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Ex-President John Tyler, who had been elected Vice-President under Harrison, prevailed on President Buchanan to issue an order, late in the evening of the 21st of February, revoking the parade.
This order was issued over the heads of General Scott and the new Secretary of War Holt.
On the next day General Sickles persuaded the President to withdraw his order and permit the parade to take place.
This was done so late in the afternoon that Scott's exhibit of his forces showed only two companies of the United States troops taking part in the procession on the 22d in honor of the birthday of the “Father of the country.”
Scott's attempt, therefore, to show the strength of his army, and so avert threatened danger to Lincoln, only resulted in showing its weakness.
The whole number of troops was insignificant enough, but thus by a trick the whole Southern people were made to believe that the United States army then in defence of Washington was scarcely more than a trifle.
The reader will remember that this same Tyler was the delegate from Virginia in the Peace Convention who made a speech protesting against the mounting of cannon in Fortress Monroe, pointing over the “sacred soil of Virginia.”
The “Peace Congress,” as we have seen, came to nought or worse.
With all Scott's loyalty and zeal he could get but a mere handful of troops into Washington.
That he was both loyal and zealous is shown by his declaration to Douglas that he “had fought fifty years under the flag, and would fight for it, and under it, till death,” which was to his high honor and glory.
The population of Washington was substantially secession, and much of it virulently so. Hundreds of clerks in the departments during this winter resigned their positions.
Several thousand troops were assembling at Harper's Ferry, and two thousand more were below Washington near Fort Washington, one of the outer defences of the city.
The rebels relied on the accession of large numbers from Baltimore, only thirty odd miles away by railroad.
The Sixth Regiment of my brigade arrived in Washington on the 19th of April, having been obstructed, and some of them murdered, in their passage through Baltimore.
From that hour Washington could get no reliable communication from any source; the wires had been cut, and the bridges of
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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