Gen. Braxton indicated that the Nome district would compare for richness with the celebrated KLONDIKE (q. v.) region. In the short season of 1899 the yield in gold from this section alone was estimated at $1,500,000. Cape Fear, ACTION AT. Bragg was in command of the Confederates in the Cape Fear region at the time of the fall of Fort Fisher, and General Hoke was his most efficient leader. He held Fort Anderson, a large earthwork about halfway between Fort Fisher and Wilmington. Gen. Alfred Terry did not think it prudent to advance on Wilmington until he should be reinforced. To effect this, General Grant ordered Schofield from Tennessee to the coast of North Carolina, where he arrived, with the 23d Corps, on Feb. 9, 1865, and swelled Terry's force of 8,000 to 20,000. Schofield, outranking Terry, took the chief command. The Department of North Carolina had just been created, and he was made its commander. The chief object now was to occupy Goldsboro, in aid of Sherman's march to that place. Terry was pushed forward towards Hoke's right, and, with gunboats, attacked Fort Anderson (Feb. 18) and drove the Confederates from it. The flee ing garrison was pursued, struck, and dispersed, with a loss of 375 men and two guns. The National troops pressed up both sides of the Cape Fear River, pushed Hoke back, while gunboats secured torpedoes in the stream and erected batteries on both banks. Hoke abandoned Wilmington, Feb. 22, 1865, after destroying all the steamers and naval stores there. Among the former were the Confederate privateers Chickamauga and Tallahassee. Wilmington was occupied by National troops, and the Confederates abandoned the Cape Fear region. Cape Nome, a cape extending from the southern part of the western peninsula of Alaska, which lies between Kotzebue Sound on the north, and Bering Sea on the south. It is about 2,500 miles northwest of Seattle, and 175 miles southeast of Siberia. In September, 1898, gold was first discovered here by a party of Swedes. Since then it has become the centre of a rich gold-mining region, which lies about the lower course of the Snake River, a winding stream emerging from a range of mountains not exceeding from 700 to 1,200 feet in altitude. In October, 1899, Nome City had a population of 5,000 inhabitants living in tents. It is believed that the rapid growth of this town has never been equalled. Early prospecting Capital, NATIONAL. The seat of gov ernment of the United States was permanently settled in the city of Washington, D. C., in the summer of 1800. It seemed like transferring it to a wilderness. Only the north wing of the Capitol was finished, and that was fitted up to accommodate both Houses of Congress. The President's house was finished externally, but much had to be done on the inside. There was only one good tavern, and that was insufficient to accommodate half the Congressmen. There was only a path through an alder swamp along the line of Pennsylvania Avenue from the President's house to the Capitol. Mrs. Adams wrote concerning the President's house that it was superb in design, but then dreary beyond endurance. “I could content myself almost anywhere for three months," she said, “but, surrounded with forests, can you believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be found to cut and cart it! . . . We have, indeed, come into a new country." The public offices had hardly been established in the city when the War-office, a wooden structure, took fire and was burned with many valuable papers. From time to time there have been movements in favor of removing the seat of government from Washington, D. C. The first of this kind was in 1808. The really miserable situation and condition of the city at that time rendered a removal desirable to most of the members of Congress, and the city of Philadelphia, anxious to win it back to the banks of the Delaware, offered to furnish every accommodation to Congress and the public offices at its own expense. The new Hall of Representatives, by its ill adaptation whether for speakers or hearers, occasioned great dissatisfaction. A motion for removal occasioned much discussion in Congress and great excitement in the District of Columbia, especially among land-owners. The Southern members objected to Philadelphia because they would there be continually pestered Independence, the Surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, the Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the Resignation of Washington's Commission at Annapolis. by anti-slavery politicians and other an- sent the Signers of the Declaration of noyances connected with the subject. A resolution for removal came within a very few votes of passing. It is believed that it would have been carried but for the opposition of the Southern men to Philadelphia. In more recent years there have been agitations favoring removal to St. Louis or some other Western city, on the ground of having it in a more central location geographically. To these have since been added others, of the same general sizenamely, the Landing of Columbus, by John Vanderlyn; the Burial of De Soto, by George Powell; the Baptism of Pocahontas, by J. G. Chapman; the Embarkation of the Pilgrims, by Robert W. Weir; President Lincoln Signing the B. Carpenter, etc. The old Hall of Representatives is now used for a national Hall of Statuary, to which each State has been asked to contribute statues of two of its most distinguished citizens. The Capitol has already become the permanent depository of a large collection of grand paintings and statuary illustrative of the progress of the nation. In 1816 Congress, by joint resolution, authorized the President of the United States to procure, for the or- Emancipation Proclamation, by Frank namenting of the new Capitol, then building, four large paintings of Revolutionary scenes from the hand of John Trumbull, a worthy pupil of Benjamin West. He possessed a large number of portraits of the prominent actors in the events of the Revolution, painted by himself, and these he used in his compositions. These pictures are now in the rotunda of the Capitol, under the magnificent dome, and are of peculiar historic The Capitol was made a vast citadel on value, as they perpetuate correct like the arrival of troops there after the close nesses of the men whom Americans de- of April, 1861. Its halls and committeelight to honor. These paintings repre- rooms were used as barracks for the sol diers; its basement galleries were con- retary Root in Washington in regard to a verted into store-rooms for barrels of pork, constitutional recognition of the future re CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON, 1814. beef, and other provisions for the army; and the vaults under the broad terrace on the western front of the Capitol were converted into bakeries, where 16,000 loaves of bread were baked every day. The chimneys of the ovens pierced the terrace at the junction of the freestone pavement and the glossy slope of the glacis; and there, for three months, dense volumes of black smoke poured forth. Capital Punishment. See LIVINGSTONE, EDWARD. Capote, DOMINGO MENDEZ, statesman; born in Cardenas, Cuba, in 1863; received his education at the University of Havana, where he later served as a professor of law for many years. Prior to the last Cuban insurrection he was known as one of the most distinguished lawyers on the island. In December, 1895, he abandoned his practice to join the Cuban forces un ́der Gen. Maximo Gomez. Afterwards he reached the rank of brigadiergeneral, and also served as civil governor of Matanzas and of Las Villas. In November, 1897, he was elected vice-president of the republic of Cuba. After the adoption in convention of the new Cuban constitution early in 1901, he was appointed chairman of a commission of five members selected by the convention to confer with President McKinley and Sec lations of the United States with Cuba. This conference was held in April. Capron, ALLYN KISSAM, military officer; born in Brooklyn, N. Y., June 24, 1871; son of Allyn Capron; was educated in his native city; joined the army Oct. 20, 1890. When hostilities with Spain broke out he entered the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, popularly known as the Rough Riders," and was made a captain. He was killed in the battle of Las Guasimas, Cuba, June 24, 1898. 66 Capron, ALLYN, military officer; born in Tampa, Fla., Aug. 27, 1846; graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1867, and entered the artillery branch. When the AmericanSpanish War began he accompanied General Shafter's army to Cuba. On July 1, 1898, he led General Lawton's advance, and fired the first shot of the battle. The Spanish flag on the fort at El Caney was carried away by a shot from his battery. His exposure in the Santiago campaign resulted in typhoid fever, from which he died near Fort Myer, Va., Sept. 18, 1898. GOVERNMENT BAKERIES AT THE CAPITOL IN 1862. |