and smoothed my hair, and says he: "Oh, how I love your country! Russia
will never join any scheme of foreign intervention against your
beautiful fish."
He said this in such a tone of real fondness that tears sprang to my
eyes, and says I:
"Heaven bless you, my Muscovy duck!"
"With a look of the deepest tenderness, Mr. Gorchakoff now extended
himself at full length upon the top of a bureau near my chair, and
allowed his head to hang over in such a manner that he was enabled to
press his cheek against mine.
"Wilt thou do me one favor, noble youth?" says he, with much emotion.
I placed a hand upon my heart.
"Then," says he, "just ask Mr. Seward not to write so many letters to
me every week; because when my mail is so large, I don't have any time
to attend to my family."
I promised to do so, and then went out to get some oysters. The candles
had made me quite light-headed.
From this, my boy, you will perceive that Russia "may be counted upon
in an emergency;" as the man said of the bear-skin upon which he was
reckoning his small change.
On Thursday, bright and early, I mounted my gothic steed Pegasus, and
started for Duck Lake.
Upon reaching the Mackerel camp, I found all the spectacled warriors
under arms for a fray, the unaccommodating Confederacies on the other
side of Paris having urged some rifled objections to the construction
of a pontoon bridge across Duck Lake. The chap who was building the
bridge had only just untied his second paper of nails, when a potato
from some Confederate marksman, in the second-story of Paris, hit him
violently in the stomach. Simultaneously the cover of a dinner-pot
cracked his knuckles, and, as he fell back in good order, a brick-bat
tapped him on the head. Believing that hostilities had commenced, the
new General of the Mackerel Brigade hastily put on all his dirty
clothes, and ordered the Orange County Howitzers to commit incendiarism
with Paris, simultaneously directing Rear Admiral Head to moor the
"Secretary Welles" abreast of the nearest Confederacy and shell him
with great slaughter.
Under command of Captain Samyule Sa-mith, the Howitzers were opened
upon Paris, and commenced such a tornado of round shot and grape that
the surrounding landscape was very much defaced. There was much noise,
my boy,--there was much noise.
But the great sight of the hour was the manoeuvring of the iron-plated
Mackerel squadron on the tempestuous waters of Duck Lake. After hastily
making a fire in the stove on the quarter-deck, and placing a tumbler
where it could warm, the stern old Rear Admiral ordered the Mackerel
crew to report how much water there was in the hold. The crew repaired
to the stern-sheets and reported "One pitcherful and two lemons;"
whereupon the hardy old sea-dog swore in his iron-plated manner, and
ordered the swivel-gun amidships to be trained upon the basement
windows of Paris. Everything being in readiness, the word was given to
fire!
Bang! went the horrid instrument of carnage, and the hideous missile
went crashing through the back basement windows, cutting a bow from the
cap of a venerable Florence Nightingale, who was at that moment making
a sponge-cake for some sick Confederacies, and driving the stove-pipe
clear through the wall. The aged Nightingale thought that something had
happened, and says she: "Well, I never did!"
Rear Admiral Head smiled; but it was the horrid smile of naval
bloodthirstiness. "Revolve my turret!" says he, grimly, "I fight not
against women; but the other window must be broken."
The venerable Neptune leaned over his columbiad to make sure of this
shot, unconsciously pressing his stomach against the but-end of his
gun. There was a report, my boy; the swivel-gun kicked, and the Rear
Admiral fell upon the deck with a promiscuous violence.
Meanwhile, Company 3, Regiment 5, under Captain Villiam Brown, had
waded across Duck Lake in as many divisions as there were Mackerels,
and immediately commenced a tremendous fire of musketry at the upper
windows of Paris, wounding a Confederacy who kept a shoe-store up
there, and reducing two flower-pots to fragments.
Whilst I was witnessing this bombardment, my boy, and admiring the
courage with which Villiam was slashing around with his sword, I
noticed that the squadron had suddenly ceased firing.
It had ceased firing, because Rear Admiral Head had unexpectedly
discovered that his Mackerel crew was a Black Republican; and had
therefore engaged him in single combat, greatly to the detriment of the
regular engagement.
Scarcely had I turned to view this new phase of war, when the firing of
howitzers and musketry behind me instantly ceased, and I heard a low
murmur of wonder arising from the whole brigade.
Quickly turning about again, I was hastening to where Captain Bob
Shorty strode with the Conic Section, when I beheld General Wobert
Wobinson, the new General of the Mackerel Brigade, cantering along the
shore of Duck Lake on his trained charger, and exhibiting a form to
petrify the whole world with admiration.
"Ah! _there's_ shape!" was the low cry of the spectacled veterans, as
they gazed breathlessly at the picture.
Captain Bob Shorty cleaned his glasses to make sure that it was no
illusion, and says he: "By all that's Federal, it appears to me that I
never saw so much Shape!"
A Confederacy, who had just appeared on the roof of Paris with a
horse-pistol in his hand and slaughter in his thoughts, caught sight of
the equestrian vision, and instantly dropped his merciless weapon of
destruction as though paralyzed.
"Oh!" says he, panting, "what Shape!"
Rear Admiral Head heard the sound in the midst of his single combat,
and paused to ascertain what it was. His spectacles scanned the horizon
round and round, until they finally rested upon the figure of the new
General of the Mackerel Brigade.
"Fracture my armor!" says he, ecstatically, "did I ever survey so much
Shape!"
The battle was over for that day.
Shape, my boy, is a great thing in a General; for when Heaven's Great
Printer commenced to set human type in the "galley" of earth, He must
have needed considerable General matter to fully make up His "forms;"
and when a General has a form fully up to His make, we may consider him
well set up.
Yours, typographically,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER LXXXV.
HOLDING THE GOVERNMENT STRICTLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE OCCURRENCE OF A
RECENT "MILITARY NECESSITY;" RECOUNTING THE AFFECTING EPISODE OF
THE MACKEREL DRUMMER-BOY; AND DEPICTING THE NEW MACKEREL GENERAL'S
FIRST GREAT BATTLE.
WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 9th, 1863.
I am no longer on speaking terms, my boy, with the Government of our
distracted country, and beg leave most respectfully to inform it that
the imbecile cold weather of the past few days may disgust, but can
never discourage me. Being of respectable though Democratic parentage,
I scorn to associate with an Executive and Cabinet so lost to all sense
of national comfort, that it permits the weather to become a constant
outrage on our Constitutions, frequently freezing loyal Democrats for
no other offence than that of protecting defenceless lampposts after
nightfall. I am very cold, my boy,--I am very cold, and my hatred of
the present Cabinet is intense.
But what shall I say about the agency of this same Government in
producing a Military Necessity at the late great battle of Paris? Let
me put on my overcoat and express my cold in a passionate cough, as I
remark that its agency in this matter forcibly reminds me of a chap I
once knew in the sixth ward.
He was an aged chap of much red nose, my boy, and lived with his
youngest broadcloth son in the same house with his Wayward Sister. The
Wayward Sister being an old maid of severe countenance, occupied such
portions of the residence as seemed most safe from the intrusion of
that sex which seeks to make Woman its broken-hearted slave; and as
long as the patient old chap answered the door-bell and didn't smoke in
the house, she got along with him after the manner of a Methodist
angel. Things went on pleasantly through the winter, the high-minded
maiden using the coal of her aged kindred, and employing all his black
tea without complaining; but in the spring she joined a Woman's Rights
Convention, and commenced to hold indignation-meetings of
virtuously-indignant females in the best room in the house. These
meetings having decided, that,
"_Whereas_, Man is a ojus creature which is constantly preying upon
that sex which it is his mother's, and denying to it those inalienable
Rights without which Woman's sphere cannot exist. Therefore be it
"_Resolved_, That Woman is the Superior Sex.
"_Resolved_, That union with man is incompatible with the good of a sex
which it is ourselves; and that we will immediately take that household
furniture of which Woman is the only rightful owner, and only ask to be
let alone."
The aged chap received a copy of these resolutions, my boy, and says
the Wayward Sister: "I can no longer consent to live in the same house
with an inferior being." The chap heard her in silence, and might have
let her have her own way, under ordinary circumstances, but when he
came home next night he found that she had packed up all the furniture
in the house to carry off with her, and expected him to give her his
watch and night-key. He scratched his head, and says he: "I cannot
permit this sort of thing, because I really want some furniture for my
own use." The Wayward Sister threw her thimble at him, and says she:
"Our male parient bought this furniture only because he got married to
one of the Superior Sex; and as it was Woman which solely occasioned
its purchase, it clearly belongs to Woman."
But the chap could not see it in this light, my boy; and as soon as his
son came home he told him all about it. The manly youth took a look up
the stairs to where the maiden and four or five other spring bonnets
were intrenched behind the furniture, and says he:
"It's an unnatural thing to have trouble with relations; but I'm just
going up there to capture that big chair."
By this time some of the neighbors had come in, and commenced to urge
the old chap to take vigorous measures. He looked at his son, and says
he:
"Can you do it Tommy?"
The child of his bosom winked twice, and immediately prepared to
perform the feat, only pausing long enough to look in the glass and see
if his necktie sat well. Then, gaining the head of the stairs, he
leaned across a bureau barring the way, and was about to grasp the big
chair, when the Wayward Sister hit him over the head with a broom, and
presently he found himself prostrate at the foot of the stairs, with a
violent pain in his nose.
On witnessing this disaster, all the neighbors shrank with indignation
from the aged father, and said it was all his doings. The poor old chap
scratched his head, and says he:
"I don't see how it's my fault."
"Why," says a neighbor of much fatness, "you're always
interfering,--that's what you are. Now, you'll never get back any of
your furniture."
"Interfering?" says the paternal chap, innocently. "Why, how _could_ I
interfere with Tommy, when I only let him do, in his own way, what he
gave me to understand he was able to?"
Here all the neighbors sighed grievously, and says one:
"Miserable old man, we believe you mean well enough; but the fact is,
you are a species of old idiot. It was your business to have had
_another son_, who would have been this one's brother; so that if one
met with a heart-rending failure on the stairs, the other could
simultaneously have entered that back window by a ladder, and taken the
chair by the rear. But you are always interfering. Take our advice now,
and either give up drinking altogether, or arrange it so that those who
drink with you may be persons not distinguishable from ourselves."
And they all departed, shaking their heads, my boy--they all departed
shaking their heads; leaving the unfortunate old chap to bind up his
offspring's nose, and to reflect upon the great iniquity of interfering
with one son's success, by not having another.
The Government of our distracted country, my boy, is so very much like
this well-meaning but imbecile old chap, that the failure of any one of
its generals is entirely due to its interference in not having another
general; who, in case that general did not succeed, could take his
place before he failed to do so.
The Military Necessity produced by this interference took place at
Paris, very recently, and shortly after the new General of the Mackerel
Brigade had so nearly won the battle by that revelation of manly Shape
to which I referred in my last letter.
Finding that the terrible bombardment of Paris, my boy, had routed the
straggling Confederacies from that ancient city, the whole Mackerel
Brigade marched safely across Duck Lake, leaving only the Orange County
Howitzers on this side. Scarcely had the spectacled host occupied the
city, when there appeared upon the main street the overwhelming Shape
of the new General of the Mackerel Brigade, mounted upon a steed which
was almost as sagacious as a human being; and holding his hat in one
hand, after the manner of Washington entering Trenton. It was as though
Frank Leslie's illustrated artist had just been commanded to draw a
warlike picture, my boy, representing one of those equestrian heroes
who all appear in precisely the same attitude, and seem to have lifted
their hats for the particular purpose of showing with what mathematical
precision their hair is parted.
Instantly there arose cheers so loud that they must have been heard by
the cowardly Confederacies on the hills behind Paris, and several
Mackerels became so enthusiastic to be led against the enemy, that they
actually started on the war-path by themselves, and only turned back
when they discovered that they happened to be going in the wrong
direction.
Having received all the cheers, and immediately dispatched them to the
reliable morning journals around the country, the General of the
Mackerel Brigade ordered the Conic Section, under Captain Bob Shorty,
and Company 3, Regiment 5, under Captain Villiam Brown, to march out of
Paris, and form in line under the guns of the Southern Confederacy; at
the same time directing Captain Samyule Sa-mith, to take Company 2,
Regiment 1, and strike through a defile in the hills.
Samyule formed his veterans in the shape of a horse-shoe, and says he:
"Comrades, now is the time to repent of your sins, for you haven't got
much time left. As for myself," says Samyule, seriously, "my sins are
all those of commission, and those who gave me my commission are
responsible for them. If any of you younger Mackerels have in your
possession the last things your mothers gave you, now is your chance to
look upon them for the last time."
As Samyule spoke thus, a small blue object, carrying a drum, toddled
forth from the ranks, and saluted. It was a small Mackerel drummer, my
boy, who had enlisted only ten days before, and his small eyes were wet
with tears. The heroic child wiped his little nose on his sleeve, and
says he:
"_My_ mother gave me something."
Samyule was greatly affected, and says he:
"Was it the Family Bible, sweet cherub?"
"No-o-o," sobbed the innocent, as though his little heart would break.
Samyule wiped his tear-dimmed spectacles, and says he:
"Perhaps it was her daguerreotype?"
The infant wept afresh, and says he:
"No-o-o."
"Then," says Samyule, in a broken voice, "it must have been her
blessing."
"No! no-o-o," cried the small Mackerel drummer, with quivering lips.
"Then what in thunder was it that your mother gave you?" says Samyule,
greatly bewildered.
"It was a spanking!" screamed the affectionate little creature,
cramming both his little fists into his little eyes, and blubbering
unrestrainedly.
Samyule gazed a moment at the child, and says he:
"Well may affection bid thee weep, thou tender little one! When a
sweetheart blushingly places a rose upon her lover's breast, the scene
is affecting; but my own memory of childhood tells me that a far deeper
feeling is excited when the tender mother selects a different flower,
and places upon the back of her child the modest lady's slipper."
Immediately after this affecting little incident, my boy, Samyule led
his men to their duty, and they marched into one end of the defile as
soldiers, to pass out of the other as spirits.
Along the front, "Forward!" was the word, and the Conic Section swept
to the assault, like a sea of bayonets dashed against a shore of
adamantine rock from the hollow of an Almighty hand. Were it possible,
my boy, for bullets to ascend perpendicularly until they just reached
the top of mountain breastworks, and then slant down at an acute angle
to where the foe lay hidden, it is possible that the frequent volleys
from the Conic Section might have produced some carnage; but as the
face of the hill before our troops was straight up and down, with the
noisy Confederacies on the extreme summit, the Mackerel musketry simply
occasioned a rise in Federal lead, without a fall in Confederate
leaders.
Some Confederacies in their lofty intrenchments just tipped over a few
cannon, so that the balls might roll out upon the mackerels, and, says
one of them:
"If you mudsills will stay there a little longer, we'll manage it so as
to drop the shells on you from our hands, without using the guns at
all."
Captain Bob Shorty heard this jeer, and as he tied his handkerchief
over a wound on his forehead, a sickly smile illustrated his ghastly
face, and says he:
"We might as well all die here together. The grave, after all, is a
softer bed than many of these Mackerel beings have been accustomed to."
Sergeant O'Pake who always takes things literally, turned to Bob, and,
says he:
"What makes it soft?"
"Because," says Captain Bob Shorty, looking vacantly at the sergeant,
"it is a bed of down. Did you never hear the old song of 'Down among
the Dead Men?'" But let me not linger over the scene, my boy.
That night, the remaining Mackerels silently recrossed Duck Lake, and
the General penned the following
DESPATCH.
"I have withdrawn the Brigade across Duck Lake. The position of the
Confederacies is impregnable. It was a Military Necessity to attack
the enemy or retire. I have done both.
"WOBERT WOBINSON."
Just as the spectacled veterans gained this side of Duck Lake again, my
boy, the Mackerel Chaplain was accosted by a Republican chap from
Boston, and says he: "This really looks like action at last my friend.
Our troops are evidently all enthusiasm to be led once more against the
foe."
The Chaplain shaded his eyes with his hand, to look at the speaker, and
says he:
"They are indeed enthusiastic, my friend. So enthusiastic, in fact,
that at least half of them would not come back to this side at all."
"Ah!" says the Republican chap; "the noble fellows."
"Yes," says the Chaplain, as softly as though he were speaking in a
sick-room; "they remain there sleeping upon their arms. And, oh, my
friend, they will never come back again."
He spoke truly, my boy: and may a kind Heaven see naught in the blood
welling from their loyal hearts but the blush of a soldier's honor; the
glow of a patriot fire in which all their human errors went up to God
as the smoke of a glorious sacrifice. They sleep their last sleep upon
the arms of their Country; and whether those arms, with which she folds
them into her heart, be white with the ermine of winter, or green with
the drapery of summer, the clasp shall be none the less strong with all
a Mother's immortality of love.
Yours, gravely,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER LXXXVI.
TOUCHING UPON A LATE OVATION TO A PARENT OF HIS COUNTRY; GIVING THE
CONSERVATIVE KENTUCKY MAP OF ALL AMERICA; AND INTRODUCING A SECOND
NEW GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL ORGANIZATION.
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 8th, 1863.
I have been very ill, my boy--I have been very ill; and even now, the
hand which grasps the pen trembles with weakness, like the hand of the
wind upon a slender rush. I have been reminded of my latter end, and of
our Excellent National Democratic Organization, by an outrage upon my
Constitution and the Arbitrary Arrest of my health,--proceedings which
seem to prove that the well-known Southern Confederacy is entirely
right in this war, and that the North is chiefly composed of Honest Old
despots. (See proceedings of Democratic Organization, Resolution 290.)
As I lay sick in Strategy Hall the other day, so desolately lonely that
I almost wished to die, and without energy enough to finish reading the
greenback I had commenced that morning, there came to see me an affable
Democratic chap who had just recovered from a severe bilious attack
brought on by the Conscription Bill, and wished to consult me as to the
propriety of nominating Dr. Brandreth for President of the United
States in 1865.
"Why, my future Jefferson," says I, feebly, "what are you going to do
with McClellan, then?"
"Really," says he, just stepping across the ward to spit on a copy of
the Tribune, which served as a window-curtain, "really, I forgot all
about that manly form. Oh!" says the pleasant Democratic chap,
replacing the Constitution in his hat, from which it had just
fallen,--"Oh! what heroism do we find embodied in that youthful shape!
The voice of a assembled universe asks: 'Shall G. B. McClellan go
unrewarded?' There is no echo at the time. It asks again: 'Who, then,
shall be President of the United States in 1865?' And echo triumphantly
answers, General George Barnum McClellan!"
Here the affable Democratic chap took off his spectacles, my boy, and
beamed undisguisedly at a small black bottle on the table.
"But," says I, softly, "his name is not George _Barnum_ McClellan at
all. His middle name is not Barnum."
"Hem!" says the Democratic chap, with a severe aspect, "I don't know
that it is. Really," says the Democratic chap, hastily picking up his
umbrella and moving away, "really, I don't know that it is."
Mistakes, my boy, will happen in the best-regulated organizations; and,
if we construe them maliciously, we deserve, like a parcel of
scandal-mongering old Bohea-mians, to be confined all our lives to
small _coups_ of Phineas T.
It was during my illness that the adoring citizens of Mugville
discovered that the Venerable Gammon had been defeated ten times in the
election for County Clerk in his youth, and frantically instigated an
overflowing ovation therefore to that venerable man. I know not, my
boy, what this aged and shirt-collared picture of perpetual beneficence
had done to be such an idol. I cannot conceive why repeated defeats in
his youth should entitle him to the adoration of a fond populace at the
present exciting period; but the leading citizens presented him with a
silver butter-knife and a serenade, my boy; and he made a benignant
speech to show that he and Providence desired only the applause of
their own consciences.
"My children," says the Venerable Gammon, waving benefactions in his
fat and heartfelt manner, "I accept this butter-knife,--not for my own
merits, but because it symbolizes the only true means of restoring that
Union of which I am a part. This knife," says the Venerable Gammon,
eying the costly gift with oily and benignant satisfaction,--"this
knife teaches us that only fiendish Abolitionism would think of using
the Sword of Radicalism to conquer the erring Confederacy which is
still our sister, when the Butter-knife of Conservatism was to be had."
Then all the leading citizens of Mugville observed joyfully to each
other that the country was redeemed at last, and four-and-twenty
reliable morning journals published six columns each about the
triumphant progress of the Venerable Gammon in the affections of the
people.
Among those present at this sublime ovation was an aged chap selling
apples, who immediately burst into tears when the voice of the
venerable man fell upon his ears. On being asked to explain his
emotions, he cast his dim eyes upward toward an American flag which was
being used by a merchant near by to advertise some patent pills, and
says he, brokenly:
"When I hear that woice, and see that flag, all my manhood crumbles
into scalding tears."
He was an apple-seller of fine feelings, and had once served as a
deserter in the Army of the Potomac.