62 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. the inniilnirity of many of them with the patriarchal spectacle of emigrant columns moving across the Western prairies, the nomadic life which their ofliKrs have led among the Indian tribes, all these things lit them beyond any other soldiers in the world for this kind of life. This encampment of a hundred thousand men, the establishment of this city of tents, wa^ i really curious sight, it recalled tlm descriptions of the Bible: but there was little that was biblical in the forest of transport ships, most of them steamers, -which came up by water under a cloud of smoke as soon as the earn]) was fixed, and blowing off steam with a loud noise, hauled in to the banks and improvised wharves, which soon became scenes of extraordinary activity. Thousands of wasns hastened in from every side by roads which the axe had opened for them in a few minutes, and returned again loaded with all the commodities required by an army: biscuit, salted meat, coffee, sugar, barley, hay, corn. Then the sick were embarked, and alas ! the number of these constantly increased, for the season was at once rainy and intensely hot, and these lovely meadows of the l’amunkey gave birth to deadly fever. Then night would come on disturbed onl, by the tedious cry of the mocking-bird. V ith the next morning the flotilla and the army would resume their march, leaving behind them nature silent, but deflowered by their passage. On May the 16th we reached White House, a fine building once the property of Washington, and now of his descendants, the Lee family. The beadtif this family, General Lee, was one of the chief officers of the confederate army; one of his nephews was in the federal ranks. General McClellan, always careful to insist upon respect for private property stationed sentinels around the residence of the hostile general, forbade any out to enter it, and would not enter it himself. He planted his tent in a neighboring meadow. This respect for Southern property has been made a reproach to the Gene
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