"Suffice it to say that I reached Washington on Sunday morning--the day previous to the inauguration--found the hotels full and took lodgings at a private house a few hundred yards from the Capitol, and spent the early part of the day in inspecting the preparations made for the holiday show, in and about the Capitol building. The courtesy of Colonel Forney, then Clerk of the House, arranged for my admission to the building during the ceremonies of the next day; and that of Douglas Wallach, of the _Star_, furnished me a seat in the reporters' gallery of the Senate for that evening when the last session of the expiring Congress was to be held and a last effort made for putting through those 'compromise resolutions' which it was then believed might 'save the Union,' but which we now know to have been as useless, even if they could have been passed, as so much whistling against the wind. "Although it was Sunday, time was pressing, and the fate of the nation seemed to be hanging upon a breath; so the Senate had arranged a session for five o'clock, which seemed very likely to last well into the night, and was almost certain to be crowded to suffocation. As you will remember, it _did_ last until seven the next morning--after daylight, and witnessed one of the most exciting debates in the history of that body,--in which Baker of Oregon flashed out even more than usual of his patriotic eloquence; and white-haired, sad old Crittenden of Kentucky moaned out words of fear for the nation, that have since been but too truly realized; and Mason of Virginia showed more boldly than ever the cloven foot of the traitor who would not have reconciliation at any price; and Douglas rose above his short stature in alternately lashing one and the other of those whom he believed to be equally enemies to his type of conservatism. No one who sat out that session will ever forget it--but enough of this, which should be written and not spoken.