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Anonymous AMs, circa 1865-70? 29pp. Before the smoke had dissipated from the ashes of the Civil War, historians, journalists, and other interested parties began to dispute every detail of life under the Union and Confederacy. This manuscript, apparently written near or shortly after the end of the war, is a first hand account of life in the capitol cities of the warring brothers, focusing not merely on giving a sense of what it was like to live there during the war, but subtly, to give an idea of the nations (or would-be nations) they represented. The author of the incomplete essay spares few from his a caustic pen and jaundiced eye. Beginning with a well-rounded and rollicking tour of Washington, the author, in keeping with the typical travel writing of the day, includes an obligatory, mean-spirited reference to the free black population in the city. `Besides the individual eccentricities,` he writes, `there were generic characters indigenous to Washington. The first of there were the Washington domestics, a class of venerable ebonies that were presumed to have ornamented the household of the great chief. `Big John` headed the list by common consent, he had been by tradition the Fabian coachman, but preserved no evidences of the fact beyond a head of white wool, and a statement that he was one hundred and twenty years of age. This account of himself passed all understanding , but his lucidity at the sight of a dime was wonderful to beholdÂ….` His target in this essay, however, is less social satire than it is political satire; the essay is a somewhat disdainful portrait of a political culture than it is a dismissal of American character itself. Corruption, the author insists, was rampant in Washington during the war, even if it had not been during the earlier, more idealistic days of the republic: `Every state in the Union was represented by Sharpers. The lobby rivaled the army in numbers. No threat could intimidate, no exposure abash the unprincipled `patriots` that plundered and made merry during the general desolation. Every variety of adventurer competed for contacts from butchers who haggled for hides, tallow, and camp offal, to Merchant Princes who bargained for gun boats, field batteries, and monster ordnance. Embalmer clamored for the bodies of the slain. Inventors plied the arsenal grounds with motley models of tents, knapsacks, rifles, and projectilesÂ….` After a breathless account of the soldiers and civilians flooding the city, the writer turned to the president himself, a man who seems to represent the American people: `The plain country gentleman who had fortuitously been placed at the head of affairs,` the writer suggests, `looked ruefully upon these excesses [in corruption]. Conscientiously honest himself, he lacked discrimination to detect the villainies of his subordinates and resoluteness to punish them. He would have been in peace a model president, for he was one of the people and as amiable as he was sincere; but in emergency he was timid and indecisive. No ruler was ever so unfortunate that meant so well. The knaves who listened to his anecdotes picked hi pockets as they laughedÂ…. He made merriment wherever he was. The mere mention of his name brought happiness to the eyes of soldiers, and I do not believe that any citizen harbored a doubtful or malicious thought toward himÂ….` Illustrating his view of Lincoln, the author writes of riding out one day from his lodging, only to hear what sounded like gunfire by the river. There he found a small tent that `stood close to the brink, from which projected the long rakish barrel of a repeating rifle. The president had come thus early from his bed to superintend the firing and I found him upon his knees, turning the crank, his face aglow, and shouting boyishly at the fine results attainedÂ….` Richmond fares little better in the analysis, the writer stating dryly that the `means whereby secession was developed were not such as impartial history will entirely applaud.` Perhaps the apple does not fall far from the tree, but the author of the essay concluded that Confederate political leaders were little better than the dishonest horde in Washington, and he concludes that in many ways, secession was a dishonest movement from the start, led by dishonest men. `It was in the wrangle of conventions and the whisper of secret cabals that disunion was fomented,` he wrote. `It tampered with officers of the army and navy, seduced commanders of Forts and Arsenals, and made the first step toward devotion to the new government, perjury to the old. Neither Federals nor Confederates have waged war for the realization of any abstract or universal idea. It is a struggle of interests alone, found upon rival and selfish ambitions. Each is thoroughly aroused, each persuades itself that it is right, each has sacrificed largely, and each invokes for its cause God, freedom, and humanityÂ….` An excellent example of a dyspeptic, first hand account of life in the nation`s (nations`) capitols during the Civil War, with some extraordinary anecdotes about Abraham Lincoln.

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