A BELLE OF THE FIFTIES: MEMOIRS OF MRS. CLAY OF ALABAMA
Part 2 of 7 Parts

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May 17, 2000


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A Belle of the Fifties. Memoirs of Mrs. Clay, of Alabama, covering Social and
Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853-66. Put into narrative form
by Ada Sterling. Illustrated from contemporary portraits. 
New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1905. Published: September, 1904


Begin Part 2

        I recall the reply she gave me on the afternoon of a
certain Cabinet day. It was the custom on this weekly recurring
occasion for several of the ladies of our "mess" to make their
calls together, thus obviating the need for more than one
carriage. As my parlours were the only ones that boasted a pier-
glass, and, besides, had the advantage of being on the drawing-
room floor of the hotel, it became a custom for the women
composing our circle to come to my rooms before going out, in
order to see how their dresses hung. Those were the days of hoop-
skirts, and the set of the outer skirt must needs be adjusted
before beginning a round of calls. As we gathered there, it was
no uncommon thing for one of us to remark: "Here comes Pugh,
simply dressed, but superb, as usual. She would eclipse us all
were she in calico!" On the occasion alluded to, I commented to
Mrs. Pugh upon the beauty and style of her bonnet.

        "My own make," she answered sweetly. "I can't afford
French bonnets for every-day use when I have 'tockies and shoes
to buy for my little fellows!"

        My friendship for Mrs. Pugh is a dear memory of that

Page 46

life of perpetual gaiety ere the face of Washington society was
marred by war and scarred by the moral pestilences that followed
in its train; nor can I resist the desire to quote her own
remembrance of our association as she wrote it in a letter to
Senator Clay late in '64, when the glories of those earlier days
had passed away, and the faces of erstwhile friends from the
North were hidden by the smoke of cannon and a barrier of the
slain.

        "Your dear wife," she wrote, "was the first and best
friend of my early married life; and, when I was ushered into a
strange and trying world, she at once took me into her heart and
counsel and made me a better woman and wife than I would have
been alone. No one in this world ever treated me with the same
love outside of my own family. When I cease to remember either of
you accordingly, it will be when I forget all things!"

        Strangely enough, there comes before my mind a picture of
Mrs. Pugh in affliction that overshadows all the memories of the
homage I have seen paid to her. It was late in the spring of
1859; Congress had adjourned and many of our "mess" had gone
their several ways, to mountain or seashore, bent on rest or
recreation, when the little daughter of Senator and Mrs. Pugh was
suddenly taken ill. For weeks the distracted mother hovered over
the sick-bed of the child, until her haggard appearance was
pitiful to see. My husband and I could not bear to leave her, and
often I shared her vigils, watching hours beside the dying little
Alice.

        On an occasion like this (it was evening), my cousin Miss
Hilliard, her cheeks glowing and eyes shining with all the
mysterious glow of expectant youth, came into the sick-room for a
few moments on her way to some social gathering. She was dressed
in a pale green, filmy gown, which lent to her appearance a
flower-like semblance that was very fresh and lovely. As Miss
Hilliard entered, Mrs. Pugh lifted her burning eyes from the

Page 47

couch where the rapidly declining little one lay, and gazed at
her visitor like one in a dream. We were all silent for a moment.
Then the worn mother spoke.

        "So radiant! So beautiful!" she said in a voice of
indescribable pathos, "And to think you, too, may come to this!"

        I have spoken of Mrs. Pryor, the beautiful wife of the
young diplomat, who had won general public approbation for his
success in conducting a mission to Greece Not of our especial
mess, Mrs. Pryor frequently mingled with us, being the friend of
Mrs. Douglas and Mrs. Pugh. They were, in truth, a very
harmonious trio, Mrs. Pugh being a perfect brunette, Mrs. Douglas
a blonde, and Mrs. Pryor a lighter brunette with soft- brown hair
and eyes. She wore a distinctive coiffure, and carried her head
charmingly. Even at that time Mrs. Pryor was notable for the
intellectuality which has since uttered itself in several
charming books.

        Though not members of our resident circle, my memories of
dear old Brown's would scarcely be complete without a mention of
little Henry Watterson, with whose parents our "mess" continually
exchanged visits for years. Henry, their only child, was then an
invalid, debarred from the usual recreations of other boys, by
weak eyes that made the light unbearable and reading all but
impossible; yet at fifteen the boy was a born politician and
eager for every item of news from the Senate or House.

        "What bills were introduced to-day? Who spoke? Please
tell me what took place to-day?" were among the questions (in
substance) with which the lad was wont to greet the ladies of our
"mess," when he knew them to be returning from a few hours spent
in the Senate gallery; and, though none foresaw the later
distinction which awaited the invalid boy, no one of us was ever
so hurried

Page 48

and impatient that she could not and did not take time to answer
his earnest inquiries.

        It is safe to say that no member of our pleasant circle
was more generally valued than that most lovable of men, Lucius
Q. C. Lamar, "Moody Lamar," as he was sometimes called; for he
was then, as he always continued to be, full of dreams and ideals
and big, warm impulses, with a capacity for the most enduring and
strongest of friendships, and a tenderness rarely displayed by
men so strong as was he. * Mr. Lamar was full of quaint and
caressing ways even with his fellow-men, which frank utterance of
his own feelings was irresistibly engaging. I have seen him walk
softly up behind Mr. Clay, when the latter was deep in thought,
touch him lightly on the shoulder, and, as my husband turned
quickly to see what was wanted, "Lushe" or "big Lushe," as all
called him, would kiss him suddenly and lightly on the forehead.

        Yes! Mr. Lamar and his sparkling, bright-soured wife,
Jennie Longstreet, were beloved members of that memorable "mess"
in ante-bellum Washington.

        Next to Congressman Lamar, I suppose it may safely be
said no man was more affectionately held than another of our
mess-mates, Congressman Dowdell, "old Dowdell," "dear old
Dowdell," and sometimes "poor, dear old Dowdell" being among the
forms by which he was continually designated. Mr. Dowdell had a
large and loose frame, and walked about with a countryman's easy

* Writing to Mrs. Clay from the Department of the Interior, late
in 1885, E. V. D. Miller said of Mr. Lamar, then Secretary of the
Interior: "Those nearest in his labours only understand and have
compassion for him, to try to save him all we can. He would take
us all in his arms, and confer the greatest benefits on us if he
could, and a more tender, appreciative, industrious, kind-
hearted man I have never been associated with, to say nothing of
his giant intellect and cultivated brain and taste. I never knew
him until I came to this office with him and saw him in all these
entangling relations. I used to get angry and avoid him because I
thought he neglected my requests and was so indifferent that
there seemed to be a lack of respect, but a closer knowledge of
the demands upon him have disarmed me entirely, and I fight him
no longer." A. S.

Page 49

indifference to appearances. A born wag, he sometimes took a
quiet delight in accentuating this seeming guilelessness.

        One evening he came strolling in to dinner, prepared for
a comfortable chat over the table, though all the rest of our
little coterie were even then dressing for attendance at a grand
concert. It was an event of great importance, for Gottschalk, the
young Créole musician, of whom all the country was talking, was
to be heard in his own compositions.

        "What!" I exclaimed as I saw Mr. Dowdell's everyday
attire, "You don't mean to tell me you're not going to the
concert! I can't allow it, brother Dowdell! Go right out and get
your ticket and attend that concert with all the rest of the
world, or I'll tell your constituents what sort of a country
representative they've sent to the capital!"

        My laughing threat had its effect, and he hurried off in
quest of the ticket, which, after some difficulty, was procured.

        The concert was a memorable one. During the evening I saw
Mr. Dowdell across the hall, scanning the performers with an
enigmatical expression. At that time Gottschalk's popularity was
at its height. Every concert programme contained, and every
ambitious amateur included in her repertory, the young composer's
"Last Hope." At his appearance, therefore, slender, agile and
Gallic to a degree, enthusiasm ran so high that we forgot to hunt
up our friend in the short interval between each brilliant
number.

        When Mr. Dowdell appeared at the breakfast table the
following morning, I asked him how he had enjoyed the evening.
The Congressman's response came less enthusiastically than I had
hoped.

        "Well," he began, drawing his words out slowly and a bit
quizzically, "I went out and got my ticket; did the

Page 50

right thing and got a seat as near Harriet Lane's box as I could;
even invested in new white gloves, so I felt all right; but I
can't say the music struck me exactly! Mr. Gottschalk played
mighty pretty; hopped up on the black keys and then down on the
white ones" (and the Congressman illustrated by spanning the
table rapidly in a most ludicrous manner). "He played slow and
then fast, and never seemed to get his hands tangled up once. But
for all that I can't say I was struck by his music! He played
mighty pretty, but he didn't play nary tchune!"

        Two interesting members of our "mess" were General and
Mrs. Chestnut. The General, a member from South Carolina, who
became afterward one of the staff of Jefferson Davis, was among
the princes in wealth in the South in the fifties. Approximately
one thousand slaves owned by him were manumitted by Mr. Lincoln's
proclamation in 1863, when, childless, property-less, our well-
loved Mrs. Chestnut suffered a terrible eclipse after her
brilliant youth and middle age. She was the only daughter of
Governor Miller, of South Carolina, and having been educated
abroad, was an accomplished linguist and ranked high among the
cultured women of the capital.

        Moreover, Mrs. Chestnut was continually the recipient of
toilette elegancies, for which the bazaars of Paris were
ransacked, and in this way the curiosity of the emulative stay-
at-home fashionables was constantly piqued. Her part in that
brilliant world was not a small one, for, in addition to her
superior personal charms, Mrs. Chestnut chaperoned the lovely
Preston girls of South Carolina, belles, all, and the fashionable
Miss Stevens, of Stevens Castle, who married Muscoe Garnett of
Virginia. Indeed, the zest for social pleasures among our circle
was often increased by the coming of guests from other cities.
Among others whom I particularly recall was my cousin Miss
Collier, daughter of Governor Collier of Alabama, and who married
the nephew of William Rufus King,

Page 51

vice-President of the United States under Mr. Pierce; and our
cousins Loula Comer, Hattie Withers, and Miss Hilliard. The
latter's wedding with Mr. Hamilton Glentworth of New York was one
of the social events of the winter of 1859.

        Nor should I forget to mention the presence, at the
Ebbitt House and at Brown's Hotel, of another much admired South
Carolinian, Mrs. General McQueen, who was a Miss Pickens, of the
famous family of that name. My remembrance of Mrs. McQueen is
always associated with that of the sudden death of Preston
Brooks, our neighbour at Brown's Hotel. At the time of this
fatality, Dr. May, the eminent surgeon, was in the building in
attendance upon Mrs. McQueen's little boy, who was suffering from
some throat trouble.

        Mr. Brooks had been indisposed for several days, and,
being absent from his seat in the House, it was the custom for
one or the other of his confrères to drop into his room each
afternoon, to give him news of the proceedings. On that fatal
day, Colonel Orr ("Larry," as his friends affectionately
designated him) had called upon the invalid and was in the midst
of narrating the day's doings, when Mr. Brooks clutched suddenly
at his throat and cried out huskily, "Air! Orr, air!"

        Mr. Orr hastily threw open the window and began to fan
the sufferer, but became bewildered at the alarming continuation
of his struggles. Had the Congressman but known it, even as he
tried to relieve his friend, Dr. May passed the door of Mr.
Brooks's room, on his way out of the house, his surgical case in
hand; but the suddenness of the attack, and a total absence of
suspicion as to its gravity, coupled with the swiftness with
which it acted, confused the watcher, and, ere assistance could
be obtained, the handsome young Southern member had passed away!

        Congressman Orr, as has been said, was one of our

Page 52

original "mess" in the capital. From the first he was a
conspicuous figure, nature having made him so. He was of gigantic
stature, weighing then somewhat over two hundred pounds. His
voice was of bugle-like clearness, and when, in 1857, he became
speaker of the House of Representatives, it was a source of
remark how wonderfully his words penetrated to the farthermost
corner of the hall. He was extremely tender- hearted and devoted
to his family, around the members of which his affections were
closely bound.

        Just previous to our arrival in the capital, Mr. Orr had
lost a little daughter, and often, ere he brought his family to
the Federal City, in a quiet hour he would come to our parlours
and ask me to sing to him. He dearly loved simple ballads, his
favourite song being "Lilly Dale," the singing of which
invariably stirred him greatly. Often I have turned from the
piano to find his eyes gushing with tears at the memories that
pathetic old-fashioned ditty had awakened. Mr. Orr was a famous
flatterer, too, who ranked my simple singing as greater than that
of the piquant Patti; and I question the success of any one who
would have debated with him the respective merits of that great
artiste and my modest self.

        When Mr. Orr became Speaker of the House, Mrs. Orr and
his children having joined him, the family resided in the famous
Stockton Mansion for a season or two. Here brilliant receptions
were held, and Mrs. Orr, a distinguee woman, made her entrée into
Washington society, often being assisted in receiving by the
members of the mess of which, for so long, Mr. Orr had formed a
part. Mrs. Orr was tall and lithe in figure, of a Spanish type of
face. She soon became a great favourite in the capital, where one
daughter, now a widow, Mrs. Earle, still lives.

        It was at the Stockton Mansion that Daniel E. and Mrs.
Sickles lived when the tragedy of which they formed

Page 53

two of the principals took place. Here, too, was run the American
career of another much-talked-of lady, which, for meteoric
brilliancy and brevity, perhaps outshines any other episode in
the chronicles of social life in Washington.

        The lady's husband was a statesman of prominence,
celebrated for his scholarly tastes and the fineness of his
mental qualities. The arrival of the lady, after a marked absence
abroad, during which some curious gossip had reached American
ears, was attended by great éclat; and not a little conjecture
was current as to how she would be received. For her home-coming,
however, the Stockton Mansion was fitted up in hitherto
undreamed-of magnificence, works of art and of vertu, which were
the envy of local connoisseurs, being imported to grace it,
regardless of cost. So far, so good!

        The report of these domiciliary wonders left no doubt but
that entertaining on a large scale was being projected. The world
was slow in declaring its intentions in its own behalf; for,
notwithstanding her rumoured delinquencies, the lady's husband
was high in the councils of the nation, and as such was a figure
of dignity. Shortly after her arrival our "mess" held a conclave,
in which we discussed the propriety of calling upon the new-
comer, but a conclusion seeming impossible (opinions being so
widely divergent), it was decided to submit the important
question to our husbands.

        This was done duly, and Senator Clay's counsel to me was
coincided in generally.

        "By all means, call," said he. "You have nothing to do
with the lady's private life, and, as a mark of esteem to a
statesman of her husband's prominence, it will be better to
call."

        Upon a certain day, therefore, it was agreed that we
should pay a "mess" call, going in a body. We drove accordingly,
in dignity and in state, and, truth to tell, in

Page 54

soberness and ceremony, to the mansion aforenamed. It was the
lady's reception day. We entered the drawing room with great
circumspection, tempering our usually cordial manner with a fine
prudence; we paid our devoirs to the hostess and retired. But now
a curious retribution overtook us, social faint-hearts that we
were; for, though we heard much gossip of the regality and
originality of one or more dinners given to the several
diplomatic corps (the lady especially affected the French
Legation), I never heard of a gathering of Washingtonians at her
home, nor of invitations extended to them, nor, indeed, anything
more of her until two months had flown. Then, Arab-like, the lady
rose in the night, "silently folded her tent and stole away" (to
meet a handsome German officer, it was said), leaving our calls
unanswered, save by the sending of her card, and her silver and
china and crystal, her paintings, and hangings, and furniture to
be auctioned off to the highest bidder!

        Everyone in Washington now thronged to see the beautiful
things, and many purchased specimens from among them, among
others Mrs. Davis. By a curious turn of fate, the majority of
these treasures were acquired by Mrs. Senator Yulee, who was so
devoutly religious that her piety caused her friends to speak of
her as "the Madonna of the Wickliffe sisters!" The superb
furniture of the whilom hostess was carried to "Homosassa," the
romantic home of the Yulees in Florida, where in later years it
was reduced to ashes.

        Of the Wickliffe sisters there were three, all notably
good as well as handsome women, with whom I enjoyed a life-time
friendship. One became the wife of Judge Merrick, and another,
who dearly loved Senator Clay and me, married Joseph Holt, who
rose high in Federal honours after the breaking out of the war,
having sold his Southern birthright for a mess of Northern
pottage.

        For several years before her death, Mrs. Holt was an

Page 55

invalid and a recluse, yet she was no inconspicuous figure in
Washington, where the beauty of the "three graces" (as the
sisters of Governor Wickliffe were always designated) was long a
criterion by which other belles were judged. Mrs. Mallory, the
wife of Senator Yulee's confrère from Florida, was particularly a
favourite in the capital. The Mallorys were the owners of great
orange groves in that lovely State, and were wont from time to
time to distribute among their friends boxes of choicest fruit.

        Of our "mess," Congressman and Mrs. Curry were least
frequently to be met with in social gatherings. Mrs. Curry, who
was a Miss Bowie, devoted her time wholly to her children,
apparently feeling no interest in the gay world about her, being
as gentle and retiring as her doughty relative (the inventor of
the Bowie knife) was war-like. Mr. Curry was an uncommonly
handsome man, who, in the fifties and early sixties, was an
ambitious and strenuous politician. He died early in 1903, full
of years and honours, while still acting as the General Agent of
the Peabody fund.

        Nor should I fail to recall the lovely Mrs. Clopton, wife
of one of Senator Clay's most trusted friends, Congressman David
Clopton. She joined our "mess" late in the fifties, and at once 
added to its fame by her charm and beauty. She was a sister of
Governor Ligon of Alabama. One of her daughters married the poet,
Clifford Lanier, and another became the wife of Judge William L.
Chambers, who for several exciting years represented our
Government at Samoa.

        But my oldest and dearest mess-mate during nearly a
decade in the capital was, as I have said elsewhere, Mrs.
Fitzpatrick, whose husband, Senator Benjamin Fitzpatrick, was
President of the Senate for four consecutive sessions. Senator
Fitzpatrick was very many years older than his wife, having,
indeed, held office in

Page 56

1818 when Alabama was a territory, and when few of his Alabamian
associates in Congress had been ushered upon the stage of life.
Between Mrs. Fitzpatrick and me there was an undeviating
attachment which was a source of wonder, as it doubtless was
rare, among women in fashionable life. As confreres in the
Senate, our husbands, despite the disparity in their years, were
fully in accord; and a more congenial quartette it would have
been hard to find.

        I think of all the harmonious couples I have known,
Senator and Mrs. Fitzpatrick easily led, though near to them I
must place General and Mrs. McQueen. It was a standing topic in
Brown's Hotel, the devotion of the two middle-aged gentlemen -
Messrs. Fitzpatrick and McQueen - to their young wives and to
their boys, enfants terribles, both of them of a most emphatic
type. "The Heavenly Twins" as a title had not yet been evolved,
or these two young autocrats of the hostelry would surely have
won it from the sarcastic.

        Benny Fitzpatrick was at once the idol of his parents and
the terror of the hotel; and, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick and I were
cordially united in other interests of life, so we shared the
maternal duties as became two devoted sisters, "Our boy Benny"
receiving the motherly oversight of whichsoever of us happened to
be near him when occasion arose for aid or admonition. "Mrs.
Fitz" delivered her rebukes with "Oh, Benny dear! How could you!"
but I, his foster-mother, was constrained to resort betimes to a
certain old-fashioned punishment usually administered with the
broadside of a slipper, or, what shortly became as efficacious, a
threat to do so.

        Benny, like George Washington, was the possessor of a
little hatchet, with which he worked a dreadful havoc. He chopped
at the rosewood furniture of his mother's drawing-room, while his
proud parents, amazed at his precocity, not to say prowess, stood
by awestruck, and -

Page 57

paid the bill! The child was plump and healthy, and boys will be
boys! Thus were we all become his subjects; thus he overran
Hannah, his coloured nurse, until one day Pat came -, Pat Dolan.

        Pat had been a page at the Senate, and in some forgotten
way he and little Benny had become inseparable friends.
Thereafter, Benny was taken by his fond guardian, into whose
hands his three anxious parents consented to consign him, to see
the varying sights and the various quarters of the city. As his
experiences multiplied, so his reputation for precocity increased
in exact ratio.

        One day Hannah's excitement ran high. "Lor! Miss 'Relia,"
she burst out impetuously to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "Pat Dolan done
carried Benny to the Cath'lic church an' got him sprinkled, 'n
den he brung him to communion, an' first thing Pat knowed, Benny
he drunk up all the holy water an' eat up the whole wafer!"

Page 58

CHAPTER IV
THE CABINET CIRCLES OF THE PIERCE AND BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATIONS

        WRITING to my father-in-law, ex-Governor Clay, on
Christmas night, 1856, of the deep inward excitement of the
times, I said: "We feel a little as Fanny Fern says Eugénie felt 
when she espoused Louis Napoleon, as if we are 'dancing over a
powder magazine!' Everything is excitement and confusion. I tell
you Fusion reigns in truth, and Southern blood is at boiling
temperature all over the city, and with good cause, too. Old
Giddings, Thurlow Weed, Sumner, Seward, Chase (who is here for a
few days prior to his inauguration *) are daily taunting and
insulting all whom they dare. There is no more prospect of a
Speaker now than there was at first; indeed, less, and our men
have despaired of Christmas holidays at home. Desertion of their
post would mean death to their party and themselves, and they
know and appreciate it, and, so far, stand firm as a Roman
phalanx. Should there prove one deserter, the 'game is up,' for
there is a Black Republican at every corner of our political
fence, and if ever the gap is down we are gone. I wish you could
be here to witness the scenes daily enacted in the halls of
Congress, to hear the hot taunts of defiance hurled into the very
teeth of the Northerners by our goaded but spirited patriots. I
expect any day to hear of bloodshed and death, and would not be
surprised at any time to witness (repeated here) the Civil War of
Kansas! We still hope for Orr, though he is not sanguine.

* As Governor of Ohio.

Page 59

The President still holds his message, fearing to give it to the
press, and it is thought it will go to Congress in manuscript.
He, poor fellow, is worn and weary, and his wife in extremely
delicate health."

        President Pierce was, in fact, a very harassed man, as
none knew better than did Senator Clay. My husband's friendship
was unwearying toward all to whom his reserved nature yielded it,
and his devotion to Mr. Pierce was unswerving. Though twelve
years the President's junior, from the first my husband was known
as one of the President's counsellors, and none of those who
surrounded the Nation's executive head more sacredly preserved
his confidence. Senator Clay believed unequivocally that our
President was "not in the roll of common men."

        Bold and dauntless where a principle was involved, Mr.
Pierce's message of '55 fell like a bombshell on the Black
Republican party. Its bold pro-slaveryism startled even his
friends; for, never had a predecessor, while in the Executive
Chair, talked so strongly or so harshly to sectionalists and
fanatics. To this stand, so bravely taken, his defeat at the next
Presidential election was doubtless at least partially
attributable. Meantime, the South owed him much, and none of its
representatives was more staunchly devoted to President Pierce
than was the Senator from northern Alabama. How fully Mr. Pierce
relied upon Senator Clay's discretion may be illustrated by an
incident which lives still very vividly in my memory.

        My husband and I were seated one evening before a blazin
fire in our parlour at the Ebbitt House, in the first enjoyment
of an evening at home (a rare luxury to public folk in the
capital), when we heard a low and unusual knock at the door. My
trim maid, Emily, hastened to open it, when there entered hastily
a tall figure, wrapped in a long storm-cloak on which the snow-
flakes still lay thickly. The new-comer was muffled to the

Page 60

eyes. He glanced quickly about the rooms, making a motion to us,
as he did so, to remain silent. My husband rose inquiringly,
failing, as did I, to recognise our mysterious visitor. In a
second more, however, perceiving that we were alone, he threw off
his outer coat and soft hat, when, to our astonishment, our
unceremonious and unexpected guest stood revealed as the
President!

        "Lock that door, Clay!" he said, almost pathetically,
"and don't let a soul know I'm here!" Then, turning, he handed me
a small package which he had carried under his coat.

        "For you, Mrs. Clay," he said. "It is my picture. I hope
you will care to take it with you to Alabama, and sometimes
remember me!"

        I thanked him delightedly as I untied the package and saw
within a handsome photograph superbly framed. Then, as he wearily
sat down before our crackling fire, I hastened to assist Emily in
her preparation of a friendly egg-nog.

        "Ah, my dear friends!" said Mr. Pierce, leaning forward
in his arm-chair and warming his hands as he spoke; "I am so
tired of the shackles of Presidential life that I can scarcely
endure it! I long for quiet - for -" and he looked around our
restful parlours - "for this! Oh! for relaxation and privacy once
more, and a chance for home!"

        His voice and every action betrayed the weary man. We
were deeply moved, and my husband uttered such sympathetic words
as only a wise man may. The egg-nog prepared, I soon had the
pleasure of seeing the President and Mr. Clay in all the comfort
of a friendly chat. Primarily, the object of his visit was to
discuss an affair of national moment which was to be brought
before the Senate the next day; but the outlook of the times
which also fell naturally under discussion formed no small part
in the topics thus intimately scanned. Both

Page 61

were men to whom the horrid sounds of coming combat were audible,
and both were patriots seeking how they might do their part to
avert it. It was midnight ere Mr. Pierce rose to go. Then,
fortified by another of Emily's incomparable egg-nogs, he was
again, incognito, on his way to the White House.

        My remembrances of that secret visit have ever remained
most keen. Often, when I think of the lonely grave on the quiet
hillside at Concord, I recall the night when weariness of body
and State formalities impelled the President to our cozy
fireside, though he beat his way to it through snow and winds,
stealing from the trammels of his position for the mere pleasure
of walking the streets unimpeded and free as any other citizen.

        President Pierce entered the White House in 1853, full as
a youth of leaping life. A year before his inauguration I had
seen him bound up the stairs with the elasticity and lightness of
a schoolboy. He went out after four years a staid and grave man,
on whom the stamp of care and illness was ineradicably impressed.

        I often contrasted the pale, worn, haggard man whose
"wine of life was drawn, and the mere lees left i' the vault,"
ere his term (so coveted by many) was spent, with the buoyant
person I first met on the breezy New Hampshire hills!

        Especially a lovable man in his private character,
President Pierce was a man of whom our nation might well be proud
to have at its head. Graced with an unusually fine presence, he
was most courtly and polished in manner. Fair rather than dark,
of graceful carriage, * he was also an eloquent speaker, and,
though reserved to a degree, was very winning in manner. He was
still in middle life when elected to the

* "President Pierce was one of the handsomest men I have ever
seen!" was the remark of Colonel Watterson to me, while dwelling
on those ante-bellum personages. A. S.

Page 62

Presidency, being less than forty-nine years of age when
inaugurated.

        Taken all in all, the Cabinet circle formed by Mr. Pierce
was one of the most interesting bodies that has ever surrounded
an American Chief Magistrate. Selected wisely, the ministerial
body remained unchanged throughout the entire Administration, and
this at a time of unceasing and general contention. But three
such instances are recorded in the histories of the twenty-six
Presidents of the United States, the others occurring in the
terms of J. Q. Adams and James A. Garfield. The tie which bound
President Pierce and his Cabinet so inalienably was one of mutual
confidence and personal friendship. Perhaps the closest ally of
the President's was his Secretary of State, William L. Marcy.
That great Secretary was a man whose unusual poise and uniform
complacency were often as much a source of envy to his friends as
of confusion to his enemies. I commented upon it to my husband on
one occasion, wondering interrogatively at his composure,
whereupon Senator Clay told me the following story:

        Some one as curious as I once asked the Secretary how he
preserved his unvarying calmness. "Well," he answered,
confidentially, "I'll tell you. I have given my secretary orders
that whenever he sees an article eulogistic of me, praising my
'astuteness,' my 'far-seeing diplomacy,' my 'incomparable
statesmanship,' etc., he is to cut it out and place it
conspicuously on my desk where I can see it first thing in the
morning; everything to the contrary he is to cut out and up and
consign to the waste-basket. By this means, hearing nothing but
good of myself, I have come naturally to regard myself as a
pretty good fellow! Who wouldn't be serene under such
circumstances?"

        To add to his contentment thus philosophically assured,
the Secretary's home surroundings were peculiarly

Page 63

satisfactory to him. Mrs. Marcy was a demure and retiring woman,
taking little part in the gayer happenings of the city, but on
Cabinet days her welcome was always diplomatically cordial and
her full parlours gave evidence of her personal popularity. A
charming member of her family, Nellie, daughter of General R. B.
Marcy, became the wife of General McClellan, whose son, named for
that military hero, at this writing is Mayor of America's
metropolis. Between President and Mrs. Pierce and Secretary and
Mrs. Marcy a firm friendship existed. It was to the home of the
Secretary that President and Mrs. Pierce retired while the White
House was being rehabilitated for the occupancy of Mr. Buchanan,
who had just returned from his residence abroad, where, as Mr.
Pierce's appointee, he served as Minister to the Court of St.
James.

        On the day of Mr. Buchanan's inauguration a curious
oversight occurred which demonstrated in marked manner how
eagerly a populace hastens to shout "The king is dead! Long live
the King!" The procession of carriages had already formed and the
moment for beginning the march to the Capitol had almost arrived
ere it was observed that the vehicle set apart for President
Pierce was unoccupied. Inquiry was hastily instituted, when it
was discovered that, owing to some omission on the part of the
Master of Ceremonies, his Excellency had not been sent for! The
horses' heads were turned in a trice, and they were driven
furiously to the Marcy residence, where the quiet gentleman who
was still the President of the United States awaited them.

        Late in the afternoon my husband called upon Mr. Pierce,
and, during the conversation that followed, Mr. Clay referred
indignantly to the unfortunate affair.

        "Ah, Clay!" said Mr. Pierce, smiling quietly. "Have you
lived so long without knowing that all the homage is given to the
rising sun, never to the setting, however resplendent its
noonday?"

Page 64

        Of Secretaries Campbell and McClelland, the gay, and
especially the Southern world, saw but little; nor did Caleb
Cushing, the Attorney-General, for whom every Southerner must
ever feel a thrill of admiration for his spirited speech on their
behalf in Faneuil Hall, mingle much with the lighter element. He
was a silent man, a bachelor, who entertained not at all, though
paying dutifully such formal calls as seemed obligatory; and
Senator Clay, whose delicate health and naturally studious mind
made continual attendance upon society an onerous and often
shirked duty, had much in common with and greatly esteemed Mr.
Cushing, at that time regarded as one of the most earnest
statesmen in the capital.

        In later life, one who had been a conspicuous Senator
from Mississippi in ante-bellum days appraised him differently,
for in 1872 he wrote to my husband in this wise: "I had no
confidence in Cushing beyond that of a follower to a quicker
intellect and a braver heart. He could appreciate the gallantry
and fidelity of Pierce, so he followed him. Like the chameleon,
he was green, or blue, or brown, according to what he rested
upon."

        An affable young man, Mr. Spofford, member of Mr.
Cushing's household, and serving as that gentleman's secretary,
was no inconsiderable figure in Washington. He became a great
favourite in all the notable drawing rooms, especially with young
ladies, and the names of a half-dozen belles were given who had
fallen in love with him; but he remained invulnerable to the
flashing eyes and bright spirits about him, and married a clever
authoress, whose writings, as Harriet Prescott Spofford, have
become familiar to a large class of American readers.

        My personal favourite of all the Cabinet Ministers was
the Secretary of the Navy, J. C. Dobbin. He was a North
Carolinian, and the children of my native State were always dear
to me. Being a widower, Mr. Dobbin's

Page 65

home was also closed from formal entertainment, but the Secretary
was seen now and then in society, where he was much sought after
(though not always found) by the leading hostesses, whenever he
consented to mingle with it. In his parlours, which now and then
he opened to his most favoured friends, he kept on exhibition for
years, sealed under a glass case, the suit in which Dr. Kane, the
Arctic explorer, had lived during his sojourn among the icy seas.

        Secretary Dobbin was a small man; in truth, a duodecimo
edition of his sex, and exquisitely presented - a fact, which was
as freely yielded by his confrères as by his gentler admirers. A
man of conspicuous intellectuality and firmness in the
administration of his department, his heart was also very tender.
Of this he once gave me an especially treasured demonstration.

        My friend, Emily Spicer, wife of Lieutenant William F.
Spicer, afterward Commander of the Boston Navy Yard, at a very
critical time, was suddenly obliged, by the exigencies of the
Naval Service, to see her husband prepare for what promised to be
a long, and, it might prove, a final separation. Tenderly
attached to each other, the young husband at last literally tore
himself from his wife, leaving her in an unconscious state, from
which she did not recover for many hours. Grave fears were
entertained as to the disastrous effect the parting would have
upon the young matron.

        Having witnessed the sad scene, I went at once to
Secretary Dobbin and told him of it. His eyes lighted up most
sympathetically, even while he explained to me the necessity for
adhering strictly to the rules of the Service, but, even as he
marshalled the obstacles to my plea, by intuition I knew his
heart was stirred, and when I parted from him, he said, "Comfort
her, dear Mrs. Clay, with this assurance: If Spicer is on the
high seas he shall be ordered home; if he has arrived in Italy"
(for which

Page 66

coast the Lieutenant's ship was booked) "he shall remain there
and his wife may join him." I went away grateful for his sympathy
for my stricken friend, and hastened to soothe her.

        The Secretary kept his word. In a few passing weeks the
young couple were reunited on the coast of Italy. "God bless you,
my dear Madame," wrote Lieutenant Spicer, thereupon. "I am 
forever thankfully yours!" And they kept a promise I had exacted,
and named the baby, which proved to be a boy, after my dear
husband! Long after his distinguished namesake had vanished from
the world's stage, a bearded man of thirty came across the ocean
and a continent to greet me, his "second mother," as he had been
taught to think of me by my grateful friend, his mother, Mrs.
Spicer.

        Once more I called upon Secretary Dobbin, on behalf of a
young naval officer, but this time with a less pathetic request.
Our young friend Lieutenant -, having returned from a long cruise
(which, while it lasted, had seemed to be all but unbearable
because of its many social deprivations), upon his arrival was so
swiftly enthralled by the attractions of a certain young lady
(who shall be as nameless as is he) that in his augmenting
fervour he proposed to her at once.

        The lady accepted. She was very young, very beautiful,
very romantic, and, alas! very poor! He was scarcely older, fully
as romantic, and also, alas! was, if anything, poorer than she -
a fact of which his swashing and naval display of gold-plated
buttons and braid gave no hint.

        The romance lasted about two weeks, with waning
enthusiasm on the youth's side, when, in great distress, he came
to see me. He made a clean breast of the dilemma into which he
had plunged.

        "I beg you will rescue me, Mrs. Clay," he said. "Get me
transferred, or sent out anywhere! I've made a

Page 67

fool of myself. I can't marry her," he declared. "I haven't
income enough to buy my own clothes, and, as for providing for a
girl of her tastes, I don't know whether I shall ever be able to
do so."

        "But," I remonstrated, "how can I help you? You've only
just returned, and in the ordinary course of events you would
remain on shore at least six weeks. That isn't long. Try to bear
it a while!"

        "Long enough for a marriage in naval life," he declared,
ruefully. "And I can't break it off without your assistance. Help
me, Mrs. Clay! If you don't -" He looked sheepish, but dogged.
"I'll do what the Irishman did in Charleston!"

        "What was that?" I asked.

        "Well! he was in exactly the same pickle I am in, so he
hired a man and a wheel-barrow, and lying down, face up in it,
had himself rolled past the lady's house at a time when he knew
she was at home. Then, as the barrow arrived at this point, he
had his man stop for a few moments to wipe the sweat of honest
toil from his forehead, and, incidentally, to give the lookers-on
an opportunity for complete identification. ... Only difficulty
with that is, how would it affect me in the service?" And the
Lieutenant became dubious and I thoughtful.

        "If I knew on what grounds to approach Secretary Dobbin,"
I began.

        "There aren't any," the Lieutenant answered eagerly. "But
there are two ships just fitting out, and lots of men on them
would be glad to get off from a three-years' cruise. I would ship
for six years, nine - anything that would get me out of this
fix!"

        On this desperate statement I applied to the Secretary.
Within ten days my gallant "friend" was on the sea, and one of
Washington's beautiful maidens in tears. Glancing over my
letters, I see that at the end of ten years the young Naval
officer was still unwed, though not altogether

Page 68

scarless as to intervening love affairs; but the lady was now the
happy wife of a member of one of the oldest and wealthiest
families in the United States!

        Secretary Dobbin was my escort on my first (a most
memorable) visit to Fort Monroe. The occasion was a brilliant
one, for the President and his Cabinet had come in a body to
review the troops. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, and
but recently the hero of the battle of Buena Vista, directed the
manoeuvres, his spirited figure, superb horsemanship, and warlike
bearing attracting general attention. An entire day was given up
to this holiday-making, and the scene was one of splendid
excitement. At night the Fort and the waters beyond were lit up
by a pyrotechnic display of great gorgeousness, and enthusiasm
rose to its highest when, amid the booming of cannon and the 
plaudits of happy people, an especially ingenious device blazed
across the night sky the names of Franklin Pierce and Jefferson
Davis!

        Always a man of distinguished appearance, Secretary Davis
at that time was exceedingly slender, but his step was springy,
and he carried himself with such an air of conscious strength and
ease and purpose as often to cause a stranger to turn and look at
him. His voice was very rich and sonorous, his enunciation most
pleasing. In public speech he was eloquent and magnetic, but,
curiously enough, he was a poor reader often "mouthing" his
phrases in a way that would have aroused Hamlet's scorn. Though
spoken of as cold and haughty, in private his friends found him
refreshingly informal and frank. From their first meeting,
Secretary Davis was the intimate friend of my husband, whose
loyalty to Mr. Davis in the momentous closing days of the
Confederacy reacted so unfortunately upon his own liberty and
welfare.

        Neither the Secretary of War nor his wife appeared
frequently in society in the earlier days of his appointment, the
attention of Mr. Davis being concentrated

Page 69

upon the duties of his office, and a young family engaging that
of his wife. I have heard it said that so wonderful was Mr.
Davis's oversight of the Department of War while under his
charge, that it would have been impossible for the Government to
have been cheated out of the value of a brass button! So proud
was his adopted State of him, that at the close of Mr. Pierce's
administration, Mississippi promptly returned Mr. Davis to
Washington as Senator. Almost immediately thereafter he became
the victim of a serious illness, which lasted many weeks, and a
complication of troubles set in which culminated in the loss of
sight in one eye. During that period my husband gave up many
nights to the nursing of the invalid, who was tortured by
neuralgic pains and nervous tension. Senator Clay's solicitude
for Mr. Davis was ever of the deepest, as his efforts to sustain
and defend him to the last were of the most unselfish.

        Aaron V. Brown, who became Postmaster-General in 1857,
was at once one of the kindest-hearted and simplest of men,
loving his home and being especially indifferent to all things
that savoured of the merely fashionable and superficial. He
occupied a house which by long association with distinguished
people had become prominently known. Not infrequently the Brown
residence was alluded to as the "Cabinet Mansion." Here, among
other celebrities, had lived Attorney-General Wirt, and in it
Mrs. Wirt had compiled the first "Flora's Dictionary." The
hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Brown, being boundless, served to
accentuate its reputation, for, unlike her husband, Mrs. Brown
was socially most industrious and, being exceedingly well-to-do,
was full of enterprise in the invention of novel surprises for
her guests. Mrs. Brown, who was the sister of the afterward
distinguished Major-General Pillow, of the Confederate Army, was
the first hostess in Washington, I think, to introduce orchestral
music at dinner, and her daughter, Narcissa Sanders

Page 70

with as pronounced a spirit of innovation, * sent out enormous
cards of invitation in her own name, inviting the distinguished
folk of the capital to the house of the Postmaster-General to
meet - herself!

        I remember a dinner at this luxurious home of Mr. Brown,
at which my host, who took me in, amused me immensely at the
expense of the elaborate feast before us, and at some of his
wife's kindly, if costly, foibles. Behind a barrier of plants a
band played softly; around us were the obsequious waiters from
Gautier's.

        "All from Gautier's!" sighed the Postmaster-General, in
mock despair. "My wife's napery is the best to be had, but she
will have Gautier's! Our silver is - certainly not the plainest
in the city, but Mrs. Brown must have Gautier's! We have an
incomparable chef, but nothing will please my wife but these";
and he scanned the mysterious menu with its tier after tier of
unknown French names. Then he turned suddenly and asked me,
pointing to a line, "My child, what's this? Don't know, eh? Well,
neither do I, but let's try it, anyway. I don't suppose it will
kill us," and so on, the good old gentleman keeping me in a
continual bubble of smothered laughter to the end of the dinner.

        A member of Mr. Pierce's Cabinet, whose house was as
conspicuous for its large and lavish entertaining as was Mr.
Brown's, was the Secretary of the Treasury, Guthrie, the wealthy
Kentuckian. Mr. Guthrie was no society lover (it was a time when
statesmen had need to be absorbed in weightier things), but he
entertained, I always thought, as a part of his public duty. His
was a big, square-shouldered and angular figure, and his
appearance

*"I remember," said General Joseph Wheeler, "hearing of those
innovations, and that the guests entered the dining-room two by
two, and left it in the same order, to the music of the
orchestra. They introduced the custom of announcing the arrival
of each guest at receptions, by having a functionary call the
name, aloud, a novelty against which a good many rebelled." A. S.

Page 71

it was obvious, at receptions was perfunctory rather than a
pleasure. A widower, his home was presided over by his two
daughters, Mrs. Polk and Mrs. Coke, both also widowed. I often
thought Secretary Guthrie's capacious ballroom suggestive, in its
proportions, of a public hall.

        Here, one evening, I had my never-to-be-forgotten
rencontre with Chevalier Bertinatti, the Sardinian Minister. Dear
old Bertinatti! In all the diplomatic circle of the Pierce and
Buchanan administrations there was not to be found a personage at
once more dignified and genial. Serious, yet enthusiastic, his
naturally kind heart adding warmth to the gallantry for which
foreigners are famous, the Chevalier was a typical ambassador of
the Latin people. He was a learned man, especially in matters
American, and knew our Constitution better than did many of our
native representatives in Washington. He encountered bravely,
though not always successfully, the difficulties of the English
language, and his defeats in this field (such is the irony of
fate) have served to keep him longer in the minds of many than
have his successes.

        Upon the occasion to which I have referred, a soiree was
held at Secretary Guthrie's house, at which half the world was 
present. I wore that evening a gown of foreign silk, the colour
of the pomegranate blossom, and with it a Sardinian head-dress
and ornaments which had been sent me by a Consular friend. Seeing
me at some distance, the Chevalier failed to recognise me and
asked one of the hostesses, with whom he was conversing, "Who is
zat lady wis my kontree-woman's ornaments?"

        Upon learning my identity he came forward quickly and,
gazing admiringly at me, he threw himself on his knee before me
(kissing my hand as he did so, with ardent gallantry) as he
exclaimed: "Madame, you are charming wis zat head-dress like my
kontree-women!

Page 72

Madame! I assure you, you have conquest me behind and now you
conquest me before!" and he bowed profoundly.

        This remarkable compliment was long remembered and
recounted wherever the name of the kind-hearted diplomat was
mentioned. A great many ties bound Monsieur Bertinatti to
Washington society, not the least of which was his marriage to
Mrs. Bass of Mississippi, an admired member of the Southern and
predominating element in the capital. Her daughter, who returned
to die in her native land (she was buried from the Cathedral in
Memphis, Tennessee), became the Marquise Incisa di Camerana.

        When, after decades of political strife, the crucial time
of separation came between the North and the South, and we of the
South were preparing to leave the Federal City, I could not
conceal my sorrow; and tears, ever a blessed boon to women,
frequently blinded me as I bade first one and then another of our
associates what was to be a long good-bye. At such an expression
of my grief the Chevalier Bertinatti was much troubled.

        "Don't weep," he said. "Don't weep, my dear Mrs. Clay.
You have had sixty years of uninterrupted peace! This is but a
revolution, and all countries must suffer from them at times!
Look at my poor country! I was born in revolution, and reared in
revolution, and I expect to die in revolution!" And with this
offering of philosophic consolation we parted.

Page 73

CHAPTER V
SOLONS OF THE CAPITAL

        THE classes of Washington society in the fifties were
peculiarly distinct. They were not unlike its topography, which
is made up of many small circles and triangles, into each of
which run tributary streets and avenues. In the social life, each
division in the Congressional body was as a magnetic circle,
attracting to itself by way of defined radii those whose tastes
or political interests were in sympathy with it. Not less
prominent than the Cabinet circle (outranking it, in fact), and
fully as interesting by reason of its undisguised preference for
things solid, scientific and intellectual, was the Judiciary or
Supreme Court set. The several Justices that composed this august
body, together with their wives and daughters, formed a charmed
circle into which the merely light-minded would scarcely have
ventured. Here one met the wittiest and the weightiest minds of
the capital, and here, perhaps more than in any other coterie,
the newcomer was impressed with what Messrs. Nicolay and Hay
describe as "the singular charm of Washington life." In the
Supreme Court circle, the conditions attending Congressional life
in those strenuous times forced themselves less boldly upon one.
Here one discussed philosophies, inventions, history, perhaps,
and the arts; seldom the fashions, and as seldom the on dits.

        The Nestor of that circle in the fifties was quaint old
Roger B. Taney (pronounced Tawney), who, after various political
disappointments, including a refusal by the Senate to confirm his
appointment as a member of the

Page 74

Cabinet, had received his appointment to the Supreme Court bench
in 1836. Upon the death of Chief Justice Marshall, Judge Taney
became the head of the Supreme Court body; thus, for more than
thirty years, he had been a prominent personage in the country's
legal circles and a conspicuous resident in Washington. He was an
extremely plain-looking man, with frail body, which once rose
tall and erect, but now was so bent that one always thought of
him as small, and with a head which made me think of a withered
nut. Swarthy of skin, but grey- haired, Judge Taney was a
veritable skeleton, "all mind and no body"; yet his opinion
settled questions that agitated the nation, and his
contemporaries agreed he was the ablest man who had ever sat upon
the Supreme Court bench. Judge Taney's daughters, gifted and
brilliant women, were seldom seen in society, but from choice or
necessity chose bread- winning careers. They were great
draughtswomen and made coloured maps, for which, in those days of
expanding territory, there was a great and constant need.

        Of Chief Justice Taney's associates, Judges Catron and
John A. Campbell became best known to Senator Clay and myself.
These, and other statesmen equally distinguished and later to be
mentioned, having been the friends of ex-Governor (then Senator)
C. C. Clay, Sr., my husband had been known to them from the days
when, as a schoolboy, he had visited his parents in the Federal
City. Mrs. Judge Catron, whom I met soon after my arrival in
Washington, was a woman of great elegance of manner and dress,
and always brought to my mind the thought of a dowager Duchess.
An associate of my husband's mother, and a native of gay
Nashville, Mrs. Catron had been a social queen in Washington in
the late thirties, and her position of interest was still
preserved in 1855.

        Judge and Mrs. Campbell, being rich beyond many others,
their home was widely known for sumptuous

Page 75

entertaining as well as for its intellectual atmosphere. Sharing
to an extent the public favour, Judge Campbell, Reverdy Johnson,
and Robt. J. Walker were the three legal giants of their day.
Judge Campbell's clients were among the wealthiest in the
country, and his fees were said to be enormous. Had not the war
ensued, undoubtedly he would have been appointed to the Chief
Justiceship, as was commonly predicted for him. He was a man of
great penetration and erudition, and was held in high esteem by
everyone in the capital. In 1861 he cast his lot with the people
of the South, among whom he was born, and went out of the Federal
City to meet whatsoever fate the future held. Judge Campbell
became the earnest adviser of Mr. Davis, and was a Commissioner
of the Confederate Government, together with Alexander H.
Stephens and R. M. T. Hunter, when the three conferred with Mr.
Seward, acting as delegate from the Northern President, Lincoln.
Nor did the ensuing years diminish the great regard of great men
for our beloved Southern scholar. * Writing to Judge Campbell
from Washington on December 10, 1884, Thomas F. Bayard thus
reveals the exalted regard which the former sustained to the
close of a long life:

        "Mr. Lamar, now Associate Judge of the Supreme Court,
concurs with me," he wrote, "in considering it highly important
that your counsel and opinions should be freely given to Mr.
Cleveland at this important juncture, and respectfully and
earnestly I trust you will concur in our judgment in the matter.
Mr. Cleveland will resign from his present office early in
January, but

* Wrote the Assistant Attorney-General, William A. Maury, in
1885, to Judge Campbell: "I called on the President in company
with Judge Gilbert and Mr. Corcoran, and a most fitting
opportunity having occurred in the course of our talk, I pleased
the President greatly by telling him you said he was the biggest
man who had been in the White House since you were a child! Which
Mr. Corcoran supplemented by saying, 'And Judge Campbell is a man
who means what he says!'"

Page 76

can easily and conveniently receive you for the purpose suggested
in the interview." *

        In those days of Washington's splendour, Mrs. Campbell
and her daughter Henrietta were no less distinguished for their
culture, intellectuality, and exclusiveness. Mrs. Campbell was
the first Southern woman to adopt the English custom of
designating her coloured servant as "my man." At the home of the
Campbells one met not only the legal lights of Washington, but
scientists and travellers, as if law and the sciences were drawn
near to each other by natural selection. Professor Henry, of the
Smithsonian Institution, was a frequent visitor at this home, as
was also Professor Maury, the grand road-master of the ocean,
who, by the distribution of his buoys, made a track in the
billows of the Atlantic for the safe passing of ships.

        I remember an amusing visit paid by a party from our mess
to the observatory of Professor Maury. It was an occasion of
special interest. Jupiter was displaying his brilliancy in a
marvellous way. For no particular reason, in so far as I could
see, the Professor's great telescope seemed to require adjusting
for the benefit of each of the bevy present. I noticed Professor
Maury's eye twinkling as he went on with this necessary (?)
preliminary, asking, betimes: "What do you see? Nothing clearly?
Well permit me!" And after several experiments he would secure,
at last, the right focus. When all of his guests had been treated
to a satisfactory view of the wonders of the sky, Professor Maury
delivered himself somewhat as follows:

        "Now, ladies, whilst you have been studying the heavenly
bodies, I have been studying you!" and the quizzical expression
deepened in his eye.

        "Go on," we assented.

* Held between Messrs. Cleveland, President-elect, and Bayard in
the official residence, which is segregated from the Capitol.

Page 77

        "Well," said the Professor, "I have a bill before
Congress," (mentioning its nature) "and if you ladies don't
influence your husbands to vote for it, I intend to publish the
ages of each and every one of you to the whole of Washington!"

        Remembering the mutability of political life, it was and
remains a source of astonishment to me that in the Government
circles of the fifties were comprised so many distinguished men
who had retained their positions in the political foreground for
so many years; years, moreover, in which an expanding territory
was causing the envy for office to spread, infecting the ignorant
as well as the wise, and causing contestants to multiply in
number and their passions to increase in violence at each
election.

        When Senator Clay and I took up our residence in the
Federal City, there were at least a dozen great statesmen who had
dwelt almost continuously in Washington for nearly twoscore
years. Writing of these to Governor Clay, in 1858, my husband
said "Mr. Buchanan looks as ruddy as ever; General Cass as young
and vigorous as in 1844, and Mr. Dickens * appears as he did in
1834, when with you I was at his home at an evening party!"
Thomas Hart Benton, the great Missourian, who for seven long
years struggled against such allied competitors as Senators Henry 
Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, in his fight against the Bank of the
United States, probably out- ranked all others in length of
public service; but, besides Mr. Benton, there were Chief Justice
Taney and his associates, Judges Catron, James M. Wayne, and John
McLean, of Ohio; Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, and General
George Wallace Jones - all men who had entered political life
when the century was young.

        Among my pleasantest memories of Washington are

*Asbury Dickens, Clerk of the Senate.

Page 78

the evenings spent at the home of Mr. Benton. His household, but
recently bereft of its mistress, who had been a long-time
invalid, was presided over by his daughters, Mrs. General
Frémont, Mrs. Thomas Benton Jones, and Mme. Boileau. The last-
named shared, with the Misses Bayard and Maury, a reputation for
superior elegance among the young women of the capital. The
daughters of Mr. Benton had been splendidly educated, it was
said, by their distinguished father, and they repaid his care of
them by a lifelong adoration. A handsome man in ordinary attire,
the great old author and statesman was yet a more striking figure
when mounted. He rode with a stately dignity, quite unlike the
pace indulged in by some other equestrians of that city and day;
a, day, it may be said in passing, when equestrianism was common.
Mr. Benton's appearance and the slow gait of his horse impressed
me as powerful and even majestic, and often (as I remarked to him
at dinner one evening) there flashed through my mind, as I saw
him, a remembrance of Byron's Moorish King as he rode benignly
through the streets of Granada. He seemed gratified at my
comparison.

        "I'm glad you approve of my pace," he said. "I ride
slowly because I do not wish to be confounded with post-boys and
messengers sent in haste for the surgeon. They may gallop if they
will, but not Senators."

        At his own table Mr. Benton was an oracle to whom
everyone listened eagerly. I have seen twenty guests held
spellbound as he recited, with thrilling realism, a history of
the Clay-Randolph duel, with the details of which he was so
familiarly acquainted. I never heard him allude to his great
fight in the Senate, when, the galleries crowded with men
inimical to him, his wife and General Jones sent out for arms to
protect the fearless Senator from the onslaught which seemed
impending; nor to his nearly thirty years' strife for the

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removal of the onerous Salt Tax; but the dinners before which his
guests sat down were flavoured with the finest of Attic salt, of
which he was a connoisseur, which served to sting into increased
eagerness our interest in his rich store of recollections.

        Wherever Mr. Benton was seen he was a marked personage.
There was something of distinction in the very manner in which he
wore his cravat, and when he spoke, men listened instinctively.
Of his daughters, Mrs. Frémont was probably the most gifted, and
Mme. Boileau the most devoted to fashionable society. Mme.
Boileau was the wife of a French attaché, and was remarked as she
drove about in the streets with a be-ribboned spaniel upon the
front seat of her calash. Many years after my acquaintance in
Washington with Mr. Benton's family (it was during the Cleveland
Administration), I was present at a reception given by Mrs.
Endicott when I observed among the guests a very busy little
woman in simple black apparel, whose face was familiar to me but
whom I found myself unable to place; yet everyone seemed to know
her. I heard her address several foreigners, in each case
employing the language of his country, and, my curiosity
increasing, I asked at last, "Who is that small lady in black?"

        To my surprise, she proved to be Mrs. Frémont!

        I soon made my way to her. She seemed almost impatient as
I said, "Mrs. Frémont, I can never forget you, nor the charming
evenings at your father's house though you, I am sure, have
forgotten me!" She looked at me searchingly and then spoke,
impetuously:

        "Yes! yes! I remember your face perfectly, but your name
- Tell me who you are, quick. Don't keep me waiting!" I promptly
gratified her, and in the conversation that followed, I added
some reference to her father's great book, "Thirty Years' View,"
which, until

Page 80

the destruction of my home during the Civil War, had formed two
of our most valued volumes.

        "Ah!" cried Mrs. Frémont. "You are a woman of
penetration! I have always said my father's book is the Political
Bible of America. I know it will not perish!"

        I have referred to General George Wallace Jones. No
memory of ante-bellum Washington and its moving personages would
be complete were he, the pet of women and the idol of men, left
out. He was born in 1804, when the Union was young; and adventure
and patriotism, then sweeping over our country, were blended in
him. As a child he came out of the young West, still a
wilderness, to be educated in Kentucky. He had been a sergeant of
the body-guard of General Jackson, and to the Marquis de la
Fayette upon the latter's last visit to the United States in
1824. Thereafter he figured in the Black Hawk War as aid to
General Dodge. His life was a continual panorama of strange
events. In the Great Indian War he became a Major-General; then a
County Judge; and appeared at the capital as delegate from the
[Territory of Michigan early in 1835, General Jones's personal
activity becoming known to the Government, he was made Surveyor-
General of the Northwest. It was about this time that he, being
on the Senate floor, sprang to the side of Mr. Benton while the
gallery hummed ominously with the angry threats of the friends of
the Bank defenders, and personal violence seemed unavoidable. I
never knew how many of the Western States were laid out by
General Jones, but they were numerous. In his work of surveying
he was accompanied by young military men, many of whom played
conspicuous parts in the history of the country, at that time but
half of its present size. Among these was Jefferson Davis, then a
civil engineer.

        General Jones was indefatigable in his attendance at
social gatherings, and continued to out-dance young

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men, even when threescore rich years were his. He had been a
great favourite with my husband's parents during their
Congressional life, so great indeed that father's message of
introduction spoke of him as "My son!" and his fraternal offices
to us are among the brightest memories I hold of life at the
capital. The General was a small, wiry man, renowned for his long
black hair, glossy and well-kept as was any belle's, and which
seemed even to a very late period to defy time to change it. In
society he was sprightly as a kitten, and at seventy-five would
poke his glistening black head at me, declaring as he did so,
"I'll give you anything you ask, from a horse to a kiss, if you
can find one grey hair among the black!"

        General Jones died in the West, just before the close of
the nineteenth century, but to the end he was gay and brave, and
elastic in body and mind. So indomitable was his spirit even in
those closing days, that he revived a memory of the war days in
the following spirited letter written in 1894, just after the
celebration of his ninetieth birthday. At this time he was made
King of the Carnival, was complimented by the Governor of Iowa,
"the two branches of the General Assembly, and by the Supreme
Court, they, too, being Republicans and total strangers to me
save one Republican Senator and one Democratic representative
from this County," as his gay account of the episode ran.

        "I told several times," he added, "of how you and dear
Mrs. Bouligny prevented me from killing Seward. It was the day
you stopped me, as you sat in your carriage in front of Corcoran
& Riggs's bank, and I was about to pass you. I would certainly
have killed Seward with my sword-cane but that you stopped me. I
was about to follow the Secretary as he passed the bank door,
between his son Frederick and some other men. I would have run my
sword through him and immediately

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have been cut into mince-meat by the hundreds of negro guards who
stood all round. Do you recollect that fearful incident? God sent
two guardian angels to save my life. How can I feel otherwise
than grateful to you for saving me that day!"

        The recalling of this pioneer-surveyor of the great
Western wilderness revives, too, the name of as notable a
character in the Southwest, and one who will always be identified
with the introduction of cotton in the Southern States, and the
land-grants of the territory of Louisiana. I never met Daniel
Clarke, but very early in my married life, and some years before
I went to the capital to reside, I became acquainted with that
remarkable woman, his daughter, Mrs. Myra Clarke Gaines.

        I had accompanied my husband to New Orleans, where we
stopped at the St. Charles Hotel, then two steps or more above
the ground level, though it settled, as all New Orleans buildings
do sooner or later, owing to the moist soil.

        The evening of our arrival we were seated in the dining-
room when my attention was attracted by the entrance of a very
unusual couple. The man was well-advanced in years, but bore
himself with a dignified and military air that made him at once
conspicuous. There was a marked disparity between this tall,
commanding soldier and the very small young woman who hung upon
his arm "like a reticule or a knitting-pocket," as I remarked
sotto voce to Mr. Clay. Her hair was bright, glistening chestnut,
her colour very fresh and rich, and her golden-hazel eyes glowed
like young suns. These orbs were singularly searching, and seemed
to gauge everyone at a glance. Mr. Clay, having already an
acquaintance with General Gaines, in a few moments I was
presented to the (even then) much-talked-of daughter of General
Clarke.

        Never did woman exhibit more wifely solicitude.

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From the beginning of that dinner Mrs. Gaines became the
General's guardian. She arranged his napkin, tucking it carefully
into the V of his waistcoat, read the menu and selected his food,
waiting upon him as each course arrived, and herself preparing
the dressing for his salad. All was done in so matter-of-fact and
quiet a manner that the flow of General Gaines's discourse was
not once interrupted. Though I met this interesting woman a
number of times in later years, in Washington and elsewhere, that
first picture of Mrs Gaines, probably the bravest woman, morally,
of her time, has remained most vividly. When, as a widow,
accompanied by her daughter, Mrs. Gaines visited Washington, she
was the cynosure of all eyes in every assemblage in which she was
seen. Her fearless pleading in the Supreme Court was the theme of
conversation the country over. People thronged to see a woman
whose courage was so indomitable, and none but were surprised at
the diminutive and modest heroine.

        Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, was already a Solon in
the counsels of the Nation, when, in 1841 Senator C. C. Clay,
Sr., left the Senate. A major in the army in 1812, Mr. Crittenden
had made his appearance in Congress in 1817, and thereafter
continued prominent in Washington life, as Senator or Cabinet
member (in the Cabinets of Presidents Harrison and Fillmore), so
that for thirty or more years his name had been associated with
the names of our great law-makers, especially with those of the
second quarter of the century. When I met Senator Crittenden in
the middle fifties, he was a carefully preserved gentleman of
courtly and genial manners. Besides the brilliancy that attached
to his long career in Congressional life, he was distinguished as
the husband of a still charming woman, whose proud boast it was
that she was perfectly happy. This declaration alone was enough
to make any woman in society

Page 84

remarkable; yet, to judge from her serene and smiling appearance,
Mrs. Crittenden did not exaggerate her felicity. She was a sweet
type of the elderly fashionable woman, her face reflecting the
utmost kindness, her corsage and silvery hair gleaming with
brilliants, her silken petticoats rustling musically, and, over
the lustrous folds of her rich and by no means sombre costumes,
priceless lace fell prodigally.

        Nor were there lacking notes and even whole gowns of warm
colour significant of the lady's persistent cheeriness. I
remember my cousin, Miss Comer, a debutante of seventeen at that
time, remarking upon Mrs. Crittenden's dress one evening at a
ball.

        "It's exactly like mine, cousin!" she said, not without a
pout of disappointment. And so, in truth, it was, both being of
bright, cherry corded silk, the only difference between them
being that the modest round-necked bodice of my little cousin by
no means could compete with the noble decollete of the older
lady. But, in justice to the most estimable Mrs. Crittenden, it
must be added that her neck and shoulders were superbly moulded,
and, even in middle age, excited the envy of her less fortunate
sisters.

        "Lady" Crittenden, as she was often called, accounted for
her contentment in this wise: "I have been married three times,
and in each alliance I have got just what I wanted. My first
marriage was for love, and it was mine as fully as I could wish;
my second for money, and Heaven was as good to me in this
instance; my third was for position, and that, too, is mine. What
more could I ask?"

        What more, indeed!

        One met dear old Mrs. Crittenden everywhere. She was of
the most social disposition, a fact which sometimes aroused the
good-natured irony of her distinguished husband. I remember an
instance in which this was

Page 85

demonstrated, at the White House, which greatly amused me at the
time. It was at a dinner party, and Senator Crittenden, who
boasted that he had eaten at the White House table with every
President since the days of Monroe, assumed the blase air which
everyone who knew him recognised as a conscious affectation.

        "Now there's 'Lady' Crittenden," he began, nodding in the
direction of that smiling personage, "in all the glory of a new
and becoming gown, and perfectly happy in the glamour of this."
And he waved his hand about the room with an air of fatigue and,
at the same time, a comprehensiveness that swept in every member,
grave or giddy, in the large assemblage. "If I had my way," and
he sighed as he said it, "nothing would give me greater pleasure
than to hie me back to the wilds of dear old Kentucky! Ah! to don
my buckskins once more, shoulder a rifle, and wander through life
a free man, away from all this flummery!"

        He sighed again (for the tangled woods?) as he detected a
speck upon his faultless sleeve and fastidiously brushed it off!

        "Pshaw! Stuff and nonsense, Senator!" I retorted,
rallying him heartlessly. "Fancy your being condemned to that!
You wouldn't stand it two days, unless an election were in
progress and there were country constituents to interview.
Everyone knows you are as fond of fat plums and plump capons,
both real and metaphorical, as any man in the capital! As for
society being disagreeable to you, with a good dinner in view and
pretty women about you - Fie, Senator! I don't believe you!"
Whereat our Solon laughed guiltily, like one whose pet pretense
has been discovered, and entered forthwith into the evening's
pleasures as heartily as did his spouse, the perfectly happy
"Lady" Crittenden.

Page 86

CHAPTER VI
FASHIONS OF THE FIFTIES

        TO ESTIMATE at anything like their value ante-bellum days
at the capital, it must be borne in mind that the period was one
of general prosperity and competitive expenditure. While a life-
and-death struggle raged between political parties, and
oratorical battles of ominous import were fought daily in Senate
Chamber and House, a very reckless gaiety was everywhere apparent
in social circles. Especially was this to be observed in the
predominant and hospitable Southern division in the capital; for
predominant Southern society was, as even such deliberately
partisan historians as Messrs. Nicolay and Hay admit; and, what
these gentlemen designate as "the blandishments of Southern
hospitality," lent a charm to life in the Government circles of
that day which lifted the capital to the very apex of its social
glory. Writing of these phases of life in the capital, in a
letter dated March, 1858, I said to Governor Clay: "People are
mad with rivalry and vanity. It is said that Gwin is spending
money at the rate of $75,000 a year, and Brown and Thompson quite
the same. Mrs. Thompson (of Mississippi) is a great favourite
here. Mrs. Toombs, who is sober, and has but one daughter, Sally,
who is quite a belle, says they spend $1,800 per month, or
$21,000 per annum."

        The four years' war, which began in '61, changed these
social conditions. As the result of that strife poverty spread
both North and South. The social world at Washington, which but
an administration before

Page 87

had been scarcely less fascinating and brilliant than the Court
of Louis Napoleon, underwent a radical change; and the White
House itself, within a month after it went into the hands of the
new Black Republican party, became degraded to a point where even
Northern men recoiled at the sight of the metamorphosed
conditions. *

        In the days of Presidents Pierce and Buchanan, Washington
was a city of statesmen, and in the foreground, relieving the
solemnity of their deliberations in that decade which preceded
the Nation's great disaster, were fashion and mirth, beauty and
wit. It was then, as the government city of a Republic must ever
be, a place of continuous novelty, of perpetual changes, of new
faces. The fashionable world comes and goes in the Federal City
with each Presidential term of four and Senatorial term of six
years, and its longer or shorter stays of the army and navy
contingent, and always it gathers its personnel from as many
points as there are States in the Union, and as many parts of the
world as those to which our diplomatic relations extend.

        In the fifties, when the number of States was but two
dozen, the list of representatives gathering at the capital was
proportionately smaller than in the present day, and society was
correspondingly select. Moreover, political distinction and
offices not infrequently continued in many families through
several generations, sons often succeeding their fathers in
Congress, inheriting, in some degree, their ancestors' friends,
until a social security had been established which greatly
assisted to give

* In a letter dated New York, April 6, 1861 a correspondent, the
intimate associate of James Gordon Bennett, wrote as follows: "I
have been in Washington twice since I had the pleasure of seeing
you, and I can say truthfully, that ... the ensemble of the
personnel of the White House has sadly changed, more befitting a
restaurant than the House of the President. They tell me many
droll stories of them, and all are deservedly rich, 'Old Abe'
tells stories and Mrs. Lincoln simpers. They keep a household of
those horrid ... people with them all the time, mais assez!"

Page 88

charm and prestige to the fashionable coteries of the Federal
centre. For example, for forty years previous to my husband's
election to the Senate, the two branches of the Clay family had
been prominent in the life of the capital. In the late twenties,
C. C. Clay, Sr., had been active in the House, while the great
Henry Clay was stirring the country through his speeches in the
Senate; in the fifties, Mr. James B. Clay, son of the great
Kentuckian, was a Congressman when the scholarly statesmanship of
Senator C. C. Clay, Jr., of Alabama, was attracting the
admiration and praise of North and South alike. It is a pathetic
coincidence that to my husband, during his sojourn in Canada,
fell the sad privilege of ministering at the death-bed of Mr.
Clay, of Kentucky, who died in that alien land without the
solacing presence of wife or children. Shortly before the end
came, he presented to Senator Clay the cane which for years had
been carried by the great orator, Henry Clay. *

        The fashions of the times were graceful, rich and 
picturesque. Those of the next decade, conspicuous for huge
chignons, false hair, and distorting bustles, rose like an ugly
barrier between the lovely costuming of the fifties and the
dressing of to-day. A half-century ago, the beauties of the
capital wore their hair à la Grecque, with flowers wreathed over
it, or a simple golden dagger or arrow to secure it. Their gowns
were festooned with blossoms that trailed over bodice and skirt
until not seldom they became, by reason of their graceful 
ornaments,

* Some time after Clement C. Clay's return to the Confederate
States, this cane was purloined by some unknown person. Years
passed; one day Mr Clay received an inquiry as to whether he had
ever owned a cane on which his name appeared below that of the
Kentucky Senator's, the writer explained that he wished to know
its history and to return the cane to its rightful owner. Eager
for the recovery of his valued souvenir, Mr. Clay responded; but
his unknown correspondent, having gained the information he
sought, lapsed into silence. Said Mrs. Clay, in relating this
incident, "And we never heard more of the cane!" A.S.

Page 89

veritable Perditas. These delicate fashions continued until
nearly the end of the decade, when they were superseded by more
complicated coiffures and a general adoption of heavy materials
and styles.

        In 1858-'59 the hair was arranged on the top of the head
in heavy braids wound like a coronet over the head, and the
coiffure was varied now and then with a tiara of velvet and
pearls, or jet or coral. Ruffled dresses gave place to panelled
skirts in which two materials, a plain and embossed or brocaded
fabric, were combined, and basques with postillion backs became
the order of the day. The low-coiled hair and brow free from
frizzes and bangs (à l'idiote, as our satirical friends, the
French, describe them) was the style adopted by such preeminent
beauties as Mrs. Senator Pugh, who was regarded by Baron Hulseman
as without a peer, and Mrs. Senator Pendleton, who, in Lord
Napier's opinion, had the most classic head he had seen in
America.

        Low necks and lace berthas, made fashionable because of
their adoption by Miss Lane, were worn almost universally, either
with open sleeves revealing inner ones of filmy lace, or sleeves
of the shortest possible form, allowing the rounded length of a
pretty arm to be seen in its perfection. Evening gloves were
half-length only, or as often reaching only half-way to the
elbow. They were of kid or silk with backs embroidered in
delicate silks, with now and then a jewel sparkling among the
colours. Jewels, indeed, were conspicuous even in men's dressing,
and gentlemen of fashion were rare who did not have varieties of
sparkling studs and cravat-pins to add to the brightness of their
vari-coloured vests. The latter not infrequently were of richest
satin and velvet, brocaded and embroidered. They lent a desirable
note of colour, by no means inconspicuous, to the swallow-tailed
evening dress of that time, a note, by-the-bye, which was
supplemented by a tie of bright soft

Page 90

silk, and of ample proportions. President Buchanan was remarkable
for his undeviating choice of pure white cravats. Fashion was not
then arbitrary in the matter of gentlemen's neckwear, and high or
low collars were worn, as best suited the taste of the
individual.

        To the attire of the women of the Government City in that
day our home manufacturers contributed but little. In fact, the
industries of our country yielded but a common grade of materials
designed for wearing apparel, and were altogether unequal to the
demands of a capital in which the wealthy vied with their own
class in foreign cities in the acquisition of all that goes to
make up the moods and character of fashion. Our gloves and fans
and handkerchiefs, our bonnets and the larger part of our dress
accessories, as well as such beautiful gown patterns as were
purchased ready to be made up by a New York or Washington
dressmaker, were all imported directly from foreign houses, and
the services of our travelling and consular friends were in
constant requisition for the selection of fine laces, shawls,
flounces, undersleeves and the other fashionable garnitures.
Scarcely a steamer but brought to the capital dainty boxes of
Parisian flowers, bonnets and other foreign novelties, despatched
by such interested deputies.

        It was astonishing how astute even our bachelor
representatives abroad became in the selection of these articles
for the wives of their Senatorial indorsers in Washington. I was
frequently indebted for such friendly remembrances to my cousin,
Tom Tait Tunstall, Consul at Cadiz, and to Mrs. Leese, wife of
the Consul at Spezia and sister of Rose Kierulf and Mrs. Spicer.
Thanks to the acumen of these thoughtful friends, my laces,
especially, and a velvet gown, the material of which was woven to
order at Genoa, were the particular envy of my less fortunate
"mess-mates."

        I remember with much pleasure the many courtesies

Page 91

of William Thomson, Consul at Southampton, England, who was one
of the many from whom the war afterward separated us. From the
time of his appointment in 1857 his expressions of friendliness
were frequent toward Miss Lane, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, myself, and; I
doubt not, toward many other fortunate ones of the capital.

        To the first named he sent a remarkable toy-terrier, so
small that "it might be put under a quart bowl," as he wrote to
me. The little stranger was a nine-days' curiosity at the White
House, where it was exhibited to all who were on visiting terms
with Miss Lane. That I was not the recipient of a similar midget
was due to the death of "Nettle," the animal selected for me.

        "Please ask Miss Lane," he wrote, "to show you her
terrier, and you will be sure it is the identical 'Nettle.' I
shall succeed in time in finding a good specimen for you!"

        But Mr. Thomson's efforts and discrimination were by no
means directed solely toward the selection of canine rarities. In
truth, he showed himself in every way fitted to become a most
satisfactory Benedick (which I sincerely hope was his fate in the 
course of time), for, besides picking up now and then odd and
choice bits of quaint jewelry, such as may please a woman's
fancy, and many an interesting legend about which to gossip, he
discovered a power of discernment in regard to the wearing
apparel of my sex, which was as refreshing in its epistolary
revelations as it was rare among his sex.

        "I did think of sending you and Mrs. Fitzpatrick one of
the new style petticoats," he wrote in March, 1858, "so novel, it
seems, at the seat of government; but, upon inquiry for the
material, my bachelor wits were quite outdone, for I could not
even guess what size might suit both you ladies! Since sending a
few lines to you, I have spent a day at Brighton, which is in my
district, and I saw

Page 92

quite a new style and decided improvement on the petticoat. A
reversible crimson and black striped linsey-wolsey under a white
cambric skirt, with five, seven, or nine tucks of handsome work,
not less than ten or twelve inches deep. This style of new
garment is very distingue to my feeble bachelor eye, and would
attract amazingly in Washington just now."

        Among the first to introduce in the capital the fashion
of holding up the skirt to show these ravishing petticoats were
the lovely sisters of Thomas F. Bayard, afterward Secretary of
State and Minister to England under President Cleveland, and the
Misses Maury, daughters of the ex-Mayor of Washington, all of
whom were conspicuous for their Parisian daintiness. None of this
bevy but looked as if she might have stepped directly from the
rue St. Germain.

        The bewildering description by Mr. Thomson had scarcely
arrived, ere fashion was busy evolving other petticoat novelties
and adjuncts. A quaint dress accessory at this time, and one
which remained very much in vogue for carriage, walking, and
dancing dresses, consisted of several little metal hands, which,
depending from fine chains attached at the waist, held up the
skirt artistically at a sufficient height to show the flounces
beneath. The handkerchiefs of the time, which were appreciably
larger than those in use to-day, and very often of costly point-
lace, were drawn through a small ring that hung from a six-inch
gold or silver chain, on the other end of which was a circlet
which just fitted over the little finger.

        I have spoken of our Washington dressmakers; how
incomplete would be my memories of the capital did I fail to
mention here Mrs. Rich, the favourite mantuamaker of those days,
within whose power it lay to transform provincial newcomers,
often already over-stocked with ill-made costumes and absurdly
trimmed bonnets,

Page 93

into women of fashion! Mrs. Rich was the only Reconstructionist,
I think I may safely say, on whom Southern ladies looked with
unqualified approval. A Reconstructionist? She was more; she was
a physician who cured many ills for the women of the
Congressional circles, ills of a kind that could never be reached
by our favourite physician, Dr. Johnston, though he had turned
surgeon and competed in a contest of stitches; for, to the care
of the wives of our statesmen each season, came pretty heiresses
from far-off States, to see the gay Government City, under their
experienced guardianship, and to meet its celebrities. These,
often mere buds of girls, were wont to come to the capital
supplied with costly brocade and heavy velvet gowns, fit in
quality for the stateliest dame; with hats weighty with plumes
that might only be worn appropriately in the helmet of a prince
or a Gainsborough duchess, and with diamonds enough to please the
heart of a matron. To strip these slim maidens of such untoward
finery, often of antediluvian, not to say outlandish, cut and
fashion, and to reapparel them in such soft fabrics as became
their youth and station, was no small or easy task for her who
had undertaken to chaperone them.

        Nor were these sartorial faux pas confined to the girl
novices and their far-off kind, and usually lavish parents. Many
a charming matron came to the capital as innocent of any
knowledge of the demands of fashionable life as a schoolgirl.
There was the wife of a distinguished legislator who afterward
presided over an American embassy abroad, a sweet little nun of a
woman, who arrived in Washington with a wardrobe that doubtless
had caused her country neighbours many a pang of envy. It
comprised garments made of the costliest fabrics, but, alas!
which had been cut up so ridiculously by the local seamstress
that the innocent wearer's first appearance in the gay world of
the capital was the

Page 94

signal for irrepressible smiles of amusement and simpers of
derision from the more heartless.

        Because of a friendship between our husbands, our little
nun fell into my hands, and I promptly convoyed her to the
crucible of Mrs. Rich, that dauntless spirit, and my unfailing
resource, sure of her ability to work the necessary
transmutation. Alas! as we were about to step out of our
carriage, I was startled by the appearance, above a shapely
enough foot, of a bright, yes! a brilliant indigo-blue stocking!
Not even Mr. Shillaber's heroine from Beanville could boast a
trapping more blatantly blue! I held my breath in alarm! What if
the eye of any of the more scornful fashionables should detect
its mate? I hurried my charge back into the vehicle at once and
summoned our good friend Mrs. Rich to the door; and our errand
that morning was accomplished by the aid of a trim apprentice,
who brought to our calash boxes of samples and fashion-plates for
our scanning.

        Many, indeed, were the debtors to Mrs. Rich in those
days, for the taste and despatch with which she performed her
incomparable miracles. And I would not refrain from acknowledging
an act of kindness at her hands in darker days; for, when I
returned to Washington in 1865 to plead with the President for my
husband's release from Fortress Monroe, she generously refused
payment for the making of the modest dress I ordered, declaring
that she longed to serve one who had directed so many clients to
her in former days!

        But there were occasions when a pressure upon the time of
Mrs. Rich necessitated the seeking of other assistance, and a
hasty journey was made to Mlle. Rountree, of Philadelphia, or
even to New York, where the fashionable dressmakers were capable
of marvellous expedition in filling one's order completely, even
to the furnishing of handkerchiefs and hosiery and slippers to

Page 95

suit a special gown. I remember the arrival of some wonderful
"creations" made in the metropolis for Miss Stevens, of Stevens
Castle, who was spending the season with my "mess-mate," Mrs.
Chestnut, and boxes of gowns as admirable, and from the same
source, for the lovely Marian Ramsey, who became Mrs. Brockholst
Cutting, of New York. Miss Ramsey, who was an especially admired
belle in Washington, was the daughter of that delightfully
irascible old Admiral, who, it was said, was such a
disciplinarian that he never entered port without having one or
more of his crew in irons.

        Brilliant as was the social life in Washington at this
time, and remarkable for its numbers of handsome men and lovely
women, I remember no exquisites of the Beau Brummel or Disraeli
type, though there were many who were distinguished as men of
fashion, of social graces and talent.

        Foremost among the popular men of the capital were Philip
Barton Key (brother of the classic Mrs. Pendleton, Mrs. Howard of
Baltimore, and of Mrs. Blount, who attained a reputation among
her contemporaries upon the stage), Preston Brooks, and Laurence
Keitt, members of Congress from South Carolina, the last named of
whom married the wealthy Miss Sparks. For a long time previous to
that alliance, Mr. Keitt and his colleague from North Carolina,
Mr. Clingman, were looked upon as rival suitors for the hand of
Miss Lane. Mr. Keitt was the friend of Preston Brooks, who was
one of the most magnetic and widely admired men in the capital.
Were half of the compliments here repeated which the name alone
of Mr. Brooks at that time elicited, they must serve to modify
the disfavour into which this spirited young legislator from
South Carolina fell after his historic assault upon Mr. Sumner in
the Senate. When, a few months after that unfortunate affair, the
body of Mr. Brooks lay on view in the Federal City,

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mourning for him became general, and his obsequies were
remarkable for the crowds that hastened to pay their last tribute
to him.

        I recall an amusing incident by which I offended
(happily, only momentarily) our good friends Congressman and Mrs.
Keitt, owing to a tendency I possessed to indulge in nonsense
whenever furnished with the slightest pretext for it. When the
former arrived at the capital, he was commonly addressed and
alluded to as "Kitt," a wholly unwarrantable mispronunciation of
his name, but one which had become current in the vernacular of
his State, and which, from sheer force of habit, continued in use
in the Federal City. To the retention of this nickname, however,
his bride strongly objected, and so persistently did she correct
all who misscalled the name, that the Congressman's old friends,
though publicly conforming to the lady's wishes, smiled in
private, and among themselves clung fondly to the old
pronunciation.

        This little contention was still in operation when an
interesting event took place in the Keitt household. On the
evening of the happy day, meeting Senator Hammond at dinner, he
asked me casually, "What's the news?'

        "Why! haven't you heard?" I replied. "Kitt has a kitten!"

        My poor joke, so unexpected, exploded Senator Hammond's
gravity immediately. So well did the sally please him, that it
speedily became an on dit, alas! to the passing annoyance of the
happy young pair. Mrs. Keitt was one of Washington's most admired
young matrons, a graceful hostess, and famous for her social
enterprise. It was she who introduced in the capital the fashion
of sending out birth-card to announce the arrival of infants.

        I have spoken of Barton Key. He was a widower during my
acquaintance with him, and I recall him as

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the handsomest man in all Washington society. In appearance an
Apollo, he was a prominent figure at the principal fashionable
functions; a graceful dancer he was a favourite with every
hostess of the day. Clever at repartee, a generous and pleasing
man, who was even more popular with other men than with women,
his death at the hands of Daniel E. Sickles in February 1859,
stirred Washington to its centre.

        I remember very vividly how, one Sunday morning, as I was
putting the finishing touches to my toilette for attendance at
St. John's, Senator Clay burst into the room, his face pale and
awe-stricken, exclaiming: "A horrible, horrible thing has
happened, Virginia! Sickles, who for a year or more has forced
his wife into Barton's company, has killed Key; killed him most
brutally, while he was unarmed!"

        This untimely death of a man allied to a famous family,
and himself so generally admired, caused a remarkable and long
depression in society. Yet, so strenuous were the political needs
of the time, and so tragic and compelling the demands of national
strife now centred in Washington, that the horrible calamity
entailed no punishment upon its author.

        Only the Thursday before the tragedy, in company with
Mrs. Pugh and Miss Acklin, I called upon the unfortunate cause of
the tragedy. She was so young and fair, at most not more than
twenty-two years of age, and so naive, that none of the party of
which I was one was willing to harbour a belief in the rumours
which were then in circulation. On that, Mrs. Sickles' last "at
home," her parlours were thronged, one-half of the hundred or
more guests present being men. The girl hostess was even more
lovely than usual. Of an Italian type in feature and colouring
(she was the daughter of a famous musician, Baggioli, of New
York), Mrs. Sickles was dressed in a painted muslin gown, filmy
and graceful,

Page 98

on which the outlines of the crocus might be traced. A broad sash
of brocaded ribbon girdled her slender waist, and in her dark
hair were yellow crocus blooms. I never saw her again, but the
picture of which she formed the centre was so fair and innocent,
it fixed itself permanently upon my mind.

        When my husband first entered the United States Senate,
in 1853, there were not more than four men in that body who wore
moustaches. Indeed, the prejudice against them was great. I
remember a moustached gallant who called upon me on one occasion,
to whom my aunt greatly objected, for, she said, referring to the
growth upon his upper lip, "No one but Tennessee hogdrivers and
brigands dress like that!" When Mr. Clay withdrew from the
Senate, in January, 1861, there were scarcely as many without
them. Side and chin whiskers were worn, if any, though the front
of the chin was seldom covered. Many of the most distinguished
statesmen wore their faces as smoothly shaven as the Romans of
old. Until late in the fifties, men, particularly legislators,
wore their hair rather long, a fashion which has been followed
more or less continuously among statesmen and scholars since wigs
were abandoned.

        This decade was also notable as that in which the first
radical efforts of women were made toward suffrage, and the
"Bloomer" costume became conspicuous in the capital. "Bloomers
are 'most as plenty as blackberries,'" I wrote home late in '56,
"and generally are followed by a long train of little boys and
ditto 'niggers'!"

        Nor were there lacking figures among the "stronger" sex
as eccentric as those of our women innovators. Of these, none was
more remarkable than "old Sam Houston." Whether in the street or
in his seat in the Senate, he was sure to arrest the attention of
everyone. He wore a leopard-skin vest, with a voluminous scarlet
neck-tie, and over his bushy grey locks rested an immense
sombrero.

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This remarkable headgear was made, it was said, from an
individual block to which the General reserved the exclusive
right. It was of grey felt, with a brim seven or eight inches
wide. Wrapped around his broad shoulders he wore a gaily coloured
Mexican serape, in which scarlet predominated. So arrayed, his
huge form, which, notwithstanding this remarkable garb, was
distinguished by a kind of inborn grandeur, towered above the
heads of ordinary pedestrians, and the appearance of the old
warrior, whether viewed from the front or the rear, was
altogether unique. Strangers stared at him, and street urchins
covertly grinned, but the Senatorial Hercules received all such
attentions from the public with extreme composure, not to say
gratification, as a recognition to which he was entitled.

        In the Senate, General Houston was an indefatigable
whistler. A seemingly inexhaustible supply of soft wood was
always kept in his desk and out of it he whittled stars and
hearts and other fanciful shapes, while he cogitated, his brows 
pleated in deep vertical folds, over the grave arguments of his
confrères. A great many conjectures were made as to the ultimate
use of these curious devices. I can, however, explain the fate of
one.

        As our party entered the gallery of the Senate on one
occasion, we caught the eye of the whittling Senator, who, with
completest sang-froid, suspended his occupation and blew us a
kiss; then with a plainly perceptible twinkle in his eye, he
resumed his usual occupation. A little while afterward one of the
Senate pages came up and handed me a most pretentious envelope.
It was capacious enough to have contained a package of government
bonds. I began to open the wrappings; they were mysteriously
manifold. When at last I had removed them all, I found within a
tiny, shiny, freshly whittled wooden heart, on which the roguish
old hero had inscribed, "Lady! I send thee my heart! Sam
Houston."

Page 100
        This remarkable veteran was seldom to be seen at social
gatherings, and I do not remember ever to have met him at a
dinner, but he called sometimes upon me on my weekly reception
days, and always in the remarkable costume I have described. He
had acquired, besides the Mexican-Spanish patois, a number of
Indian dialects, and nothing amused him more than to reduce to a
confused silence those who surrounded him, by suddenly addressing
them in all sorts of unknown words in these tongues. My own
spirit was not so to be crushed, and, besides, I had a lurking
doubt as to the linguistic value of the sounds he uttered. They
bore many of the indicia of the newly invented, and I did not
hesitate upon one occasion to enter upon a verbal contest of
gibberish on my side, and possibly on his, running the gamut of
emphasis throughout it; and, notwithstanding General Houston's
deprecations (in Indian dialect), sustained my part so seriously
that the tall hero at last yielded the floor and, wrapping his
scarlet serape about him, made his exit, laughing hilariously at
his own defeat.

Page 101

CHAPTER VII
THE RELAXATIONS OF CONGRESSIONAL FOLK
        IN that period of social activity it was no uncommon
thing for society women to find themselves completely exhausted
ere bedtime arrived. Often so tired was I that I have declared I
couldn't have wiggled an antennae had I numbered anything so
absurd and minute among my members! For my quicker recuperation,
after a day spent in the making of calls, or in entertainment,
with, it may be, an hour or two in the Senate gallery, in
preparation for the evening's pleasure, my invaluable maid, Emily
(for whom my husband paid $1,600), was wont to get out my
"shocking-box" (for so she termed the electrical apparatus upon
which I often depended), and, to a full charge of the magical
current and a half-hour's nap before dinner, I was indebted for
many a happy evening.
        Amid the round of dinners, and dances, and receptions, to
which Congressional circles are necessarily compelled the
pleasures of the theatre were only occasionally to be enjoyed.
Nor were the great artists of that day always to be heard at the
capital, and resident theatre and music-lovers not infrequently
made excursions to Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, in order
to hear to advantage some particularly noted star. Before our
advent in the capital it had been my good fortune, while
travelling in the North, to hear Grisi and Mario, the lovely
Bozio, and Jenny Lind, the incomparable Swede, whose concerts at
Castle Garden were such epoch-marking events to music-lovers in
America. I remember that one estimate of the audience present on
the occasion of my hearing the last-named

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cantatrice was placed at ten thousand. Whether or not this number 
was approximately correct I do not know, but seats and aisles in
the great hall were densely packed, and gentlemen in evening
dress came with campstools under their arms, in the hope of
finding an opportunity to place them, during a lull in the
programme, where they might rest for a moment.

        The wild enthusiasm of the vast crowds, the simplicity of
the singer who elicited it, have been recorded by many an abler
pen. Suffice to say that none have borne, I think, for a longer
time, a clearer remembrance of that triumphant evening. When, at
the end of the programme the fair, modest songstress came out,
music in hand, to win her crowning triumph in the rendering of a
familiar melody, the beauty of her marvellous art rose superior 
to the amusement which her broken English might have aroused, and
men and women wept freely and unashamed as she sang.

                        "Mid bleasures and balaces,
                         Do we may roam," etc.

        It was by way of a flight from the capital that Senator
Clay and I and a few congenial friends were enabled to hear
Parepa Rosa and Forrest; and Julia Dean, in "Ingomar," drew us to
the metropolis, as did Agnes Robertson, who set the town wild in
the "Siege of Sebastopol."

        I remember very well my first impression of Broadway,
which designation seemed to me a downright misnomer; for its
narrowness, after the great width of Pennsylvania Avenue, was at
once striking and absurd to the visitor from the capital. Upon
one of my visits to New York my attention was caught by a most
unusual sight. It was an immense equipage, glowing and gaudy
under the sun as one of Mrs. Jarley's vans. It was drawn by six
prancing steeds, all gaily caparisoned, while in the huge

Page 103
structure (a young house, "all but" -) were women in gaudy
costumes. A band of musicians were concealed within, and these
gave out some lively-melodies as the vehicle dashed gaily by the
Astor House (then the popular up-town hotel), attracting general
attention as it passed. Thinking a circus had come to town, I
made inquiry, when I learned to my amusement that the gorgeous
cavalcade was but an ingenious advertisement of the new Sewing
Machine!

        Charlotte Cushman, giving her unapproachable "Meg
Merrilies" in Washington, stirred the city to its depths. Her
histrionism was splendid, and her conversation in private proved
no less remarkable and delightful. "I could listen to her all
day," wrote a friend in a brief note. "I envy her her genius, and
would willingly take her ugliness for it! What is beauty compared
with such genius!"

End Part 2