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| Government bakeries at the Capitol. |
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by the preceding Administration, and you will find the firm resolution of a people uprising.
Who speaks of the end of the United States?
This end seemed approaching but lately, in the hour of prosperity; then, honor was compromised, esteem for the country was lowered, institutions were becoming corrupted apace; the moment seemed approaching when the confederation, tainted with Slavery, could not but perish with it. Now, every thing has changed in aspect.
The friends of America should take confidence, for its greatness is inseparable, thank God!
from the cause of justice.
Justice can not do wrong. I like to recall this maxim, when I consider the present state of America.”
1
At the middle of May, Washington City was safe, for thousands of well-armed loyal men were within its borders.
Troops were quartered in the immense Patent Office building.
The Capitol was a vast citadel Its legislative halls, its rotunda, and other rooms were filled with soldiery, and its basement galleries were converted into store-rooms for barrels of beef, pork, and other materials for army rations in great abundance.
Under the direction of Lieutenant T. J. Cate, of the Massachusetts Sixth, the vaults under the broad terrace on the western front of the Capitol were converted into bakeries, where sixteen thousand loaves of bread were bake d every day. The chimneys of the ovens pierced the terrace at the junction of the freestone pavement and the grassy slope of the glacis, as seen in the picture; and there for months,
smoke poured forth in dense black columns like the issues of a smoldering volcano Before the summer had begun Washington City was an immense garrisoned town, and strong fortifications
1 The Uprising of a Great People: by Count Agenor de Gasparin. Translated by Mary L. Booth. These sentences were written in March, 1861, just after President Lincoln's Inaugural Address reached Europe, and when the legislative proceedings a nd public meetings in the Free-labor States were just made known there, and gave assurance that the great body of the Nation was loyal and would sustain the incoming Administration. Speaking of the departure of Mr. Lincoln for Washington, and the farewell to his friends and neighbors, mentioned on page 275, the Count exclaims: “What a debut for a Government! Haven there been many inauguration s here below of such thrilling solemnity? Do uniforms and plumes, the roar of cannon, triumphal arches, and vague appeals to Providence, equal these simple words, ‘Pray for me!’ ‘We will pray for you.’ Ah! courage, Lincoln! the friends of freedom and of America are with you. Courage! you hold in your hands the destinies of a great principle and of a great people. Courage! you have to resist your friends and to face your foes; it is the fate of all who seek to do good on the earth. Courage! you will have need of it to-morrow, in a year. to the end; you will have need of it in peace and in war; you will have need of it to avert the compromise, in peace or war, of that noble progress which it is your charge to accomplish, more than in conquests of Slavery,! Courage! your role, as you have said, may be inferior to no other, not even to that of Washington: to raise up the United States will not be less glorious than to have founded them.”
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