Let Us Suppose That A Courteous Frenchman Ventures An Opinion
Among Englishmen That Wellington Was A Great General, Would He Feel
Disposed To Go On With His Eulogium When Encountered On Two Or Three
Sides At Once With Such Observations As The Following:
"I should
rather calculate he was; about the first that ever did live or ever
will live.
Why, he whipped your Napoleon everlasting whenever he
met him. He whipped everybody out of the field. There warn't
anybody ever lived was able to stand nigh him, and there won't come
any like him again. Sir, I guess our Wellington never had his likes
on your side of the water. Such men can't grow in a down-trodden
country of slaves and paupers." Under such circumstances the
Frenchman would probably be shut up. And when I strove to speak of
Washington I generally found myself shut up also.
Arlington Heights, when I was at Washington, was the headquarters of
General McDowell, the general to whom is attributed - I believe most
wrongfully - the loss of the battle of Bull's Run. The whole place
was then one camp. The fences had disappeared. The gardens were
trodden into mud. The roads had been cut to pieces, and new tracks
made everywhere through the grounds. But the timber still remained.
Some no doubt had fallen, but enough stood for the ample
ornamentation of the place. I saw placards up, prohibiting the
destruction of the trees, and it is to be hoped that they have been
spared.
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