REMINISCENCES 81
We remained a day or two in New York at the old Astor House. I put in the time sight seeing. I climbed to the top of Trinity church, walked from the Battery to Central Park, and saw more of New York City in one day than many people born and raised there had seen in a HTe time. On the cars, going from Jersey City to Washington, Mr. Hen- derson introduced me to Senator Charles Sumner of Massa- chusetts, the famous champion of freedom.
The first day in Washington I visited the dome of the capital, the Smithsonian Institute, the patent office and many of the public buildings, and saw more of the city than many who had resided there all their lives.
Before Congress assembled Mr. Henderson and I went to Richmond and Petersburg, Va., to see the famous battlefield of Petersburg where the last great battle was fought between the Union and Confederate armies before Lee surrendered
to Grant.
As my position in Washington was a pleasant one, and I was promoted from time to time, I remained there about fourteen years, during the sessions of Congress, serving nearly twelve years as clerk in the U. S. Senate, going home to Oregon or visiting other places when Congress was not in session, cross- ing the continent on the Union and Central Pacific railroads eight times, both ways, after they were completed in 1869. C. P. Huntington, Vice-President of the Central Pacific, was the manager in the East, and was around Congress a great deal. His tall form was quite familiar to me, and also his handwriting, for he occasionally wrote me passes and signed them, and they were as good as gold with any conductor or officer of the road. He was a big man, mentally and finan- cially, as well as physically, and his word or written order was law all along the line.
In 1867 I attended a Fourth of July celebration on the battlefield of Manassas Junction or Bull Run. Senator John
