1858.]

A RECITATION IN THE RAIN.

123

"I had read Macaulay's 'Lay,' but I had no conception of its power until I heard that recitation, always memorable to me, from the lips of my friend, John Mitchel. I had not heard or read the ballad of 'Charlemagne.' Mr. Mitchel informed me respecting its authorship and its translation, stating that the translation was made by Mr. Mangan, an Irish friend of his. I ordered the work, and in due course of time obtained from Dublin the copy of Mangan's 'Translations from Various German Poets,' which now lies before me. While we discussed questions growing out of these delightful recitations, we reached Knoxville, cheerful, notwithstanding the gloom and disagreeableness of the day. Mr. Mitchel's genius had triumphed over these!"

Colonel Crozier, the other friend named above, often gave Swan and Mitchel valuable aid in the editorial work of the Southern Citizen.

Those I have named were the principal ones-by no means all-of the friends whom John Mitchel left behind when he moved from Knoxville to Washington..

CHAPTER IV.

WASHINGTON-PARIS.

1858-1862.

AT Washington, John Mitchel and his family lived in the old house on Capitol Hill which had once been inhabited by Henry Clay. They were quite close to the Capitol. The city was spread out beneath them, and in the distance they could see the Potomac and the dark woodlands of Virginia.

The entire period of Mitchel's first residence at Washington did not exceed nine months. During that period most of his time was occupied with the work of the Southern Citizen. Yet he found time to see a good deal of society, and he seems to have enjoyed the society at Washington more than at any other American city he had yet lived in. His most intimate friend in Washington was Dr. Antisell, who, as the reader will remember, is mentioned in a letter of Mitchel's quoted above. Of this friend, he writes years

Dr. Antisell is a genuine man of science, if he does read Darwin; and, what is better, has been always a warm and sincere friend of ours since we arrived upon this continent; sometimes, as we thought, too sincere, for he has not scrupled to say disagreeable things-most sardonic, cynical, misanthropic remarks indeed, which, however, in the long run, make his friends like him the better. More genial misanthrope, in his own house-more jovial cynic was never known.

1862.]

WASHINGTON FRIENDS.

125

Next to Dr. Antisell he mentions General Shields as an intimate and valued friend. Of General Shields it is not necessary to say much to American or Irish-American readers. Mitchel has a good deal to say about him in the "Journal"; but I prefer to give here a description taken from a private letter. Writing to Miss Thompson under date April 24, 1859, Mitchel says:

I told you I would expound General Shields to you. I have known him for five years, but never so intimately as during this last session of Congress, and find him a very remarkable person. But I bethink myself that I have given some account of him in the last Citizen, to which I may add that his relations-two brothers, with their families-live in Altmore, a mountain district of Tyrone, between Dungannon and Omagh, that he himself came to this country a little boy "without a cent," that he is a man of great and deep enthusiasm, as well as great accomplishment, and would at this moment most gladly devote the remainder of his life (otherwise useless to him) in revolutionizing Ireland, if we had but a chance. He was the most brilliant and dashing of the leaders in the Mexican war, although, in American accounts of that affair, his name is as far as possible suppressed; but he commanded the brigade which contained some of the finest regiments, and after the war, one of the finest pageants was his visit to Charleston, where his progress through the streets was embarrassed by bouquets, and the state of South Carolina presented him with a superb jewelled sword. He had led the Palmetto regiment, in which that state takes great pride, and received a desperate wound. through the lungs while charging at their head. During this winter and spring the general has been very much with us, but has now set off for his home in Minnesota. He appears very much interested and attracted by Mr. O'Brien.

These, then, were their two principal friends. As to the rest of their Washington society and their enjoyment of it, I take the following from the "Journal" :

Meagher came often from New York. John Savage was a resident here some time before me, and his gaiety and jollity often enlivened the little society. He was then engaged in writing upon

a Washington newspaper, what sort of politics I forget, if I ever knew. He was very festive, frank, and funny in those days; had not yet been caught right into the very head-centre of a Fenian spider-web. Several families of our American neighbours on Capitol Hill have called on us, and we have found their company highly agreeable. We know many of the southern senators and representatives and their wives, from far away by the banks of cotton-bearing rivers or shores of the Mexican Sea; no northern members of either House at all-at least, at first-except Mr. Cox, from Ohio, whose wife then resided at Washington.

He says here that they knew no northern members of either house—at least, at first. The qualification is inserted in view of the fact that Mitchel afterwards came to be on friendly terms with several of the leading northerners— more especially with Mr. Seward.

The passage descriptive of General Shields, above quoted, ends with a reference to Mr. O'Brien. We have already seen that some few years previous to this year 1859, O'Brien and his comrades were released from their banishment in Van Diemen's Land, and allowed to return home. In the spring of 1859, O'Brien paid a visit to the United States. He arrived at New York towards the end of February, 1859. Congress was then still in session at Washington, but was to adjourn in four or five days. Mitchel at once wrote to O'Brien exhorting him to come on to Washington at once, as he might not soon again have as good an opportunity of meeting the leading men on either side. O'Brien came, and Mitchel was at the train to meet him.

John Mitchel and William Smith O'Brien had not met since Mitchel's escape from Van Diemen's Land. The meeting was extremely cordial on both sides. Mitchel brought O'Brien to spend the evening at his house. It was a pleasant evening for O'Brien; and as for Mitchel, I have no doubt that he was happier that evening than he

1862.]

VISIT OF O'BRIEN.

127

had been for years. What pleased him most was to observe how the distinguished Americans who crowded in to see O'Brien, at once and instinctively appreciated the innate nobility of his nature, and treated him accordingly. Here is his account of the evening in the "Journal":

His coming was soon noised abroad; I had myself informed many friends that I expected him; and so, after tea, distinguished statesmen began to pour in by twos and threes. The House and Senate were both in evening session; and our house being within two minutes' walk, members took occasion to step over and greet the noble exile. General Shields was there, of course, and his brown face was lighted up with pride; Seward, with his thin jaw and bird-like beak, spoke to O'Brien with extreme courtesy and cordiality. Old Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, was there; and my little squatter-sovereignty friend, Mr. Douglas; and Clay, of Alabama, looking more like a student than a senator; and Alexander H. Stephens presented his small keen face, much like that of Curran; and his brawny colleague, Robert Toombs, of Georgia. Carolinians and Mississippians; people from Louisiana and Massachusetts, from Virginia and Illinois, were there; and all testified most cordial respect and felicitation, which could not fail to be gratifying to our friend. "It is truly pleasing," he said to me afterwards, “to see all those gentlemen, of widely different politics, representing opposite poles of your American life, and on the eve, perhaps, of a contest more bitter and violent than ever before yet meeting together with so much good-humour and exchanging courtesies."

66

During O'Brien's stay at Washington there was a dinner-party at Mr. A. H. Stephens's, and another at Mr. Seward's, at both of which Mitchel was also a guest. Then there was a visit to the President, and a very friendly reception by him. Mr. Seward, no doubt, really liked O'Brien, but he was probably also anxious to do a stroke of business. He foresaw the possibility of a struggle between the North and South, and he desired to secure that Mr. O'Brien's influence with the Irish population should be