Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[423] destroy his Government, and to build upon its ruins a hideous empire founded upon human slavery. How altered the aspect! The mighty oaks of the fine old forest in the rear of the mansion had disappeared, and strewn thickly over the gently undulating ground, and shaded by a few of the smaller trees that the ax had spared, were the green graves of seven thousand of our countrymen — many of them of the flower of the youth of the Republic — who had died on the battle-field, in the camp, or in the hospital. It was a vast cemetery, belonging to the National Government, having long graveled lanes among the graves. Even in the garden, and along the crown of the green slope in front of the mansion, were seen little hillocks, covering the remains of officers. In the midst of this garner of the ghastly fruits of the treason of Lee and his associates — fruits that had been literally laid at his door--were the beautiful white marble monuments erected to the memory of the venerable Custis and his life-companion — the founders of “Arlington House” and the parents of Lee's wife. On that of the former we read the sweet words of Jesus, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Then we thought of Belle Island, in the James River, which we had just visited, and of the hundreds of our starved countrymen held there as prisoners in the blistering summer's sun and the freezing winter's storm, into whose piteous faces, where every lineament was a tale of unutterable suffering vainly pleading in mute eloquence for mercy, Robert E. Lee might have looked any hour of the day with his field-glass from the rear gallery of his elegant brick mansion on Franklin Street, in Richmond. It seemed almost as if there was a voice in the air, saying, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” ¹

While army and navy officers were abandoning their flag, it was painfully evident to the President and his Cabinet that Washington City was full of resident traitors, who were ready to assist in its seizure. Many of the District militia, who had been enrolled for the defense of the Government, were known to be disloyal;² and when, on the 18th of April, word came to some guests — true men — at Willard's Hotel, that a large body of Virginians were to seize Harper's Ferry and its munitions of war, and the rolling stock of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, that evening, and, during the night, make a descent upon the Capital, while secessionists in Washington were to rise in rebellion, set fire to barns and other combustible buildings, and, in the confusion and terror that conflagration would produce, join the invaders, and make the seizure of the President and his Cabinet, the archives of the Government, and public buildings an easy task, it seemed as if the prophecy of Walker, at Montgomery,³ was about to be fulfilled. It was one of those