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Ten Years in Washington / or, Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them ... to Which Is Added a Full Account of the Life and Death of President James A. Garfield cover

Ten Years in Washington / or, Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them ... to Which Is Added a Full Account of the Life and Death of President James A. Garfield

Chapter 1: TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON:
By Mary Clemmer
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About This Book

A decade-long insider’s portrait of the national capital combines personal observation, social reportage, and institutional description. The author chronicles daily life at the executive mansion, the inner workings of Congress and federal departments, and the routines of the Treasury, Post Office, Patent Office, Army Medical Museum, and government conservatory. Chapters examine political customs, public ceremonies, and the roles women occupy in federal offices, using anecdotes and descriptive tours to illuminate everyday operations. An appended account recounts the life and death of a recent president, rounding the work with both human interest and administrative detail.

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Title: Ten Years in Washington

Author: Mary Clemmer

Contributor: J. L. Shipley

Release date: September 16, 2021 [eBook #66318]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: The Hartford Publishing Company, 1881

Credits: KD Weeks, Andrew Sly, MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON ***
Transcriber’s Note:

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the original text in a small popup.

Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the note at the end of the text.

Engd by Geo. E. Perine N. York.

Mary Clemmer Ames

A.D. WORTHINGTON & Co.
Hartford.

TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON:

OR,
INSIDE LIFE AND SCENES
IN
OUR NATIONAL CAPITAL
As a Woman Sees Them.
EMBRACING
A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE MANY MARVELS AND INTERESTING
SIGHTS OF WASHINGTON; OF THE DAILY LIFE AT THE WHITE HOUSE, BOTH PAST
AND PRESENT; OF THE WONDERS AND INSIDE WORKINGS OF ALL OUR
GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS; AND DESCRIPTIONS AND REVELATIONS
OF EVERY PHASE OF POLITICAL, PUBLIC, AND
SOCIAL LIFE AT THE NATION’S CAPITAL.
By MARY CLEMMER,
Author of “Memorials of Alice and Phœbe Cary,” “A Woman’s Letters from Washington,” etc., etc.
TO WHICH IS ADDED A FULL ACCOUNT OF
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD,
BY J. L. SHIPLEY, A. M.
FULLY ILLUSTRATED
With a Portrait of the Author on Steel, and Forty-Eight fine Engravings on Wood.
[SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY.]
HARTFORD, CONN.:
THE HARTFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY.
EXCELSIOR PUBLISHING CO., CHICAGO, ILL.
OHIO PUBLISHING CO., CLEVELAND, OHIO.
1882.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by
THE HARTFORD PUBLISHING CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
1. Fine Steel-Plate Portrait of the Author, [Frontispiece.]
2. Columbia Slave Pen, To face page 48
3. The Freedman’s Savings Bank, 48
4. Smithsonian Institute, 48
5. Major L’Enfant’s Resting Place, 48
6. The National Capitol—Washington, 72
  It covers more than three and a half acres. Over thirteen million dollars have thus far been expended in its erection.
7. The Marble Room—Inside the Capitol—Washington, 95
8. The Senate Chamber—Inside the Capitol—Washington, 98
9. The Hall of Representatives—Inside the Capitol—Washington, 100
10. The Ladies’ Reception Room—Inside the Capitol—Washington, 120
11. The Central Room, Congressional Library—Inside the Capitol—Washington, 130
12. The Red Room—Inside the White House—Washington, 169
13. The Conservatory—Inside the White House—Washington, 174
14. The Cabinet Room—Inside the White House—Washington, 238
15. The Blue Room—Inside the White House—Washington, 246
16. The Great East Room—Inside the White House, Washington, 258
17. The Green Room—Inside the White House—Washington, 258
18. United States Treasury—Washington, 284
19. Making Money—The Room in the Treasury Building where the Greenbacks are Printed, 319
20. Among the Greenbacks—the Cutting and Separating Room in the Treasury Building, 322
21. Burnt to Ashes—The End of Uncle Sam’s Greenbacks, 337
  The above is a graphic sketch of the destruction of the worn and defaced currency constantly being redeemed by the Government, which is here burned every day at 12 o’clock. On one occasion considerably more than one hundred million dollars’ worth of bonds and greenbacks were destroyed in this furnace, and the burning of from fifty to seventy-five millions at a time is a matter of ordinary occurrence.
22. The New Marble Cash-Room, United States Treasury, 340
The most costly and magnificent room of its kind in the world.
23. Counting Worn and Defaced Greenbacks and Detecting Counterfeits, 354
  This room is in the Redemption Bureau, Treasury-Building. Over One Hundred Thousand Dollars’ worth of Fractional Currency alone is here daily received for redemption: out of which about Three Hundred and Fifty Dollars’ worth of counterfeit money is detected, stamped, and returned.
24. The Lobby of the Senate—Inside the Capitol—Washington, 382
25. Dead-Letter Office, U. S. General Post-Office—Washington, 398
26. The Model-Room—Patent Office—Washington, 438
  This room contains the fruits of the inventive genius of the whole nation. More than 160,000 models are here deposited.
27. Blood-Stained Confederate Battle-Flags, Captured during the War, 462
  Sketched by permission of the Government from the large collection in possession of the War Department, at Washington.
1. Black Flag. 4. State and Regiment unknown. [Captured at the Battle of Gettysburg, by the 60th Regiment of New York Volunteers.]
2. Alabama Flag.
3. Palmetto Flag. 5. State Colors of North Carolina.
28. The New Building now being constructed for Departments of State, Army, and Navy—Washington, 466
29. The Main Hall of the Army Medical Museum—Washington, 476
  This Museum occupies the scene of the assassination of President Lincoln, in Ford’s Theatre, which after that date became the property of the Government. It contains a collection of upwards of twenty thousand rare, curious and interesting objects, surpassing any similar collection in the world. It is visited annually by upwards of twenty-five thousand persons.
30. Curiosities from the Army Medical Museum, 482
31. A Withered Arm, 482
  Skin, flesh, and bones complete. Amputated by a cannon-shot on the battle-field of Gettysburg. The shot carried the severed limb up into the high branches of a tree, where it was subsequently found, completely air and sun-dried.
32. Skull of a Man, 482
  Who received an arrow-wound in the head, three gun-shot flesh-wounds, one in the arm, another in the breast, and a third in the leg. Seven days afterwards he was admitted to the hospital at Fort Concha, Texas, (where he subsequently died,) after having travelled above 160 miles on the barren plains, mostly on foot.
33. Apache Indian Arrow-Head, 482
  Of soft hoop-iron. These arrows will perforate a bone without causing the slightest fracture, where a rifle or musket-ball will flatten; and will make a cut as clean as the finest surgical instrument.
34. Skull of Little Bear’s Squaw, 482
  Perforated by seven bullet-holes. Killed in Wyoming Territory.
35. All that Remains Above Ground of John Wilkes Booth, 482
  Being part of the Vertebræ penetrated [A] by the bullet of Boston Corbett. Strange freak of fate that the remains of Booth should find a resting-place under the same roof, and but a few feet from the spot where the fatal shot was fired.
36. Skull of a Soldier, 482
  Wounded at Spottsylvania; showing the splitting of a rifle-ball—one portion being buried deep in the brain, and the other between the scalp and the skull. He lived twenty-three days.
37. A Sioux Pappoose, 482
  Or Indian infant, found in a tree near Fort Laramie, where it had been buried (?) according to the custom of this tribe.
38. Skull of an Indian, 482
  Showing nine distinct sabre wounds.
39. “Old Probabilities’” Instrument Room, 504
  Storm and Weather Signal Service Bureau—Washington.
40. Tropical Fruits—Inside the Government Conservatory—Washington, 545
41. The Dome and Spiral Staircase; Rare Plants and Flowers—Inside the Government Conservatory—Washington, 546
42. Tropical Plants and Flowers—Inside the Government Conservatory—Washington, 548
43. The Van Ness Mansion, and Davy Burns’ Cottage, 550
44. The Capitol as seen from Pennsylvania Ave.—Washington, 550
45. View of the “City of the Slain”—Arlington, 582
  The remains of over 8,000 soldiers, killed during the war, lie buried in this Cemetery—the name, regiment, and date of death of each is painted on a wooden head-board.
46. The Tomb of “The Unknown”—Arlington, 586
  Erected by the Government to the memory of Unknown Soldiers killed during the War. It bears the following inscription:
“Beneath this stone
repose the bones of Two Thousand One Hundred and Eleven unknown
soldiers, gathered after the war,
from the fields of Bull Run and the route to the Rappahannock.
Their remains could not be identified; but their names and deaths are
recorded in the archives of their country, and its grateful citizens
honor them as of their noble army of Martyrs. May they rest in peace!
September, A. D. 1866.”
47. Portrait of James A. Garfield, the Martyr President, 588
  Engraved from a recent photograph.
48. Portrait of Mrs. James A. Garfield, Wife of the Martyr President, 600
  Engraved from a recent photograph.