came so familiar that the dweller almost ceased to
notice it. The city was defended by a row of earthworks, generally
not far inside the boundary line of the District of Columbia,
say five or six miles from the central portions of the city.
One of the circumstances connected with their plans strikingly
illustrates the exactness which the science or art of military
engineering had reached. Of course the erection of fortifications
was one of the first tasks to be undertaken by the War Department.
Plans showing the proposed location and arrangements of the several
forts were drawn up by a board of army engineers, at whose head,
then or afterward, stood General John G. Barnard. When the plans
were complete, it was thought advisable to test them by calling in the
advice of Professor D. H. Mahan of the Military Academy at West Point.
He came to Washington, made a careful study of the maps and plans,
and was then driven around the region of the lines to be defended
to supplement his knowledge by personal inspection. Then he laid
down his ideas as to the location of the forts. There were but
two variations from the plans proposed by the Board of Engineers,
and these were not of fundamental importance.

Willard's Hotel, then the only considerable one in the neighborhood of
the executive offices, was a sort of headquarters for arriving army
officers, as well as for the thousands of civilians who had business
with the government, and for gossip generally. Inside its crowded
entrance one could hear every sort of story, of victory or disaster,
generally the latter, though very little truth was ever to be gleaned.

The newsboy flourished. He was a bright fellow too, and may have
developed into a man of business, a reporter, or even an editor.
"Another great battle!" was his constant cry. But the purchaser of
his paper would commonly read of nothing but a skirmish or some fresh
account of a battle fought several days before--perhaps not even this.
On one occasion an officer in uniform, finding nothing in his paper
to justify the cry, turned upon the boy with the remark,--

"Look here, boy, I don't see any battle here."

"No," was the reply, "nor you won't see one as long as you hang around
Washington. If you want to see a battle you must go to the front."

The officer thought it unprofitable to continue the conversation,
and beat a retreat amid the smiles of the bystanders. This story,
I may remark, is quite authentic,