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233 29 A New Lifein Washington On my return to the city, I at once secured a good boarding house and went to the Interior department concerning patents. A large pile had accumulated and I began to sign the President’s name at the rate of about nine hundred times per diem. During my three months of military service I had been a close student of war affairs and had really learned something. I kept up the study from that day forward and it led me to make the acquaintance of a large number of army and navy men of distinction. It has since been of value to me in my literary work. In social matters I had done more than at first I was aware of. For instance, it was natural for me at the beginning, to go to a Baptist church. It had not been an over loyal concern and I had not liked it. Moreover , it was now taken, with nearly all the others, for hospital purposes. I think it was at an earlier day than this that a member of Trinity Episcopal Church came to me with the story of the brave and splendid stand for the Union which had been made from the pulpit by that noble Christian man, Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall of Trinity church, Episcopal. All his Secession parishioners had left him in a body and all their pews were to be let on a day named. I was there to bid, with a determination to get the pew of Jeff Davis if possible. The said Davis was then engineering the Confederacy and he afterwards did much for it in both ways.1 I was just one minute too late for his pew but obtained a good one, well forward in the left middle aisle. Soon I became a personal friend of the Doctor and am so to this day, for I did not leave him, even when long afterwards, I gave up my pew to oblige somebody with a larger family, I forget who it was. 234 a new life in washington Before long came the battle of Bull Run and it has not at any time been half-described as to its Washington effects. That week in July was a strange experience, but I was not among the disheartened fellows, for I had an idea that it was what we needed to wake up the people to the reality of this thing. I had from the beginning expected a long, hard war. The Rifles had returned from upper Maryland after a curiously unmurderous campaign, and I went to see Major Smead as to what we were to do concerning further service. He was good enough to me, personally, but he strongly expressed his determination never again to “command a company of gentlemen.” He had failed to make West Pointers of several of them. I did not see him again for a long time but one day I met him on the Avenue, patrolling with three or four army officers. Every man was a Major, for they were quartermaster and the like. I took them all to Gautier’s, then the Delmonico’s of Washington, and gave them the biggest dinner the place could get up. It was a jolly time, but the next I heard of poor Smead he had been killed by a cannon shot while handling his battery bravely at the Second Bull Run battle. Of course, I went to the White House and it was but a few days after my return that I received orders to transfer myself to the correspondence desk in the northeast room which I was to occupy thenceforward. At first, I had to make visits to my old office to sign patents but that was ended by an order to have them all sent up to the White House for my presence there was needed hourly. It was one curious indication of the great change which was making in the machinery of the government. In quiet days, one private secretary had been enough and the law provided for only one, with the vast salary of twenty-five hundred dollars per annum . That post was now held by Mr. Nicolay. The Private Secretary to sign land patents was appointed under a law passed in 1836 when Andrew Jackson swore by the Eternal that he would not scrawl his name over any more blessed parchments. The salary of fifteen hundred...

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