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no livery. Mrs. Washington struck him as something older than the President, although he understood they were both born the same year. She was short in stature, rather robust, extremely simple in her dress, and wore a very plain cap, with her hair turned under it." This description of Mrs. Washington corresponds exactly with the portrait painted by Trumbull, now in the Trumbull gallery, at New Haven, Connecticut. In 1793 Washington left Philadelphia for nearly three months during the prevalence of yellow-fever, and stayed at Mount VerThe disease broke out in August, but he continued at his post until the 10th of September. He wished to stay longer, but Mrs. Washington was unwilling to leave him exposed, and he could not, without hazarding her life and the lives of the children, remain. Freneau, the editor who was charged with having written the bitterest things against Washington, complained in the following stanza that the physicians fled from Philadelphia to escape the plague:

non.

"On prancing steed, with sponge at nose,

From town behold Sangrado fly;
Camphor and tar, where'er he goes,
The infected shafts of death defy-
Safe in an atmosphere of scents,

He leaves us to our own defense."

Among the public characters attacked by the yellow-fever were Mr. Willing and Colonel Hamilton, but they recovered. The officers of the government were dispersed, and the President even deliberated on the propriety of convening Congress elsewhere; but the abatement of the disease rendered this unnecessary, and in November the inhabitants returned to their homes, and Congress reassembled on the 2d of December.

[January 14, 1872.]

LIV.

ONE Saturday afternoon in July, 1861, George H. Boker, now on his way as American Minister to Constantinople, visited Washington City and called with me upon President Lincoln. It was a most interesting period of the war, just previous to the battle of Bull Run. When I presented Boker to the President, in his reception-room, up stairs, he asked, “Are you the son of Charles S. Boker, of Philadelphia?" My friend answered, “That is what I am believed to be." "Well," said the President, "I was your father's lawyer in Springfield, and I only wish I had all the money I collected and paid to him, for I would have a very handsome fortune." The Marine Band was playing on the green, south of the Presidential mansion, surrounded by a gay and glittering crowd. Mr. Lincoln said, "The Kentucky commissioners are waiting for me on the balcony below. They are here to protest against my sending troops through their State to the relief of the Unionists of Tennessee, and I would like you and Forney to come down and see them. They say they want Kentucky to decide her relations to the General Government for herself, and that any forces sent through their State to the Unionists of Tennessee would certainly arouse the elements of revolt." Then Boker told the President an anecdote of the British Minister at the Court of Frederick the Great, who was anxious to persuade the King to take part in the British conflicts with other European powers. Old Fritz steadily refused to be involved. His policy was against all part in the quarrel. At a formal state dinner, when the British Minister was present, Frederick said, "Will my Lord Bristol"—the name of the British plenipotentiary-"allow me to send him a piece of capon?" to which the latter indignantly replied, "No, sir; I decline having any thing to do with neutral animals.” The President enjoyed the joke hugely, and we walked down

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stairs, where, on the balcony overlooking the joyous throng, stood the two Kentucky commissioners, one of them the eminent Judge Robertson, lately deceased. They renewed their appeals against sending troops across their State with much earnestness and ability. Mr. Lincoln quietly but resolutely combated their views, assuring them that neutrality did not become any of the friends of the Government-that while the citizen enjoyed his rights and the protection of the laws, he must also recognize his obligations and his duties. Then turning to Boker, he asked him to repeat the incident between Frederick the Great and the British Minister, which, though it made the Kentuckians laugh, was evidently not agreeable to them. Mr. Lincoln added, "Gentlemen, my position in regard to your State is like that of the woodman, who, returning to his home one night, found coiled around his beautiful children, who were quietly sleeping in their bed, several poisonous snakes. His first impulse was to save his little ones, but he feared that if he struck at the snakes he might strike the children, and yet he dared not let them die without an effort. So it is with me. I know Kentucky and Tennessee are infested with the enemies of the Union; but I know also that there are thousands of patriots in both who will be persecuted even unto death unless the strong hand of the Government is interposed for their protection and rescue. We must go in. The old flag must be carried into Tennessee at whatever hazard." Upon which the commissioners retired with unconcealed dissatisfaction. Unhappily for the good cause, it was many months before relief could be extended to the clamorous people of Tennessee. Kentucky lay athwart the road to their rescue, a dark and stubborn obstacle; and now, six years after the overthrow of the rebellion-thanks to the dangerous doctrine of neutrality-the State most obdurate and obstinate in its opposition to all progress, most ready to resort to violence against the law, most eager in its opposition to the Union people, most intolerant to free opin

M

ion, most qualified to throw the largest vote against the Republican party is this very State of Kentucky. So much for neutrality in politics and in war. In a few days came the first battle of Bull Run with all its attendant horrors, teaching to us the severest lesson of the great conflict-the lesson that a great people, armed for their own defense and for their own liberties, must be prepared at all points. Just at that period the genius of Boker broke out in a great poem, entitled "Upon the Hill before Centreville, July 21, 1861," from which I extract the following:

"Awake, my countrymen! with me
Redeem the honor which you lost,
With any blood, at any cost!

I ask not how the war began,

Nor how the quarrel branched and ran
To this dread height. The wrong or right
Stands clear before God's faultless sight.
I only feel the shameful blow,

I only see the scornful foe,

And vengeance burns in every vein

To die, or wipe away the stain.
The war-wise hero of the West,
Wearing his glories as a crest
Of trophies gathered in your sight,
Is arming for the coming fight.
Full well his wisdom apprehends
The duty and its mighty ends;
The great occasion of the hour,
That never lay in human power
Since over Yorktown's tented plain
The red cross fell, nor rose again.
My humble pledge of faith I lay,
Dear comrade of my school-boy day,
Before thee, in the nation's view;
And if thy prophet prove untrue,
And from thy country's grasp be thrown
The sceptre and the starry crown,
And thou and all thy marshaled host

Be baffled, and in ruin lost

GEORGE H. BOKER.

O let me not outlive the blow
That seals my country's overthrow !
And, lest this woeful end come true,
Men of the North, I turn to you.
Display your vaunted flag once more,
Southward your eager columns pour !
Sound trump and fife and rallying drum;
From every hill and valley come !
Old men, yield up your treasured gold;
Can liberty be priced and sold?
Fair matrons, maids, and tender brides,
Gird weapons to your lovers' sides;
And, though your hearts break at the deed,
Give them your blessing and God-speed;
Then point them to the field of fame,
With words like those of Sparta's dame!
And when the ranks are full and strong,

And the whole army moves along,
A vast result of care and skill,
Obedient to the master will;

And your young hero draws the sword,
And gives the last commanding word
That hurls your strength upon the foe-
O, let them need no second blow!
Strike, as your fathers struck of old,

Through summer's heat and winter's cold;
Through pain, disaster, and defeat;

Through marches tracked with bloody feet;
Through every ill that could befall

The holy cause that bound them all!

Strike as they struck for liberty!

Strike as they struck to make you free!
Strike for the crown of victory!"

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"The war-wise hero of the West" was George B. McClellan, son of the great surgeon, George McClellan, of Philadelphia. He had been Boker's "dear comrade of the school-boy days," and after the first Bull Run was the nation's hope. His victories in West Virginia gave him the opportunity which others. had lost, to be lost by him in his own turn. Boker wrote sev

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