notorious Southern Confederacy is now reduced to a mere shell; and,
secondly, that said shell has a very short fuse.
"THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE.
("GREEN SEAL.")
I was still reading this pointed document, when there arrived, from
Paris, a Confederate being, in carpet slippers and white cotton gloves,
whose name was Lamb, and who bore peace-propositions.
"I have come," says he, affably, "to say, that the army of the North
can now be admitted into the army of the Confederacy for a conjoint
attack on combined Europe, after which the sunny South will forgive all
her creditors, and see what can be done for the Northern masses."
Let this frank speech prove, my boy, what all our excellent
democratic[6] morning journals of limited circulation have so long
maintained,--that it rests entirely with the President to secure an
immediate cessation of hostilities with the Southerners, by forgetting
all the wrongs of the past, while they are for getting all the rights
of the future.
Yours, pacifically,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
[6] This letter was originally addressed to the editor of an
excellent little democratic weekly journal, who went carefully
over it and substituted the word "patriotic" for "democratic,"
whenever the latter occurred:--thereby achieving the most
perfect and astounding perversion of meaning on record!
LETTER CVIII.
NARRATING THE UTTERLY UNPARALLELED CONQUEST OF PARIS BY THE
VENERABLE MACKEREL BRIGADE, AFTER THREE DAYS' INCONCEIVABLE
STRATEGY; IN FACT, A BATTLE-REPORT AFTER THE MANNER OF ALL OUR
EXCITED MORNING JOURNALS; UPON PERUSING WHICH, EACH READER IS
EXPECTED TO WRAP HIMSELF UP IN THE AMERICAN FLAG AND SHAKE HIS FIST
AT COMBINED EUROPE.
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 4th, 1865.
To loud huzzas our flag ascends, as climbs a flame the dizzy mast,
while all its burning glory bends from where the planets seal it fast;
and, pliant to the chainless winds, a blazing sheet, a lurid scroll,
the Compact of the Stars it binds in fire that warms a nation's soul!
All of which, my boy, is the poetry of that banner whose union of a
starry section of evening with the hues of dawn and sunset makes it a
very good marriage-certificate of the wedding of old Mr. Day and the
Widow Night. (Let us hope that Mr. Day will never be without a sun.)
And do you ask me wherefore I thus burst into red-hot song?--wherefore
I inflict further verses upon a flag already washed almost to pieces in
a freshet of poet's tears?--wherefore I jingle rhymes of Bostonian
severity at the commencement of an epistle whose readers may not all be
Emersons?
Know, then, my boy, that the chant is to celebrate the conquest of the
ancient City of Paris, which, for many years past, has actually waxed
prosperous against Mackerel strategy, but now rests a prize beneath
that glorious bunting which we all like to see our poor relations die
for: beneath that ensign of freedom for which every man of us would
willingly sacrifice his life, did he not feel that his first great duty
was to his helpless family, who like to have him stay at home and take
them to the opera.
O my country!--sublime in thy wounds, chivalrous in thy triumph, more
than royal in the kingless magnificence of thine undaunted
power;--forget not the patriots who have stayed at home on account of
their families; for surely such a disinterested and general
demonstration of domestic virtue seems to indicate that our police
force is uselessly large.
Let me not, however, waste time in national boasting, while the
crowning result of consummate Mackerel strategy demands of me that
narrating exercise of the pen without which even brigadiers might fail
to receive public credit for deeds after the manner of Napoleon.
Retrace, my boy, to the happy days of your youth, and you may remember
that I once described the ancient city of Paris as a house founded upon
a bar-room and surrounded by warlike settlements of Confederacies. Here
were collected all the lemons, glassware, sugar, spoons, and cloves of
the sunny South; and--though all else were lost--while these remained
to them, the Confederacies were still unbroken in spirits and only
spoke of Columbia to observe: "She may attack our chivalrous banner of
Stars and Bars, and capture all the stars if she pleases; but while our
Bars remain, we shall still be able to liquor." Therefore it is, that
the aged and aristocratic city of Paris has stubbornly brought to grief
so many of our admirable brass-buttoned generals, several of whom are
now enjoying that unblemished obscurity which ungrateful republics are
apt to bestow upon unappreciated greatness.
On the day succeeding the sanguinary affair of Fort Bledandide, my boy,
while notes of busy preparation were rising from all parts of the
Mackerel camp, one of our pickets was awakened by the sound of many
equestrians riding over his body, and immediately put on his spectacles
to discern whether they were friends or foes. The inspection lasted
until one skeleton charger had stepped upon his canteen; whereupon the
Mackerel picket discovered that the new-comers were the Anatomical
cavalry, under Captain Samyule Sa-mith, just returned from operations
in Confederate railway stock, which they had raised so far above par as
to give it a very decided mar.
Proudly rode Samyule at the head of his triumphant bone-works, and the
jingle of their spurs and sabres was like unto the collision of many
tin pans. Gayly rode they to headquarters, and, says Samyule, "Sire, we
have interrupted the railway travel of the Southern Confederacy for the
season; and obliterated the tracks of treason, that it may no longer
rail against us. Further depot-nent saith not."
The General of the Mackerel Brigade laid aside his accordion, and says
he:
"My sons, I would that every earthly foe to our distracted banner could
at this moment be placed on board a railway train in any part of this
country. Because, says the General, thoughtfully, "a ride on an
American railway train of cars is foreordained car-nage."
After this speech, my boy, it was generally allowed that the Mackerel
commander was even with Samyule; and as the Anatomical Cavalry swept
off to the left to flank the unseemly Confederacies defending Paris,
the main body of the venerable brigade, under Captain Villiam Brown and
Captain Bob Shorty, commenced strategical designs on that city.
Thus early in the engagement a bloodthirsty Confederacy had succeeded
in training a fowling-piece from behind a chimney on the roof of Paris,
greatly worrying our troops with dried beans, and the Orange County
Howitzers were already concentrated upon him with a view to cutting off
his legs; when there suddenly appeared within our lines a maiden,
stricken in years, with a white plush bonnet, a green silk umbrella,
and the ninety-ninth number of the History of this War under one arm.
She waved a hand toward the Mackerels nearest her, and says she:
"On, to Paris! On, to Paris! or a decimated and indignant country,
acting on the predictions in the ninety-ninth number of the most
accurate History of the War now sold to subscribers only, will
indignantly demand that EVERYBODY be at once removed!"
Here the General of the Mackerel Brigade made his appearance from the
rear, and says he:
"What do you desire, Miss P. Hen?"
"On, to Paris!" shrieked the maiden. "On, to the capital of the
brutalized dealers in human flesh and blood, and drag them to the
scaffold!" Here Miss P. Hen drew a long breath, and says she, "Let's
have no vacillating."
"All right, Mamsell," says the General.
"And the country'd have more confidence in _you_," says Miss P. Hen,
vigorously, "if you'd stop chewing that nasty tobacco, which is only
fit for brutes and dealers in human flesh and blood. On, to Paris!
or"--
At this juncture, my boy, the aged Miriam caught sight of the
Conservative Kentucky Chap, haranguing against her down the Accomac
road, and toddled furiously away to chastise him with her umbrella.
Meanwhile, the Orange County Howitzers had sent some pounds of shrapnel
in the direction of the hostile Confederacy on the roof; and as the
bricks began to fly from the chimney, and the dried beans came at
longer intervals, Regiment 5 of the Mackerel Brigade moved nearer to
the beleaguered capital, and opened an effective fire of musketry upon
the azure zenith. Captain Villiam Brown was about to order an assault,
when certain windows in the upper stories of Paris were thrown up, and
there rained therefrom such a hurtling tempest of stew-pans,
hearth-brushes, shaving-cups, and boxes of blacking, that hundreds of
Mackerel spectacles were broken. Simultaneously the sanguinary
Confederacy on the roof put a double charge of dried beans through the
coat-tails of Captain Bob Shorty, and our troops--"the object of the
reconnoissance being fully accomplished"--withdrew in good order to
their former position.
Quickly, thereupon, appeared a canvas banner from the garret windows of
Paris, inscribed: "Chalk up the First Round for the Southern
Confederacy!" and the first day's fight was over.
All that night, my boy, did the venerable Mackerel Brigade lay upon
their arms, finding all their hands asleep, in consequence, when
morning broke; and as often as a venturesome Confederacy skulked near
Fort Bledandide to steal a cannon, just so often did one Mackerel
picket nudge another Mackerel picket and ask him if he didn't think he
heard something.
At last there came a gradual hush over everything, as though the whole
world were an antechamber to a room in which rested some dear sick
child. Then the sharp edges of this terrestrial bowl in which we hang
over the sun at night began to define themselves all around, as though
an early candle had just been brought underneath to light the fire. And
at last a slowly-deepening lurid glow appeared around the sides of the
bowl, as though the fire was just getting a start. It was morning.
Fearful that if I go on in that strain any longer, some sentimental
Philadelphian may carry me off by main force to write for the "Lady's
Book," let me call your notice to the extreme left of the Mackerel
line, where Captain Samyule Sa-mith and the Anatomical Cavalry,
supported by Sergeant O'Pake and Regiment 3, were formed in line of
battle, facing certain rickety Confederacies under Captain Munchausen.
"Comrades," says Samyule, vainly attempting to keep the hind-legs of
his anatomical steed from trying to surround the two
fore-legs--"comrades, one blow, and Syracuse is free! For-r-ward!"
But what is this, starting up, as from the ground, right in the path of
what else had been the most exorbitant cavalry charge on record? It is
the aged Miss P. Hen, with her white plush bonnet much mashed from a
recent severe single combat with the Conservative Kentucky Chap, and
the ninety-ninth number of the History of the War still unsold. She ate
a Graham biscuit, and says she:
"Just once--I only want to say just once, that everybody is a-howling
at me like wolves, and abusing me, because I said 'On to Paris.' So I
want to say, just once, that I never, never will say one word about the
war again, no matter how much you want me to. Now there's no use of
your asking me, because I never, never will!"
And she hoisted her green silk umbrella and stalked grimly from the
field, like the horrid, apparition of a nervous widower's dream.
"Really," says Samyule, irritably, "I don't think there's any other
country where old women would be allowed on the field of battle without
epaulets on their shoulders. But let us proceed with the war," says
Samyule, earnestly, "or we shall not get through in time for our coming
conflict with combined Europe."
Loud ring the bugles, my boy, on either side, as when two chivalrous
cocks crow defiance to each other from neighboring roosts; and
presently two rival circus-companies met in tremendous collision with
two-up and two-down, two over and two under:
guard--parry--feint--thrust! Twick, thwack, slam, bang; click-click,
click-click, click-click; chip, chop, higgledy-piggledy, crush, crowd,
and helter-skelter.
"Let me get at you, foul Hessian!" roared the hairy Munchausen, with
his horse hopping sideways in every direction.
"Die in thy sins!" shouted the excited Samyule, taking a slide toward
his charger's ears, as that spirited animal ecstatically waved his
hinder feet in the air.
"Coward, thou would'st fly me!" ejaculated Munchausen, just as his
Arabian got a-straddle of a caisson.
"You are my prisoner!" thundered Samyule, endeavoring to restrain his
blooded courser from climbing a tree near by.
"Beg for your life!" howled Munchausen, frantically clasping his arms
about the neck of his Hambletonian colt as they went skipping against
an ambulance together.
"Say thy last prayer!" yelled Samyule, backing frenziedly into the
middle of the Christian Commission.
"This to thy heart!" screamed Munchausen, disappearing in a ditch.
"Victory!" ejaculated Samyule, rolling down a hill.
And the second day's fighting was ended.
Night again upon the battle-field. The wearied soldier, as he seeks a
few hours of repose upon the damp and dreary ground, wonders what the
people of the great patriotic cities will think of the battle of the
day; whether they are indeed unspeakably proud and fond of the men
perilling and losing their lives that the nation may live? Oh, believe
it, thou most innocent of heroes; for is it not so written in all our
excellent morning journals? Put no trust in the Satyrs who tell thee
that thy countrymen at home, in the exultation of victory, hold thee
only as an unconsidered part of the dumb and blind machine which hoists
thy captain to eminence. Yet would I have thee turn thy fairest hope,
thy perfect faith, to that one spot of all the world where kneels
to-night some fond, familiar form; where loving hands are humbly
uplifted for an absent one, and quivering lips implore, Almighty
Father, guard him still!
Now tremble, earth, and shake, ye friendly spheres, for the Mackerel
Brigade, glittering with spectacles and gorgeous with red neckties and
gold watches, advances for a third round with the unblushing
Confederacies of Paris, several of whom are on the roof with duck-guns
in their hands and slaughter in their hearts. As I gaze upon the
wonderful scene through my bit of smoked glass, the Orange County
Howitzers burst into a roar, not unlike a Dutch chorus, and the sun is
in momentary danger of being hit.
To speak once more in a past tense:--Forward rolled the Mackerel tide
of battle the whole length of the line, with skirmishers thrown out to
catch Confederate chickens, and the deadly peal of treason's duck-gun
mingled hoarsely with the angry bang of loyalty's random musket.
Heading Regiment 5, and mounted on his geometrical steed, Euclid,
Captain Villiam Brown essayed a daring charge at the front door of
Paris; while Captain Bob Shorty, with a portion of the Conic Section
just arrived from Accomac, thundered toward the window of the first
floor; but here a female Confederacy opened a heavy fire of pokers and
gridirons from the basement, and there was too much danger to the
spectacles of the ancient Brigade to warrant persistence in the bold
attempt.
Far to the left, with his eyes blazing like the ends of two cigars, and
his nose glowing like a transparent strawberry, Captain Samyule Sa-mith
got himself and his celebrated horse-marines so ingeniously entangled
and mixed up with Captain Munchausen's and everybody else's command,
that the Schleswig-Holstein question was a very ordinary conundrum in
comparison, and the fight in that part of the field bade fair to last
for a few years without much definite carnage.
Then, again, on the calm waters of Duck Lake (now too deep for wading
in consequence of recent rains), that hoary old salt, Rear Admiral
Head, unhooked his famous flagship, the "Shockingbadhat," and set out
with his improved swivel-gun and agile Mackerel crew to take a hand in
the carnival of conquest.
"Loosen my plates!" swore the aged son of Neptune in his iron-clad
manner, as he adjusted his spectacles and extracted a slow-match from
one corner of his snuff-box,--"Loosen my plates! but the navy must kill
a few Confederate insects,--bark my turret, if it mustn't."
It was really beautiful, my boy, to see an iron-clad tar of such great
age light the slow-match with his own meerschaum, and aim the improved
artillery directly at the rear-elevation of a Confederacy tying his
shoe in one of the side windows of Paris.
Ker-bang! went the triumph of naval ingenuity, causing the flag-ship to
hop only a few inches into the air; and a Confederacy with amputated
coat-tails was instantly seen to spin wildly around and rub himself
like one in a bath.
Not to sicken you, my boy, with too much of such heart-rending
slaughter, let me say that a dense cloud of sulphurous smoke soon
entirely veiled the doomed City of Paris, into which the strategical
Mackerels continued for hours to pour such torrents of lead as no
number of windows could stand. Finally, as night approached, a person
of black extraction, with wool on the brain, emerged from the cloud
quite close to Villiam, and says he:
"De place hab surrender, sah."
"Ah!" says Villiam, pulling out his ruffles, "is the conflick too much
for the scorpions?"
The faithful black arranged a silver cake-basket more firmly under his
coat, and says he:
"Dey's all gone over Jordan."
Wild were the cheers that rent the air at this intelligence, and right
quickly were our national troops marching into the bar-room of captured
Paris, to the inspiring strains of "Drops of Brandy," from the
night-key bugle of the Mackerel band. Our distracted banner, too, was
just being raised triumphantly upon the roof, when there suddenly
emerged, from the shadow of the rear-guard, Miss P. Hen, leaning
trustfully upon the arm of the Conservative Kentucky Chap!
"Now," says she, vivaciously, "is the very moment for the President to
save our bleeding and bankrupt people, by paying four hundred millions
of dollars to the sunny South for her losses in this war, and offering
her such terms as may induce her to make that peace which is absolutely
necessary to close the most accurate History of the War now sold to
subscribers only."
Pause, my boy, ere you execrate the venerable Miss P. Hen; for there is
more than one fidgety old lady tendering advice to the Government at
this crisis; and the sisterhood is not without members who wear your
own style of costume.
Yours, carefully,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER CIX.
WHICH ENDETH THE THIRD VOLUME OF THIS INEXPRESSIBLY VERACIOUS
HISTORY OF THE WAR; AND SHOWETH HOW A GREAT REPUBLIC FINALLY
OVERCAME ITS SURPASSINGLY MENDACIOUS FOES, AND HOW IT EVINCES ITS
UNSPEAKABLE GRATITUDE TO PROVIDENCE FOR SUCH A VICTORY.
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 11th, 1865.
Look, my boy, upon the east wall of my luxurious presence-chamber, and
mark how I have maliciously pasted thereon a map of besotted Europe;
with all its capitals, rivers, mountains, and inland puddles laid down
with an accuracy and multitudinosity to forever enlighten and utterly
confound every sniffing little schoolboy-geographer in the land. What a
shapeless chunk of inferior dirt is Europe! How like a minute and
feeble skiptail does it appear, when compared with our own gigantic
straddlebug of a country! Yet has the skiptail ventured to interfere
offensively in the private affairs of the straddlebug; and the
interference, and the private affairs, and the possible upshot of the
whole matter, remind me forcibly of a spirited little event which once
occurred in the Sixth Ward.
The male and female Michael O'Korrigan, my boy, occupied a spacious
apartment on the fine, airy, eighth floor of the sumptuous Maison
Mulligan in that celebrated Ward, and for several years the course of
their true love ran so smoothly that it became hopelessly insipid and
exasperating to all the old maids for blocks around. Nothing was ever
equal to the peaceful unity of the male and female O'Korrigan; and did
Michael find it necessary, in the course of some friendly discussion
with a neighbor on the stairs, to call for a hatchet till he broke the
ugly nose of the spalpeen, it was the wife of his bosom that handed him
his own bit of a stick, and joined in the argument herself with a poker
for a referee. But nothing's perfect in this world except the wisdom of
owls and Congressmen, and Mrs. O'Korrigan's military virtues and
wholesome command of her husband had the slight drawback of a
constitutional taste for poteen. Michael expostulated with her by the
hair, and remonstrated with her by the shoulders, and plead with her
over the head; but all to no purpose; and he was greatly assisted and
comforted by a bit of a preacher named Father O'Tod, who took care of
everybody's virtue except his own. It was Father O'Tod that sat down
beside her quite pious and comfortable, and
"Ailey," says he, "it's clane disgusted I am at heart," says he, "to
see a wake crature of the hen sex," says he, "a-cackling over a baste
of a black bottle as if it was a fresh egg," says he. "And Ailey," says
he, "if your husband was anything but a wake-minded bouchal of a man,"
says he, "it's with a bit of crab-thorn that he'd be persuadin' ye to
give it up for good," says he.
"Oh, sorra the day," says she, "that I'm not behoolden to yer
riverence," says she, "for such illigant advice," says she; "but it's
meself that's accountable to somebody else than yerself and Michael
O'Korrigan," says she, "for what I do," says she. "Do ye mind that,
Father O'Tod?" says she. "And when I'm afther takin' a drop for the
good of me health," says she, "I don't bother any one," says she; "but
stay shut up in my own room," says she, "and only ask to be let alone,"
says she.
Now it chanced that Mr. O'Korrigan, being invited by Father O'Tod, and
especially aggrieved by having one of his best Sunday shoes coolly
appropriated as a sort of fanciful leathern case for the aforesaid
black bottle, finally resolved to at least recapture his property, and,
mayhap, spill the poteen. So he placed the hair of his head in Mrs.
O'Korrigan's left hand, and scraped his nose against the nails of her
right, and was enjoying himself very much, when Father O'Tod came in,
and
"Michael agrah," says he, "it's spaichless with horrors I am," says he,
"to see ye brawling with yer own wife," says he, "and she a woman,"
says he.
"The marcy of Heaven on me!" says Mike, says he; "but isn't it yer own
self," says he, "that's been advisin' me by the year," says he, "to
stop her poteen?" says he.
"It's not the desthruction of the poteen yer after at all," says Father
O'Tod, says he; "but only to wrinch from her," says he, "an owld
brogan," says he, "that ye'd be as well without," says he.
Just at this moment Mr. O'Korrigan managed to get possession of the
brogan referred to, and was commencing to use it most potently as an
instrument of wholesome matrimonial correction, when the scuffle
displaced the unfortunate black bottle from the pocket of Mrs.
O'Korrigan, and it fell to the floor and--broke into fifty pieces.
"It's accident that did that," says Father O'Tod, says he, "and not
yerself at all, Michael O'Korrigan," says he; "and it's not myself,"
says he, "that'll give aither of ye pardon," says he. "But I'm l'anin'
to Ailey," says he, "and it's masses I'll say for her," says he, "if
she's bate to death," says he.
"Ailey, avourneen," says Mike, says he, "the bottle's broke," says he,
"and I've got me brogan," says he, "and ye may keep the rest," says he,
"if ye'll make up," says he.
"Michael, darlint," says she, "ye can place yer big mout' in the middle
of me faychures," says she; "but as for Father O'Tod," says she, "it's
achin' I am to comb his hypocritical hair," says she, "with a poker,"
says she.
"Ailey, me angel," says Mike, says he, "it'll be showin' our gratitude
to Saint Payter," says he, "that we an't both kilt intirely," says he,
"lavin' aich other orphans," says he, "if we just slather the owld
humbug together," says he.
So they both fell upon Father O'Tod with a heartiness not to be
described, and that excellent and neutral old gentleman was much mussed
in his linen.