Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
South, and it furnished the theme for the most popular and inspiring
song of the Civil War:
"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on."
THE GREAT FALLS AND ALEXANDRIA.
The Potomac continues its picturesque course below Harper's Ferry, and
passes the Point of Rocks, a promontory of the Catoctin Mountain, a
prolongation of the Blue Ridge. There were battles fought all about,
the most noted being at South Mountain and Antietam, to the northward,
in September, 1862; while it was at Frederick, fifteen miles away,
during this campaign, that Barbara Frietchie was said to have waved
the flag as Stonewall Jackson marched through the town, immortalized
in Whittier's poem. Here is buried Francis Scott Key, author of the
"Star-Spangled Banner," who died in 1843, and a handsome monument was
erected to his memory in 1898. The Potomac reaches its Great Falls
about fifteen miles above Washington, where it descends eighty feet
in about two miles, including a fine cataract thirty-five feet high.
Below this is the "Cabin John Bridge," with one of the largest stone
arches in the world, of two hundred and twenty feet span, built for
the Washington Aqueduct, carrying the city water supply from the Great
Falls. On Wesley Heights, to the northward, the new American
University of the Methodist Church is being constructed.
Below Washington, the river passes the ancient city of Alexandria, a
quaint old Virginian town, which was formerly of considerable
commercial importance, but is now quiet and restful, and cherishing
chiefly the memory of George Washington, who lived at Mount Vernon, a
few miles below, and was its almost daily visitor to transact his
business and go to church and entertainments. The tradition is that
Madison, who was chairman of the Committee of Congress, selected
Alexandria for the "Federal City," intending to erect the Capitol on
Shooters' Hill, a mile out of town, as grand an elevation as the hill
in Washington; but he was overruled by the President because the
latter hesitated to thus favor his native State. Had Madison had his
way, the town probably would not now be so sleepy. The modest little
steeple of Christ Church, where Washington was a vestryman, rises back
of the town, and his pew, No. 5, is still shown, for which, when the
church was built and consecrated in 1773, the records show that he
paid thirty-six pounds, ten shillings. To construct this church and
another at the Falls, the vestry of Fairfax parish, in 1766, levied an
assessment of 31,185 pounds of tobacco, and the rector's salary was
also paid in tobacco. After the Revolution, to help support the
church, Washington and seven others signed an agreement in the
vestry-book to each pay five pounds annual rental for the pews they
owned. Robert E. Lee was baptized and confirmed and attended
Sunday-school in this old church, and tablets in memory of Washington
and Lee were inserted in the church wall in 1870. At the Carey House,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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