consultation with the
President's private secretary, whose desk was in the same room. Casual
visitors were simply announced by an usher, and were received whenever
business did not prevent. Mr. Davis' manner was unvarying in its quiet
and courtesy, drawing out all that one had to tell, and indicating by
brief answer, or criticism, that he had extracted the pith from it. At
that moment he was the very idol of the people; the grand embodiment to
them of their grand cause; and they gave him their hands unquestioning,
to applaud any move soever he might make. And equally unthinking as
this popular manifestation of early hero-worship, was the clamor that
later floated into Richmond on every wind, blaming the government--and
especially its head--for every untoward detail of the facile descent to
destruction.

A better acquaintance with the Confederate Capital impressed one still
more with its likeness to Washington toward the end of the session; but
many features of that likeness were salient ones, which had marred and
debased the older city. The government just organizing, endless places
of profit, of trust, or of honor, were to be filled; and for each and
every one of them was a rush of jostling and almost rabid claimants.
The skeleton of the regular army had just been articulated by Congress,
but the bare bones would soon have swelled to more than Falstaffian
proportions, had one in every twenty of the ardent aspirants been
applied as matter and muscle. The first "gazette" was watched for with
straining eyes, and naturally would follow aching hearts; for
disappointment here first sowed the dragon's teeth that were to spring
into armed opponents of the unappreciative power.

The whole country was new. Everything was to be done--to be made; and
who was so capable for both, in their own conceit, as that swarm of
worn-out lobbymen and contractors who, having thoroughly exploited "the
old concern," now gathered to gorge upon the new. And by the hundred
flocked hither those unclean birds, blinking bleared eyes at any chance
bit, whetting foul bills to peck at carrion from the departmental
sewer. Busy and active at all hours, the lobby of the Exchange, when
the crowd and the noise rose to the flood at night, smacked no little
of pandemonium. Every knot of men had its grievance; every flag in the
pavement was a rostrum. Slowness of organization, the weakness of
Congress, secession of the border states, personnel of the Cabinet an