The Reminiscences of an Astronomer Part 23

The acquaintance of Generals Wright and McCook, made under such circ.u.mstances, was productive of a feeling which has never worn off.

It has always been a matter of sorrow to me that the Washington of to-day does not show a more lively consciousness of what it owes to these men.

One of the entertainments of Washington during the early years of the civil war was offered by President Lincoln's public receptions.

We used to go there simply to see the people and the costumes, the latter being of a variety which I do not think was ever known on such occasions before or since. Well-dressed and refined ladies and gentlemen, men in their working clothes, women arrayed in costumes fanciful in cut and brilliant in color, mixed together in a way that suggested a convention of the human race. Just where the oddly dressed people came from, or what notion took them at this particular time to don an attire like that of a fancy-dress ball, no one seemed to know.

Among the never-to-be-forgotten scenes was that following the news of the fall of Richmond. If I described it from memory, a question would perhaps arise in the reader's mind as to how much fancy might have added to the picture in the course of nearly forty years. I shall therefore quote a letter written to Chauncey Wright immediately afterwards, of which I preserved a press copy.

Observatory, April 7, 1865.

Dear Wright,--Yours of the 5th just received. I heartily reciprocate your congratulations on the fall of Richmond and the prospective disappearance of the S. C. alias C. S.

You ought to have been here Monday. The observatory is half a mile to a mile from the thickly settled part of the city.

At 11 A. M. we were put upon the qui vive by an unprecedented commotion in the city. From the barracks near us rose a continuous stream of cheers, and in the city was a hubbub such as we had never before heard. We thought it must be Petersburg or Richmond, but hardly dared to hope which.

Miss Gilliss sent us word that it was really Richmond.

I went down to the city. All the bedlams in creation broken loose could not have made such a scene. The stores were half closed, the clerks given a holiday, the streets crowded, every other man drunk, and drums were beating and men shouting and flags waving in every direction.

I never felt prouder of my country than then, as I compared our present position with our position in the numerous dark days of the contest, and was almost ashamed to think that I had ever said that any act of the government was not the best possible.

Not many days after this outburst, the city was pervaded by an equally intense and yet deeper feeling of an opposite kind. Probably no event in its history caused such a wave of sadness and sympathy as the a.s.sa.s.sination of President Lincoln, especially during the few days while bands of men were scouring the country in search of the a.s.sa.s.sin. One could not walk the streets without seeing evidence of this at every turn. The slightest bustle, perhaps even the running away of a dog, caused a tremor.

I paid one short visit to the military court which was trying the conspirators. The court itself was listening with silence and gravity to the reading of the testimony taken on the day previous.

General Wallace produced on the spectators an impression a little different from the other members, by exhibiting an artistic propensity, which subsequently took a different direction in "Ben Hur." The most impressive sight was that of the conspirators, all heavily manacled; even Mrs. Surratt, who kept her irons partly concealed in the folds of her gown. Payne, the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin of Seward, was a powerful-looking man, with a face that showed him ready for anything; but the other two conspirators were such simple-minded, mild-looking youths, that it seemed hardly possible they could have been active agents in such a crime, or capable of any proceeding requiring physical or mental force.

The impression which I gained at the time from the evidence and all the circ.u.mstances, was that the purpose of the original plot was not the a.s.sa.s.sination of the President, but his abduction and transportation to Richmond or some other point within the Confederate lines. While Booth himself may have meditated a.s.sa.s.sination from the beginning, it does not seem likely that he made this purpose known to his fellows until they were ready to act. Then Payne alone had the courage to attempt the execution of the programme.

Two facts show that a military court, sitting under such circ.u.mstances, must not be expected to reach exactly the verdict that a jury would after the public excitement had died away. Among the prisoners was the man whose business it was to a.s.sist in arranging the scenery on the stage of the theatre where the a.s.sa.s.sination occurred.

The only evidence against him was that he had not taken advantage of his opportunity to arrest Booth as the latter was leaving, and for this he was sentenced to twenty years penal servitude.

He was pardoned out before a great while.

The other circ.u.mstance was the arrest of Surratt, who was supposed to stand next to Booth in the conspiracy, but who escaped from the country and was not discovered until a year or so later, when he was found to have enlisted in the papal guards at Rome. He was brought home and tried twice. On the first trial, notwithstanding the adverse rulings and charge of the judge, only a minority of the jury were convinced of his guilt. On the second trial he was, I think, acquitted.

One aftermath of the civil war was the influx of crowds of the newly freed slaves to Washington, in search of food and shelter.

With a little training they made fair servants if only their pilfering propensities could be restrained. But religious fervor did not ensure obedience to the eighth commandment. "The good Lord ain't goin'

to be hard on a poor darky just for takin' a chicken now and then,"

said a wench to a preacher who had asked her how she could reconcile her religion with her indifference as to the ownership of poultry.

In the seventies I had an eight-year-old boy as help in my family.

He had that beauty of face very common in young negroes who have an admixture of white blood, added to which were eyes of such depth and clearness that, but for his color, he would have made a first-cla.s.s angel for a mediaeval painter.

One evening my little daughters had a children's party, and Zeke was placed as attendant in charge of the room in which the little company met. Here he was for some time left alone. Next morning a gold pen was missing from its case in a drawer. Suspicion rested on Zeke as the only person who could possibly have taken it, but there was no positive proof. I thought so small and innocent-looking a boy could be easily cowed into confessing his guilt; so next morning I said to him very solemnly,--

"Zeke, come upstairs with me."

He obeyed with alacrity, following me up to the room.

"Zeke, come into this room."

He did so.

"Now, Zeke," I said sternly, "look here and see what I do."

I opened the drawer, took out the empty case, opened it, and showed it to him.

"Zeke, look into my eyes!"

He neither blinked nor showed the slightest abashment or hesitation as his soft eyes looked steadily into mine with all the innocence of an angel.

"Zeke, where is the pen out of that case?"

"Missr Newcomb," he said quietly, "I don't know nothin' about it."

I repeated the question, looking into his face as sternly as I could.

As he repeated the answer with the innocence of childhood, "Deed, Missr Newcomb, I don't know what was in it," I felt almost like a brute in pressing him with such severity. Threats were of no avail, and I had to give the matter up as a failure.

On coming home in the afternoon, the first news was that the pen had been found by Zeke's mother hidden in one corner of her room at home, where the little thief had taken it. She, being an honest woman, and suspecting where it had come from, had brought it back.

There was a vigorous movement, having its origin in New England, for the education of the freedmen. This movement was animated by the most philanthropic views. Here were several millions of blacks of all ages, suddenly made citizens, or eligible to citizenship, and yet savage so far as any education was concerned. A small army of teachers, many, perhaps most of them, young women, were sent south to organize schools for the blacks. It may be feared that there was little adaptation of the teaching to the circ.u.mstances of the case.

But one method of instruction widely adopted was, so far as I can learn, quite unique. It was the "loud method" of teaching reading and spelling. The whole school spelled in unison. The pa.s.ser-by on the street would hear in chorus from the inside of the building, "B-R-E-A-D--BREAD!" all at the top of the voice of the speakers.

Schools in which this method was adopted were known as "loud schools."

A queer result of this movement once fell under my notice. I called at a friend's house in Georgetown. In the course of the conversation, it came out that the sable youngster who opened the door for me filled the double office of scullion to the household and tutor in Latin to the little boy of the family.

Probably the Senate of the United States never had a member more conscientious in the discharge of his duties than Charles Sumner.

He went little into society outside the circles of the diplomatic corps, with which his position as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee placed him in intimate relations. My acquaintance with him arose from the accident of his living for some time almost opposite me. I was making a study of some historic subject, pertaining to the feeling in South Carolina before the civil war, and called at his rooms to see if he would favor me with the loan of a book, which I was sure he possessed. He received me so pleasantly that I was, for some time, an occasional visitor. He kept bachelor quarters on a second floor, lived quite alone, and was accessible to all comers without the slightest ceremony.

One day, while I was talking with him, shortly after the surrender of Lee, a young man in the garb of a soldier, evidently fresh from the field, was shown into the room by the housemaid, unannounced, as usual. Very naturally, he was timid and diffident in approaching so great a man, and the latter showed no disposition to say anything that would rea.s.sure him. He ventured to tell the senator that he had come to see if he could recommend him for some public employment.

I shall never forget the tone of the reply.

"But _I_ do not know _you_." The poor fellow was completely dumfounded, and tried to make some excuses, but the only reply he got was, "I cannot do it; I do not know you at all." The visitor had nothing to do but turn round and leave.

At the time I felt some sympathy with the poor fellow. He had probably come, thinking that the great philanthropist was quite ready to become a friend to a Union soldier without much inquiry into his personality and antecedents, and now he met with a stinging rebuff.

But it must be confessed that subsequent experience has diminished my sympathy for him, and probably it would be better for the country if the innovation were introduced of having every senator of the United States dispose of such callers in the same way.

Foreign men of letters, with whom Sumner's acquaintance was very wide, were always among his most valued guests. A story is told of Thackeray's visit to Washington, which I distrust only for the reason that my ideas of Sumner's make-up do not a.s.sign him the special kind of humor which the story brings out. He was, however, quoted as saying, "Thackeray is one of the most perfect gentlemen I ever knew. I had a striking ill.u.s.tration of that this morning.

We went out for a walk together and, thoughtlessly, I took him through Lafayette Square. Shortly after we entered it, I realized with alarm that we were going directly toward the Jackson statue.

It was too late to retrace our steps, and I wondered what Thackeray would say when he saw the object. But he pa.s.sed straight by without seeming to see it at all, and did not say one word about it."

Sumner was the one man in the Senate whose seat was scarcely ever vacant during a session. He gave the closest attention to every subject as it arose. One instance of this is quite in the line of the present book. About 1867, an a.s.sociation was organized in Washington under the name of the "American Union Academy of Literature, Science, and Art." Its projectors were known to few, or none, but themselves.

A number of prominent citizens in various walks of life had been asked to join it, and several consented without knowing much about the a.s.sociation. It soon became evident that the academy was desirous of securing as much publicity as possible through the newspapers and elsewhere. It was reported that the Secretary of the Treasury had asked its opinion on some instrument or appliance connected with the work of his department. Congress was applied to for an act of incorporation, recognizing it as a scientific adviser of the government by providing that it should report on subjects submitted to it by the governmental departments, the intent evidently being that it should supplant the National Academy of Sciences.

The application to Congress satisfied the two requirements most essential to favorable consideration. These are that several respectable citizens want something done, and that there is no one to come forward and say that he does not want it done. Such being the case, the act pa.s.sed the House of Representatives without opposition, came to the Senate, and was referred to the appropriate committee, that on education, I believe. It was favorably reported from the committee and placed on its pa.s.sage. Up to this point no objection seems to have been made to it in any quarter. Now, it was challenged by Mr. Sumner.

The ground taken by the Ma.s.sachusetts senator was comprehensive and simple, though possibly somewhat novel. It was, in substance, that an academy of literature, science, and art, national in its character, and incorporated by special act of Congress, ought to be composed of men eminent in the branches to which the academy related.

He thought a body of men consisting very largely of local lawyers, with scarcely a man of prominence in either of the three branches to which the academy was devoted, was not the one that should receive such sanction from the national legislature.

Mr. J. W. Patterson, of New Hampshire, was the princ.i.p.al advocate of the measure. He claimed that the proposed incorporators were not all unscientific men, and cited as a single example the name of O. M. Poe, which appeared among them. This man, he said, was a very distinguished meteorologist.