accommodations for 180 men; a post building, comprising rooms for the quartermaster and commissary departments, guard house and steam fire engine, and a powder magazine 36 by 80 feet. AFTER THE WAR Immense quantities of ordnance stores, both such as had been intended for our own armies and such as had been captured from the rebels, were shipped to Rock Island for storage. Much of the confused mass was found unserviceable, and was from time to time sold at public auction. It was mostly purchased by second-hand dealers and by iron founders, though it is said that some of the cannon bought by private parties were afterwards sold to South American countries where the art of war has not reached so high a degree of development as with us. At present two-thirds of the United States army is supplied with ordnance stores from this arsenal, requiring frequent and heavy shipments both to and from Rock Island. WHAT REMAINS TO BE DONE. According to the plan of the department there yet remains to be constructed four of the ten workshops, a hospital, an office building, such storehouses as may be needed, and a series of laboratories or "filling rooms,' where the powder is put into the cartridges and shells. It is designed to construct these laboratories of light iron frames, to which wooden sides and roofs will be lightly attached, so as to offer little resistance in case of explosion, and thus lessen alike the possible damage and danger. The slightest shock would knock them to pieces and give the exploding powder easy vent. An idea may be formed of the completed establishment when it is stated that the ten workshops will have an area of thirty-six acres of shop floor; that it will require 2,000 horse-power to run all the machinery; that it will require from 7,000 to 10,000 employees to run the shops to their full capacity; that the five armory buildings can turn out 3,000 breech-loading rifles per day, and the five arsenal buildings a corresponding amount of ammunition, and the various infantry, cavalry and artillery equipments. COST OF THE WORKS. Buildings such as these, are necessarily costly; but no observant person can visit the island without being impressed with the strict economy that pervades every branch of the works. The first study of the officers in charge is to do the work right; the next is to do it economically. The wooden buildings erected on the island in 1863, were torn down and converted into temporary shops, in which was done much of the iron work and all of the wood work, such as doors, sash, frames, floors, etc., used in the erection of the permanent shops, barracks and officers' quarters. The machinery was subsequently removed from the old shops to the new, and such additions made to it as will enable the commandant to do still more of the future work by his mechanics, and at a material saving to the government. Not only this, but he designs making a considerable portion of the machinery required to equip the remaining shops, having demonstrated that he can do so at less cost than to buy from private manufacturers. In the meantime he is training up a force of skilled mechanics whose experience may prove serviceable to the government in case an emergency should suddenly call the same machinery into active service. UTILIZING REFUSE AMMUNITION. Vast piles of unserviceable and obsolete ammunition have been sent to the island; shot and shell of every possible calibre and of every imaginable and unimaginable style of construction-shrapnel, grape, canister, and fragments of broken cannon. These are being recast in the arsenal foundry, and by a small addition of new metal are made to do duty in the iron columns and stairways of the new buildings, and even in the water and sewer pipes beneath them. The brass and copper bands and plugs found on the old shells are first carefully removed. These pass into the bronze doorknobs, sash-pulleys, and various other articles of practical and peaceful utility. The old gun carriages are new drays, carts, and stone wagons, laboring to build up, not to batter down and destroy. THE MANY ADVANTAGES OF ROCK ISLAND, As the site of the future great armory and arsenal of the nation are so apparent to one familiar with the spot that it seems like telling an old story to recount them. The beauty and healthfulness of the location, its accessibility from all quarters, both by rail and river, and the consequent facility for shipping to and from either the raw material or its products, the vast water-power at its side, the rich coal fields at hand to furnish fuel for steam, the large body of skilled workmen in the vicinity, trained in our various private manufacturing concerns, of which the government can avail itself in an emergency, the cheapness of labor and the cheapness of building materials at this point-these are only a few of the many advantages which suggest themselves. Nor is it an improbable supposition that the progress of iron manufacture in the West will, in the course of a few establish smelting furnaces and rolling mills at convenient points, where the splendid ores of Missouri and Lake Superior will be converted into merchantable iron as cheaply as it is now done in the iron regions of Pennsylvania. years, PERSONAL. It is due to the memory of the late Gen. T. J. Rodman to say that the chief credit for originating the plans of the government establishment on Rock Island, belongs to him, and that in all his efforts to push the great work, he was supported by the late Gen. Dyer, then chief of the Ordnance Department. The arduous labors, both mental and physical, which the task devolved on him, undoubtedly hastened Gen. Rodman's death. He lived to see his great work well under way-a work which is a grander monument than the plain but impressive shaft which marks his tomb on the island. Col. D. W. Flagler, the present commandant, likewise had a difficult task before him in assuming General Rodman's place. He had to familiar ize himself with the plans and details of the work, change and modify where an advantage could be gained, and carry it forward in the face of a growing national stringency in finance, and harassed by congressional legislation on the labor question and other topics affecting the progress of the work. GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS. The following are the appropriations which have been made for the various departments of the government works on the island from the commencement to the present: 1862, $100,000; 1866, $493,600; 1867, $886,500; 1868, $380,000; 1869, $1,000,000; 1870, $660,000; 1871, $688,000; 1872, $752,000; 1873, $554,100; 1874, $400,150; 1875, $309,500; 1877, $136,000; 1878, $155,000-making a grand total of $6,614,850. This amourt has been expended in the following sums, for the purposes named: Arsenal, $1,286,500; payment of claims for land, $293,600; development of waterpower, $695,400; store-houses and barracks, $222,500; Rock Island bridge, $1,136,400; repairs and improvements, $353,000; workshops, $1,885,350; avenues and streets, $38,000; repairing quarters, $5,000; purchasing and laying pipe, $21,850; subaltern officers' quarters, $78,750; machinery, tools and new shops, $192,500; Moline bridge, $100,000; powder magazine, $15,000. These appropriations and the specific objects to which they have been applied are given as reported by the War Department, except those of the two last years-$136,000 for 1877, and $155,000 for 1878-the specific objects of which are not mentioned. ROCK ISLAND MILITARY PRISON. By order of the War Department, in July, 1863, Rock Island was made a military prison for the confinement of Confederate prisoners. During the same month Capt. Charles A. Reynolds, Assistant Quartermaster United States Army, arrived, and commenced building a prison and barracks. The first soldiers for guard duty arrived November 3, 1863. Lieut.-Col. Schaffner arrived on the 19th of November, and took command. On the 22d Col. Richard Henry Rush arrived and took command of the post, and Col. A. J. Johnson was appointed in charge of the prisoners. The first installment of prisoners, taken at the battle of Lookout Mountain, arrived from Chattanooga Dec. 3, 1863, and from that time till the close of the war a large number of prisoners were kept under a strong guard upon the island. The whole number of prisoners confined here was 12,215; the number of deaths was 1,960. About 500 died of small-pox, a great many of scurvy, and others of various diseases, chiefly pneumonia. They were put into rough boxes and buried in trenches. The corner-posts of the cemetery where their ashes repose, are composed of cannon taken from the Confederates, planted with their muzzles in the ground, and, of late, strung around with chains, forming the enclosure. Within this enclosure sleep nearly 2,000 Confederate dead. At a few of the graves friends of the deceased have erected plain headstones, and placed on them a few simple and touching inscriptions. Who cannot feel, while standing in the presence of these graves of 2,000 misguided men-enemies once, perhaps, but enemies no fonger-the full force of the following words: "The reconciling grave Swallows distinction first, which made us foes. POST CEMETERY. There is also near the head of the island a Union soldiers' cemetery, where 310 graves are enclosed by a neat iron fence. This was, till recently, one of the national cemeteries, but has been changed to the Post Cemetery, and will hereafter be used only as a burial place for those who die in the government service at the Arsenal and Armory. CITY OF ROCK ISLAND. The city of Rock Island is a well laid-out and substantially built town containing a population of about 12,000. It is situated on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, at the foot of the Upper Rapids, and just below the western extremity of the island of Rock Island, from which it derives its name. The situation of the city is one of the most beautiful that can well be imagined. The bluffs on the Iowa side approach the shore, so that the city of Davenport lies chiefly on the hillsides and over their summits; on the Rock Island side they recede to the distance of more than a mile, leaving a broad and beautiful plain upon which the city is built. This plain is sufficiently elevated to afford a dry and healthy location, and is bounded by the river in front, forming a graceful curve southward at the lower end of the city, and in the rear of the distant hills which form a charming background to the city plat. On this plain the space is amply sufficient for a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants. From almost any point of observation in this vicinity the views are very fine. They combine a landscape of mingled art and nature; the cities of Rock Island, Davenport and Moline, with their tall spires and smoking factories; the island of Rock Island in the broad, bright channel of the Mississippi, and connected with both shores by its magnificent iron bridges. Looking up the river towards the Island, the bridges, with their piers and spans, are seen stretching across a space of three-quarters of a mile, at the point formerly occupied by old Fort Armstrong, while in the distance rises the tall smoke-stack of the Government Works, the Arsenal and Armory, almost hidden in the trees which in this part of the Island have been preserved, and the grounds converted into a beautiful sylvan park. Over this property of the Government, seen not near enough to discern distinctly its stars and stripes, floats the symbol of the national authority, the United States flag. The Island, the Arsenal works and grounds, and the wonderful improvements of the water power, constitute the chief points of attraction to visitors at Rock Island. EARLY HISTORY. FARNHAMSBURG AND STEPHENSON. The city of Rock Island was preceded by the town of Farnhamsburg, the first settlement on this side of the river within the present city limits.. Here the first house was built by Col. Davenport and Russell Farnham, partners in the Indian trade, in 1826. It stood near the landing from old Fort Armstrong, in the vicinity of the present depot of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, and was a noted place in the early history of Rock Island County. Here the County government was formed, the first elections held, and the first post office established; it was the seat of the Circuit and County Courts from 1833 to 1835. This original seat of justice of the County was superseded by the town of Stephenson, a village laid out in what is now the lower part of the city of Rock Island, in 1835. It was laid out by the Commissioners authorized by the Legislature to establish the seat of justice for Rock Island County, and contained the present county grounds, with a portion of the present county buildings. Here are still standing many of the earlier buildings erected by the pioneers, and here were inaugurated many of the first institutions of Rock Island. Stephenson was the cradle of Rock Island, the nursery of much of that intellectual and social life which has since expanded into the larger and intenser life of the city. The founder of the first newspaper here, in 1839, thus speaks of the old town of Stephenson, as it appeared to him in 1840: "The inhabitants of the town and its environs could not be surpassed, if equaled, by any city in the West, for men of intelligence-courteous and kind in everything. Our judiciary consisted of Judge Stone, who was very soon superseded by Judge Brown; our bar consisted of Joseph Knox, Joseph B. Wells, J. Wilson Drury and H. G. Reynolds: the clerk of the Court was an old bachelor, Joseph Conway, brother of Miles Conway, who, with a Mr. Cooper, composed the magistracy of the village; while our medical department was represented by Dr. Gregg alone, a man eminent in his profession. "There were three stores in the place, kept by John Meller, Lemuel Andrews, and a Mr. Kauffman. Two more came afterwards, viz., Mr. Bond and Mr. Moore. There was one tinning establishment, Lee & Chamberlain's; one saddler's shop, J. M. Frizzell's; one cabinet maker's and one gunsmith's shop; three taverns, Mr. Bently's, on the river bank; Buffune's, back of the Court House square; and the Rock Island House, on Main street, kept by A. Vancourt & Brothers. This was the leading hotel at that day. There was one restaurant, and one other, called a saloon for the want of a more appropriate name. One minister of the gospel-Presbyterian-Rev. Mr. Stewart, preached in a little school-house back of Dr. Gregg's residence on Main street-our only church, lyceum and town hall. The Powers family, Guernseys and old Mr. Vandruff, who lived on the island in Rock River, and kept a ferry at the Rapids, and something for the "inner man," were among the first settlers of Rock Island. There were but few places of any note above Quincy, Ill. Where Keokuk now stands, there was a trading post kept by a half-breed, who sold liquor to the Sac and Fox Indians, and engaged in towing barges over the Rapids with horses, to Fort Montrose. At the east side of the Mississippi, at the head of the Rapids, at a place then called "Commerce," was situated a stone warehouse where passing steamers discharged freight for the surrounding country. The Mormons had a short time previous been driven out of Missouri, and they encamped on the west bank of the river, awaiting transportation to the Illinois side to build the city of Nauvoo, and their wagons and equipage presented the appearance of an army encamped. The town of Burlington, Iowa, had but few houses. . . . Bloomington, now Musca |