between this date and the middle of November, the troops were
busily occupied in fortifying themselves--against the inclemency of
the weather. Arrangements being made and completed for the decent
interment of such troops as should die of old age before the next
great movement took place, the General of the Mackerel Brigade had
just opened a correspondence with his family on the subject of the
Presidency of the United States in 1865, when he received the
appended note:
"'GENERAL,--You will feel immediately relieved upon receiving
this, and will report immediately to your wife at Hoboken.
Colonel Wobert Wobinson is hereby ordered to take command of
the Mackerel Brigade.
"'ADJUTANT.'
"Upon the assumption of command by General Wobinson, it was
immediately observed that he possessed a great deal of Shape. He
crossed Duck Lake on his Shape, and in pursuance of the plan of his
predecessor, opened an instant attack upon Paris. Shortly after the
attack, the whole Brigade was back across Duck Lake again, and the
new General sent his resignation to Washington. It was refused, as
unnecessary; and the General then devised a plan for startling the
whole country, by organizing the Anatomical Cavalry upon an
equestrian basis, and making a raid upon some Confederate oats
known to be somewhere in the daily journals. The secret of this
movement was confided to but three parties,--the Honest Abe, the
Southern Confederacy, and the public; but before the move could
take place it was divulged and frustrated. The General then sent in
his resignation, which was refused as unnecessary. It was
subsequent to this that a third great movement was arranged, when a
shower came up suddenly, and it had to be abandoned. It was upon
this occasion that the General sent in his resignation, when it was
refused as unnecessary. Simultaneously, as it were, the officer
popularly known as the Grim Old Fighting Cox, was appointed to the
command, and here our exciting tale ends for the present.
"If the above record of a year of the war presents some
discouraging features, it also offers many seeds of hope for the
future, inasmuch as it would appear utterly impossible for the
future to be less fruitful of national triumphs than the past has
been. The greatness of our nation is sufficiently evidenced by the
fact that we are spending two millions of dollars per day; and as
soon as the present rebellion shall have been crushed, the final
defeat of the celebrated Southern Confederacy will become a mere
question of time, and we shall be prepared to commit immediate
assault upon combined Europe.
"V. GAMMON."
Alas! my boy, what can we say to such a revelation of national
strategy? I was thinking over its developments as I wandered listlessly
amongst the deserted Mackerel fortifications this side of Manassas on
Thursday,--I was thinking about it, I say, when my attention was
attracted by a soldier's grave located in the very midst of the
dismantled earthworks. It bore a rude monument of pine-board, on which
the companions of the strategic deceased had written the following
inscription with chalk.
As I read this simple inscription, I could not help thinking how many
Mackerels, like this poor fifer, had rushed from their homes to the
war, panting for victory or honorable death, only to be slowly consumed
by national strategy, and die of inglorious fortification and
indigestion.
MUGGY JIM,
A MACKEREL FIFER,
LATE OF THE NEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENT;
TAKEN SICK
OF INDIGESTION,
HE COMMENCED TO
THROW UP FORTIFICATIONS,
AND DIED OF STRATEGY.
..........
_Hic Jacet._
1..5-4.
0....4....1....2....8,
0....4....1....2....0;
0....2...80....8,
0....2...45....4.
It needs no Champollion's hieroglyphical skill to read the beautiful
little verse of the fifer's epitaph, though that verse had to be
inscribed figuratively, in order to get it all upon the narrow
monument. In all its praise of that quiet sleep in which there are no
anticipations to be disappointed, no gluttony to make sick, and no
Confederacies to guard against,--the verse will be plain to all as
reading:
"HERE LIES
ONE FIFER:
Nought for one to wait,
Nought for one to sigh-for;
Nought too weighty ate,
Nought to fortify-for."
The Mackerel poet who wrote those lines, my boy, may have been no
rhetorician; but his theme was an inspiration giving him more than
ordinary mastery of the figures of speech.
Yours, gravely,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER XCII.
IN WHICH OUR ENTHUSIASTIC CORRESPONDENT SURPASSES AESCHYLUS IN THE
WAY OF AN INVOCATION; AND DESCRIBES REAR ADMIRAL HEAD'S GREAT NAVAL
DEMONSTRATION AGAINST FORT PIANO.
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 20th, 1863.
Stand aside, my boy, and realize your own civilian insignificance,
while I invoke all the gods of Old Olympus to aid me with their
inspiration, in the tale of naval grandeur it is my duty to unfold.
Fired with the soul to hail my country great, and write her honors
endless to the world, full to the sun I wave the eager pen, invoking
all the lightning of the gods. Descend on me, Olympian dews, descend!
that this tired brain, where oft the new-born thought hath died
unblossomed in the fainting soil, may catch fresh vigor from the
grateful balm, and teem thrice glorious in a nobler youth. By all the
fire that glows in Homer's song, to make all ages flame anew with Troy;
by all the music stirred in Virgil's lay, to make AEneas ever march the
world; by all the heav'nly fury of the theme, AEschylus-taken, picturing
gods to men; by all the Art o'er nature raised sublime, and unto
Xenophon revealed by night, to make Ten Thousand nobler in Retreat than
thrice ten thousand by a Caesar led; by All that unto All hath been
their All, I charge thee, oh, thou impulse of the gods! grand as the
storm and chainless as the wind, descend on me! as lightning from the
cloud descends to beacon what the storm makes dark. That I may write,
in words of thunder born, such deeds as strengthen while they shake the
world; that I may write, in lines to trumpets tuned, such acts as make
men brothers to the gods; that I may write, in notes to mock the lute,
such feats of cunning as lull Fate to sleep; that I may dip th'
immortalizing pen in bright Pactolus' ever golden stream, and write, in
language sweeter to the ear than Hymet's honey to soft Dion's lips,
glories of arms to first make Nature crouch--then leap to something
higher than herself!
(If any man objects to that sort of thing, my boy, may he be whipped to
death by the aged maidens of the Confederacy, and utterly perish _per
flagellationem extremam_.)
And now I feel the Homeric inspiration in all my veins as I dip the
impatient quill into the Black Republican ink, and hasten to record the
deathless honors recently reaped by the Mackerel Iron-plated Squadron
in a deathless attack upon Fort Piano.
You may remember, my boy, that the construction of a pier on Duck Lake
by some shameless Confederacies, and the erection on the end thereof of
Fort Piano, was first made known to our noble old sea-dog, Rear Admiral
Head, whilst he sat on the quarter deck of his original iron-plated
squadron fishing for bass, by the accidental knocking of the squadron
against the end of the pier. His back being turned at the time, he had
not noticed the building of the terrible fortification; and when the
horrible jar of the collision caused him to look that way, he found six
villanous horse-pistols so planted by the disrespectful Confederacies
as to exactly command his fish-basket and box of bait. You may also
remember my boy, how our glorious old Neptune subsequently caused the
stanch "Secretary Welles" to run the blockade of the fort, to
thoroughly test the invulnerability of the iron-clad principle; and how
the result of that test satisfactorily proved the iron-clad principle
to be entirely testaceous.
Since then, you have heard about the building of the new Mackerel
iron-plated squadron, the "Shockingbadhat," with Rear Admiral Head's
newly improved turret and reversed swivel-gun; but you have not yet
heard, my boy, anything at all about the unique manufacture of six
additional iron-plated squadrons, to participate with the
"Shockingbadhat" in the recent severe attack on Fort Piano. You have
not heard of these six new monsters before, my boy, and respect for the
really decent families of the inventors forbids that I should tell you
anything descriptive about them now, save their names.
It was intended that the name of the first should be something full of
significance to perfidious England, and, at the same time, something
never used in England. Hence, she was christened the "Aitch."
The second was to bear a name signifying the power of bending without
breaking; and so she was called after that elastic tree, the "Yew."
In the name of the third, the Government wished to pay a complimentary
tribute to Rear Admiral Head; and, in honor of his daughter, Emma, the
squadron was named the "Em."
The fourth iron-plated invulnerable Mackerel monster it was deemed
proper to decorate with a name expressive of industry coupled with a
power to sting; and so she was called the "Bee."
There was some discussion about the proper title for the fifth patent
iron-clad, each member of the generous Mackerel Naval Committee saying
to the other: "Why can't she be named after you?" So, it was at length
decided, to happily compromise the matter by calling her the "You."
By common consent the sixth invincible iron monster was adjudged to be
known by the first of General George B. McClellan's initials, and was
entitled the "Gee."
Add these new national champions of the deep, my boy, to the
"Shockingbadhat," and you will have some idea of the glorious naval
pageant prepared to administer wholesome correction to the irreverent
Confederacies of Fort Piano, and teach the world that worn-out
cooking-stoves can be sold to the sagacious Government of the United
States of America for something better than old iron.
The "Shockingbadhat" was the flag-ship; and, on the morning of the
attack, the hoary Rear Admiral Head repaired to the top of her turret
with his umbrella, fishing-rod, and pocket-microscope, taking with him
the Mackerel crew to work the improved swivel-gun, which was also up
there; and giving orders to another unconquerable Mackerel to locate
himself amidships with a quart measure, for the purpose of measuring
the number of bushels of shots striking the turret during the first two
seconds of the approaching sea-fight.
Ranged along the right shore of Duck Lake, my boy, to witness the
battle and lend lustre to the landscape, was a land-force of virtuous
Mackerels, under command of the venerable grandmother of Rear Admiral
Head; and she was the one whose appearance gave rise to that rumor
amongst the Confederacies in the Fort, that Secretary Welles was
reviewing the troops in person.
On the opposite shore of the Lake was a delegation of European chaps,
come to behold the engagement; including Fatti O'Murphy, candidate for
the vacant throne of Greece; the Hon. Mr. New Troloppe, of England; and
le Marquis Non Puebla, French Minister to Mexico.
At the head of the Lake, my boy, I stood myself, with my bit of smoked
glass in my hand; and around me were the reporters of all the reliable
and excellent morning journals, spitting on their hands, preparatory to
writing their exciting descriptions of personal danger.
Precisely at noon the Mackerels of the land force raised their
umbrellas, the Mackerel crews got aboard their respective squadrons,
and exercises were commenced by the singing of--
"My country, 'tis of thee."
As the last strain died away, we could hear that grim old sea-dog, Rear
Admiral Head, swearing in his iron-plated manner, and then the whole
naval pageant swept magnificently to the front of Fort Piano; the
"Shockingbadhat" leading, closely followed by the "Aitch," the "Yew,"
the "Em," the "Bee," the "You," and the "Gee." It was a glorious sight,
my boy,--a glorious sight, and moved me like the First of May.
For the purpose of testing the range and drawing the fire of the
unseemly Confederacies' Artillery, Rear Admiral Head carefully let down
his old white hat into the waves, and suffered it to drift slowly past
the north-east face of Fort Piano. We held our breath as we saw the
artful decoy whirl for a moment in an eddy caused by a land-crab, and
then drift against the pier, where it stuck. Immediately a hand was
seen reaching down after it, the hat was drawn up, and a prodigious
horse-laugh arose from the uncomely Confederacies in the Fort. They
supposed the hat to be Mr. Greely's.
"Sink my Keokuk!" roared Rear Admiral Head, in his iron-plated
manner,--"I really believe the treasonable insects have been and stolen
my beaver,--obstruct my Ironsides, if I don't!"
Scarcely had the words passed his lips, my boy, when a Confederacy _en
barbette_ discharged a double-barrelled fowling-piece at the "Aitch"
knocking off two of her front covers, breaking several bars of her
grates, and piercing her oven in numerous places. Instantly the cry
arose of "One of the cooking-stoves is sinking!" which so bewildered
Rear-Admiral Head that he discharged his swivel-gun one point too far
to the windward, and immediately found his flagship entangled on
several strings with which the Confederacies had obstructed the
passage.
"Disable my Patapsco!" exclaimed the indomitable old Neptune, in his
iron-plated manner, "the insects have tied us fast,--bend my turrets if
they haven't."
At this time, my boy, the concentrated fire of the Fort was terrific,
six horse-pistols being in full play at once, and the Mackerel with the
quart measure amidships reporting that the turret of the
"Shockingbadhat" had been hit three quarts of times in thirty seconds.
Such being the case, and the European delegation having gone home with
a view to shaking off their inclination to fall asleep, the stern old
commander ordered a wet blanket to be thrown over his swivel-gun, and
such of the iron-plated squadron as had not sunk were immediately run
ashore. The affair had been merely a reconnoissance.
Shortly after the conclusion of this terrible artillery duel, and a few
minutes subsequent to a touching exchange of congratulations between
the unconquerable Rear-Admiral and his venerable grandmother, there
hastily arrived from Paris an obese middle-aged chap, in black cotton
gloves and a scratch wig, and says he to the Admiral:
"Allow me to bless you, Sir,--My name is Hunter, Sir,--for your
excellent iron-clad conduct. We should all be grateful, sir, that you
have passed safely through 'a concentric fire that has never heretofore
had a parallel in the history of warfare.'"
Never heretofore had a parallel! What could he have meant, my boy? How
could a _concentric_ fire have a _parallel_ at any time?
Yours, questioningly,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER XCIII.
TEEMING WITH CONSUMMATE STRATEGY, AND RELATING AN EXTRAORDINARY
GEOMETRICAL EFFORT OF MILITARY GENIUS.
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 10th, 1863.
As it was feared on Sunday last, my boy, that the venerable Mackerel
Brigade was about to commit a breach of the peace by strategically
assaulting the Confederacies established in the mud between the
Mackerel camp and the ancient City of Paris, I mounted my architectural
steed, the Gothic Pegasus, at an early hour in the morning, and
perceptibly moved toward the scene of approaching tautology. The
emaciated aspect of my architectural steed of the desert was so
inviting to the fowls of the air, my boy, that divers disreputable
crows circled suddenly around my hat, as my animal progressed with me
by miscellaneously scattering his legs around beneath himself, and at
each particular "caw" of the winged ministers of famine, a perceptible
shudder passed through the entire framework of the deeply agitated
Pegasus. Abstractedly waving my umbrella, to inspire the sable birds
for loftier flights, I pondered deeply upon the lesson taught me by the
evident emotions of my aged architectural servant; to ride upon whose
fluted back may be likened to sitting astride the peaked roof of a
small country chapel in the midst of a hard earthquake, and holding on
by the steeple. If this Gothic creation, which is but a horse, thought
I, is so agonized by the mere breakfast notes of a few demoralized
crows in the atmosphere, how much more terrible must be the anguish of
the fellow-beings known as Southern Confederacies, who must ever have a
dreadful presentiment of being summarily expunged from the human race
by any one of our brass-buttoned generals, who happens to board in
their neighborhood for a few years. If I pity this architectural
servant of mine, thought I, for his anguish at the proximity of crows
in the abstract, how much more tender should be my feeling for Southern
fellow-beings, who are continually endangered by the much louder crows
emanating from adjacent hostile Major-General roosters. As I pondered
thus, my boy, a crow of much plumage and large-sized mien, suddenly
alighted upon the pommel of my saddle, as though impatient to breakfast
upon some pounds of horseflesh. For an instant Pegasus trembled
throughout his works; he paused suddenly in his peregrination, laid
back his ears as though in deep thought, twisted his head suddenly
about, and bit off the tail of the crow in the abstract!
Simple as was the act, it at once relieved me, in my own mind, of all
obligations to have a more tender feeling for my Southern fellow-beings
than is consistent with a proper emotion of hatred against the enemies
of my country. After all, we can learn much more from brutes than from
men; and as Balaam's ass saw the angel before his master did, so the
Angel of Victory is likely to be distinctly obvious to any poor ass in
the country, before he becomes visible to the sight of our strategic
great men.
(I turn a pretty sharp corner in that last sentence, my boy; but that
is only safe strategy when you find your argument getting ahead of
you.)
It was high noon when I reached the Mackerel camp, and I found the
spectacled veterans hastily preparing to cross Duck Lake after the
manner of aquatic warriors. By some strange fatality, all the pontoons
were at hand in time, greatly to the distress of our more venerable
troops, who seemed to fear that such unheard-of punctuality must be an
evil omen. As there were a great many pontoons, and it was not deemed
best to waste any of them, two bridges were built instead of one,--it
being considered that, inasmuch as it was purposed to surprise the
unseemly Confederacies on the other side, two bridges would be just
twice as surprising to them as one would be. There was logic in this
idea, my boy--much logic and consummate strategy.
Gazing across the expanse of waters, I beheld a couple of regiments of
Confederacies playing poker on the bank, and says I to Villiam Brown,
who was at that moment returning a small black bottle to his holster:
"Tell me, my fearless blue-back, how this can possibly be a surprise,
when yonder gray-backs are looking on all the time?"
"Ah!" says Villiam, with much loftiness of demeanor; "you are but an
ignorant civilian inseck, and know nothing about war. The movement,"
says Villiam, placidly, "is intended as a surprise to the enemy, upon
the principle that any movement whatever of this Army must surprise
everybody."
I was reflecting seriously upon this unanswerable explanation of
profound strategy, my boy, when Captain Bob Shorty came rattling up
with a paper in his hand, and says he: "Attention, Company! while I
read a document calculated to restrain the licentiousness of a corrupt
and vicious press:
"GENERAL ORDER.
"For the purpose of preventing the transmission of all news not
previously published in the morning journals of the so-called
Southern Confederacy, it has been determined by the General
Commanding to require all correspondents of the press to affix
their full names, ages, and addresses to whatever matter they
transmit for publication, thus giving to the journals of our time
the double character of newspaper and business-directory. Reporters
having vulgar names, like Jones, Smith, or Stiggins, will be at
liberty to assume the names borne by the most popular characters in
the exciting tales furnished by our weekly journals of
romance,--such as Lord Mortimer, Claude de Percy, Lester
Heartsease.
"Correspondents who do not comply with this requirement will not be
permitted to assist in surprising the so-called Southern
Confederacy.
"THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE."
(Blue Seal.)
After we had all duly digested this useful and sagacious General Order,
my boy, Captain Samyule Sa-mith was ordered to make a detour of Duck
Lake with the Anatomical Cavalry, and dig a canal in the rear of the
well-known Confederacy; and the Mackerel Brigade, under the personal
supervision of the Grim Old Fighting Cox, commenced to cross the
pontoon-bridges in two divisions. The bridge that I was upon, my boy,
was at once attacked at the other end by a surprised Confederacy with a
large pair of scissors, who malignantly cut that end loose. There was
an aged civilian chap, from Albany, of much stomach and a broad-brimmed
hat, standing near me; and when he found the bridge beginning to move,
he smote his breast, and says he:
"Where are we drifting to?"
"Be not alarmed, Mr. Weed," says I, pleasantly; "we shall soon repair
the damage."
"Hem!" says he, "I wish I'd gone over on the other platform at first."
He was quite an old man, my boy, slowly sinking into the rising waves
of his own fat; and for that reason appeared to have a chronic fear of
some unexpected submersion.
The Mackerel Brigade, in two parts, having reached the opposite shore
of Duck Lake in safety, the Grim Old Fighting Cox ordered Captain
Villiam Brown and Captain Bob Shorty to take each a regiment of
spectacled veterans and cautiously feel the Confederacies' lines, while
he led the remainder of the national troops to a small village at hand,
which had particularly requested to be immediately destroyed. It was
his great strategical plan, my boy, to form his lines in the shape of a
triangle, thus inclosing the unmannerly Confederacies between three
fires, and winning a great geometrical victory. The Confederacies being
duly surrounded, and the village being set on fire at the apex of the
triangle, the Grim Old Fighting Cox withdrew to a tent, spread a map of
the world upon a camp-stool before him, and proceeded to take
topographical observations. Drawing from his saddle-bags an instrument
of opaque glass, of tubular character, quite large in circumference
about half-way up, and then tapering into a neck, or smaller tube, of
nearly the same length, he raised it in a semi-horizontal position to a
point about one and a half inches above the lower circumference of his
chin, until he could look through it at an angle bisecting its greater
circumference upon the map below. The light, striking through the body
of this instrument, cast a wavy, fluctuating sort of yellowish glare
upon that part of the map representing the well-known Southern
Confederacy, accompanied by a species of soft, trickling sound. After
an interval of some ten minutes, the operator saw, by this contrivance,
just double the number of Confederacies he had to contend with. It only
remained, then, for him to divide the number thus ascertained by two,
and he knew exactly the number of his foes!
You will observe, my boy, that this singularly ingenious device at once
revealed to the new General of the Mackerel Brigade the true strength
of his greatest enemy, and inspired him with a strong spirit.
It was immediately after this, that the Grim Old Fighting Cox issued
the following
"GENERAL ORDER.
"The manner in which the crossing of Duck Lake has been
accomplished proves that this is the finest Army ever seen on the
plan-it, and is likely to prove equally fine on the do-it. I have
now got the well-known Southern Confederacy where I wished to have
her, and she must either ignominiously retreat, or come out of her
works, and be annihilated by me on my own ground, which is
ground-arms!
"(Blue Seal.)
"THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE."