6 to 1884 we had as
Secretaries of War in succession, the Hon's. Alphonso Taft, J. D.
Cameron, George W. McCrary, Alexander Ramsey, and R. T. Lincoln,
with each and all of whom I was on terms of the most intimate and
friendly relations.

And here I will record of Washington that I saw it, under the magic
hand of Alexander R. Shepherd, grow from a straggling, ill-paved
city, to one of the cleanest, most beautiful, and attractive cities
of the whole world. Its climate is salubrious, with as much
sunshine as any city of America. The country immediately about it
is naturally beautiful and romantic, especially up the Potomac, in
the region of the Great Falls; and, though the soil be poor as
compared with that of my present home, it is susceptible of easy
improvement and embellishment. The social advantages cannot be
surpassed even in London, Paris, or Vienna; and among the resident
population, the members of the Supreme Court, Senate, House of
Representatives, army, navy, and the several executive departments,
may be found an intellectual class one cannot encounter in our
commercial and manufacturing cities. The student may, without tax
and without price, have access, in the libraries of Congress and of
the several departments, to books of every nature and kind; and the
museums of natural history are rapidly approaching a standard of
comparison with the best of the world. Yet it is the usual and
proper center of political intrigue, from which the army especially
should keep aloof, because the army must be true and faithful to
the powers that be, and not be subjected to a temptation to favor
one or other of the great parties into which our people have
divided, and will continue to divide, it may be, with advantage to
the whole.

It would be a labor of love for me, in this connection, to pay a
tribute of respect, by name, to the many able and most patriotic
officers with whom I was so long associated as the commanding
generals of military divisions and departments, as well as
staff-officers; but I must forego the temptation, because of the
magnitude of the subject, certain that each and all of them will
find biographers better posted and more capable than myself; and I
would also like to make recognition of the hundreds of acts of most
graceful hospitality on the part of the officers and families at
our remote military posts in the days, of the "adobe," the "jacal,"
and "dug-out," when a board floor and a shingle roof