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Mrs. Washington and her party crossed the North River at Dobbs Ferry, and by slow stages reached Cambridge on the eleventh of December. Their arrival was the signal for great rejoicings in camp.

General Washington had established his headquarters in the Craigie house,1 and here Mrs. Washington made her home during the winter. This fine old mansion, with its wide. hall and spacious rooms, offered ample accommodation for Washington and his family. To the right of the front door was his office, with his staff room opening out of it, while beyond there was another room in which they probably dined, as Mr. Daniel Greenleaf told Miss Quincy

1 The Craigie house was built by Colonel John Vassall in 1759, and confiscated when he joined his Tory associates in Boston. The Provincial Congress furnished the house for the use of General Washington, who occupied it while in Cambridge. It was afterwards the property of Nathaniel Tracy of Newburyport, of Thomas Russell of Boston, and of Dr. Andrew Craigie, Apothecary-General to the Revolutionary Army, whose name it bore until it passed into the hands of Mr. Henry W. Longfellow, by whose name it is now generally known. The room to the right of the front door, in which Washington wrote his despatches, was later the favorite study and reading room of the poet. Before this house became the property of Mr. Longfellow, it was owned by Jared Sparks, who edited much of his Washington correspondence here, by Edward Everett, and by Joseph Worcester the lexicographer. - Memorial History of Boston, vol. ii. p. 113.

that he and his son dined with General Washington and his aids in a room on the right side of the front door. On the left side of the hall were spacious reception rooms.

Questions of social etiquette, jealousies with regard to dinner invitations to headquarters, and the like, had perplexed Washington, and in one of his letters to Mr. Reed he refers to "unintentional offences, which were rather owing to inattention, or more properly [to] too much attention to other matters." These other matters being of no less importance than the siege of Boston and the organization of an army, it was fortunate for the Commander-inChief that his wife came to his aid at this time. Mrs. Washington's kindly hospitality, tact and good breeding, and the sweetness and charm of Mrs. Custis, soon made the Craigie house the centre of much pleasant sociability.

Then, as was the case whenever Mrs. Washington was at headquarters, the house of the commanding officer became a favorite resort for the young officers, for whom she always kept a warm place in her motherly heart. Mr. Irving says that not long after her arrival in camp "Mrs. Washington claimed to keep Twelfth Night in due style, as the anniversary of her wedding. The General was somewhat thoughtful and said that he was afraid he

must refuse it." Upon further consideration, probably remembering his wife's prudent avoidance of the ball in Philadelphia, and perhaps realizing then, as he seems to have done later, that a little amusement often served to raise the spirits of both officers and men, Washington's scruples were overcome, and the sixth of January was duly celebrated with cake, candles, and rejoicing.

A few days later John Adams recorded his attendance at a novel dinner party at Colonel Mifflin's, in company with General Washington and his wife and General and Mrs. Gates, "and half a dozen sachems and warriors of the French Caghnawaya tribe with their wives and children." "It was," he says, " a savage feast, carnivorous animals devouring their prey; yet they were wondrous polite. . . . The General introduced me as one of the grand council fire at Philadelphia, upon which they made me many bows and a cordial reception." 1

Mrs. Mifflin, whom John Adams calls "a pretty Quaker girl," was at Cambridge with her husband. The latter was, says Graydon, "a man of education, ready apprehension and brilliancy, easy of access with the manners of genteel life, though occasionally evolving those of the Quaker." Quartered in the same house 1 Diary of John Adams.

with the Mifflins, were Dr. and Mrs. John Morgan. Mrs. Morgan, in her letters to her mother and sisters, gives the most agreeable pictures of camp life at Cambridge that have come down to us. In the midst of animated descriptions of visits to headquarters, of tea-drinkings, and reviews of the battalions, she pauses to tell her dear Mamma" of the kindness of the Virginia ladies, begging her to be particularly attentive to Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Custis upon their arrival in Philadelphia, as they had been to her "as a mother and a sister."

Here also was General Knox, with his wife, a charming young woman, the life of every circle that she entered. Although much younger than Mrs. Washington, a warm friendship grew up between these ladies, which continued through the varied scenes of their army experience. Another attachment which Mrs. Washington formed during her sojourn in New England was a lasting friendship for Mrs. Warren, the wife of Dr. James Warren, president of the Provincial Council of Massachusetts. Mrs. Warren was a woman of even greater intellectual gifts than Mrs. Adams, if less witty and vivacious. From her pen we have the following graphic picture of Mrs. Washington and her family:

"If you wish to hear more of this lady's character," wrote Mrs. Warren to Mrs. John Adams, "I will tell you I think the Complacency of her manners speaks at once the benevolence of her heart, and her affability, Candor and gentleness, qualify her to soften the hours of private life, or to sweeten the cares of the Hero, and smooth the rugged paths of War. . . . Mr. Custis is the only Son of the lady above described, a 'sensible, modest, agreeable young Man. His lady, a daughter of Colonel Calvert, of Maryland, appears to be of an engaging disposition, but of so extremely delicate a constitution, that it deprives her, as well as her friends, of part of the pleasure, which I am sure would result from her conversation, did she enjoy a more perfect share of health. She is pretty, genteel, easy and agreeable."

Glimpses of the real woman that come to us through such letters as those of Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Warren are worth pages of panegyric, revealing as they do the sincere admiration and respect with which Mrs. Washington inspired those who came within the circle of her influence.

From Mrs. Warren's description, it would appear that Mrs. Adams had not met Mrs. Washington at all, or knew her but slightly, a supposition which is strengthened by the fact that although in her letters to her husband she dwells upon the attractions of Mrs. Mifflin,

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