Inside the White House in War Times (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Inside the White House in War Times

Efore me on the table lies a small brass latch key. It has a worn-out look, as if it had served its time and had been honorably discharged, but if it had a tongue few other keys could tell so notable a history. During the administrations of seventeen successive Presidents of the United States, it opened the front door of the Executive Mansion at Washing ton. The lock it belonged to was put on when that house was built, and was replaced by a new one in the time of President Grant. In my own mind and memory, this key is associated with the years which I spent in and about the White House; the years of Lincoln's administration; the days of the Civil War; the terrible furnace time, during which, as it then and ever since has seemed to me, the old nation melted away and a new nation was moulded.

This is the year 1861, and although it is so early in the spring the weather is warm. Suppose we stroll toward the White House.

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