let them vote the supplies and have done with it. Was it probable
that General McClellan should have time to answer questions about
Ball's Bluff--and he with such a job of work on his hands? Congress
could of course vote what committees of military inquiry it might
please, and might ask questions without end; but we all know to what
such questions lead, when the questioner has no power to force an
answer by a penalty. If it might be possible to maintain the
semblance of respect for Congress, without too much embarrassment to
military secretaries, such semblance should be maintained; but if
Congress chose to make itself really disagreeable, then no semblance
could be kept up any longer. That, as far as I could judge, was the
position of Congress in the early months of 1862; and that, under
existing circumstances, was perhaps the only possible position that
it could fill.

All this to me was very melancholy. The streets of Washington were
always full of soldiers. Mounted sentries stood at the corners of
all the streets with drawn sabers--shivering in the cold and
besmeared with mud. A military law came out that civilians might
not ride quickly through the street. Military riders galloped over
one at every turn, splashing about through the mud, and reminding
one not unfrequently of John Gilpin. Why they always went so fast,
destroying their horses' feet on the rough stones, I could never
learn. But I, as a civilian, given as Englishmen are to trotting,
and furnished for the time with a nimble trotter, found myself
harried from time to time by muddy men with sabers, who would dash
after me, rattling their trappings, and bid me go at a slower pace.
There is a building in Washington, built by private munificence and
devoted, according to an inscription which it bears, "To the Arts."
It has been turned into an army clothing establishment. The streets