Ellsworth was too generous to bear an immortal grudge for a deed like
that, done in hot blood, and by no skulking enemy. The memorial-hunters
have completely cut away the original wood-work around the spot, with
their pocket-knives; and the staircase, balustrade, and floor, as well
as the adjacent doors and doorframes, have recently been renewed; the
walls, moreover, are covered with new paper-hangings, the former having
been torn off in tatters; and thus it becomes something like a
metaphysical question whether the place of the murder actually exists.
Driving out of Alexandria, we stopped on the edge of the city to
inspect an old slave-pen, which is one of the lions of the place, but a
very poor one; and a little farther on, we came to a brick church where
Washington used sometimes to attend service,--a pre-Revolutionary
edifice, with ivy growing over its walls, though not very luxuriantly.
Reaching the open country, we saw forts and camps on all sides; some of
the tents being placed immediately on the ground, while others were
raised over a basement of logs, laid lengthwise, like those of a
log-hut, or driven vertically into the soil in a circle,--thus forming
a solid wall, the chinks closed up with Virginia mud, and above it the
pyramidal shelter of the tent.
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