's shortcomings,--its inherent and almost universal
corruption. Human nature was here so depraved, that man lost faith in
his kind. Death lurked behind ambuscades and fortifications over the
river, but Sin, its mother, coquetted _here_, and as an American, I
often went to bed, loathing the Capital, as but little better than
Sodom, though its danger had called forth thousands of great hearts to
throb out, in its defence. For every stone in the Capitol building, a
man has laid down his life. For every ripple on the Potomac, some
equivalent of blood has been shed.

I lodged for some time in Tenth Street, and took my meals at Willard's.
The legitimate expenses of living in this manner were fourteen dollars a
week; but one could board at Kirkwood's or Brown's for seven or eight
dollars, very handsomely. A favorite place of excursion, near the city,
was "Crystal Spring," where some afternoon orgies were enacted, which
should have made the sun go into eclipse. I repaired once to Mount
Vernon, and looked dolorously at the tomb of the _Pater Patris_, and
once to Annapolis, on the Chesapeake, which the war has elevated into a
fine naval station.

At length Pope's forces were being massed along the line of the
Rappahannock, below the Occoquan river, and upon the "Piedmont"
highlands. "Piedmont" is the name applied to the fine table-lands of
Northern Virginia, and the ensuing campaign has received the designation
of the "Piedmont Campaign." Pope's army proper was composed of three
corps, commanded respectively by Generals Irvin McDowell, Franz Siegel,
and Nathaniel P. Banks. But a portion of General McClellan's peninsular
army had meantime returned to the Potomac, and the corps of General
Burnside was stationed at Fredericksburg, thirty miles or more below
Pope's head-quarters at Warrenton.

I presented myself to General Pope on the 12th of July, at noon. His
Washington quarters consisted of a quiet brick house, convenient to the
War office, and the only tokens of its importance were some guards at
the threshold, and a number of officers' horses, saddled in the shade of
some trees at the curb. The lower floor of the dwelling was appropriated
to quartermasters' and inspectors' clerks, before whom a number of
people were constantly presenting themselves, with applications for
passes;--sutlers, in great quantities, idlers, relic-hunters, and
adventurers in still greater ratio, and, last of all, citizens of
Virginia, solicitous to r