high and low rank. The rank and file was formed of the workmen in the Navy Yard, most of whom were said to have seen military service of one kind or another.

The brigade formed at the Navy Yard about the middle of the afternoon, and was ordered to march out to Fort Lincoln, a strong earthwork built on a prominent hill, half a mile southwest of the station now known as Rives. The Reform School of the District of Columbia now stands on the site of the fort. The position certainly looked very strong.

On the right the fort was flanked by a deep intrenchment running along the brow of the hill, and the whole line would include in the sweep of its fire the region which an army would have to cross in order to enter the city. The naval brigade occupied the trench, while the army force, which seemed very small in numbers, manned the front.

I was not a.s.signed to any particular duty, and simply walked round the place in readiness to act whenever called upon. I supposed the first thing to be done was to have the men in the trench go through some sort of drill, in order to a.s.sure their directing the most effective fire on the enemy should he appear. The trench was perhaps six feet deep; along its bottom ran a little ledge on which the men had to step in order to deliver their fire, stepping back into the lower depth to load again. Along the edge was a sort of rail fence, the bottom rail of which rested on the ground. In order to fire on an enemy coming up the hill, it would be necessary to rest the weapon on this bottom rail. It was quite evident to me that a man not above the usual height, standing on the ledge, would have to stand on tiptoe in order to get the muzzle of his gun properly directed down the slope. If he were at all flurried he would be likely to fire over the head of the enemy. I called attention to this state of things, but did not seem to make any impression on the officers, who replied that the men had seen service and knew what to do.

We bivouacked that night, and remained all the next day and the night following awaiting the attack of the enemy, who was supposed to be approaching Fort Stevens on the Seventh Street road. At the critical moment, General H. G. Wright arrived from Fort Monroe with his army corps. He and General A. McD. McCook both took their stations at Fort Lincoln, which it was supposed would be the point of attack.

A quarter or half a mile down the hill was the mansion of the Rives family, which a pa.s.senger on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway can readily see at the station of that name. A squad of men was detailed to go to this house and destroy it, in case the enemy should appear.

The attack was expected at daybreak, but General Early, doubtless hearing of the arrival of reinforcements, abandoned any project he might have entertained and had beat a retreat the day before.

Whether the supposition that he could have taken the city with great celerity has any foundation, I cannot say; I should certainly greatly doubt it, remembering the large loss of life generally suffered during the civil war by troops trying to storm intrenchments or defenses of any sort, even with greatly superior force.

I was surprised to find how quickly one could acquire the stolidity of the soldier. During the march from the Navy Yard to the fort I felt extremely depressed, as one can well imagine, in view of the suddenness with which I had to take leave of my family and the uncertainty of the situation, as well as its extreme gravity.

But this depression wore off the next day, and I do not think I ever had a sounder night's sleep in my life than when I lay down on the gra.s.s, with only a blanket between myself and the sky, with the expectation of being awakened by the rattle of musketry at daybreak.

I remember well how kindly we were treated by the army.