Chapter 12
Colonel Wobert Wobinson reviewed the regiment near Chain Bridge this morning, and each horse used about an acre to turn around in. Just before the order to "charge" was given, the orderly sergeant kindled a fire under each horse, and when the charge commenced, only about six of the animals laid down. Colonel Wobinson remarked that these six horses were in favor of peace, and refused to fight against their Southern brethren. I told him I thought that the peace breed had longer ears; and he said that that kind had been very scarce since the Government commenced appointing its foreign consuls.
Yours, hoa.r.s.ely,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER XVII.
NOTING A NEW VICTORY OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE IN VIRGINIA, AND ILl.u.s.tRATING THE PECULIAR THEOLOGY OF VILLIAM BROWN; WITH SOME MENTION OF THE SHARPSHOOTERS.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., October 18th, 1861.
At an early hour yesterday morning, while yet the dew was on the gra.s.s, and on everything else green enough to be out at that matinal hour, my boy, I saddled my gothic steed Pegasus, and took a trot for the benefit of my health. Having eaten a whole straw bed and a piece of an Irishman's shoulder during the night, my architectural beast was in great spirits, my boy, and as he snuffed the fresh air and unfurled the remnants of his warlike tail to the breeze of heaven, I was reminded of that celebrated Arabian steed which had such a contempt for the speed of all other horses that he never would run with them--in fact, my boy, he never would run at all.
Having struck a match on that rib of Pegasus which was most convenient to my hand, I lit a cigar, and dropped the match, still burning, into the right ear of my fiery charger. Something of this kind is always necessary to make the sagacious animal start; but when once I get his mettle up he never stops, unless he happens to hear some crows cawing in the air just above his venerable head. I am frequently glad that Pegasus has lost his eyesight, my boy; for could he see the expression on the faces of some of these same crows, when they get near enough to squint along his backbone, it would wound his sensibilities fearfully.
On this occasion he carried me, at a speed of 2.40 hours a mile, to a point just this side of Alexandria, where the sound of heavy cannonading and cursing made me pause. At first, my boy, I remembered an engagement I had in Was.h.i.+ngton, and was about to hasten back; but while I was pressing the lighted end of my cigar to the side of Pegasus, to make him turn, Colonel Wobert Wobinson, of the Western Cavalry, came walking toward me from a piece of woods on my right, and informed me that ten of his men had just been attacked by fourteen thousand rebels, with twenty columbiads. "The odds," says he, "is rather heavy; but our cause is the n.o.blest the world ever knew, and if my brave boys do not vanquish the unnatural foe, an indignant and decimated people will at once call upon the Cabinet to resign."
I told him that I thought I had read something like that in the _Tribune_; but he didn't seem to hear me.
By this time the cannonading had commenced to subside, and as I trotted alongside of Colonel Wobinson toward the field of battle, I asked him what he had done with his horse. He replied, that while on his way to the field, his sagacious beast had observed a hay-stack, and was so entranced with the vision that he refused to go a step further; so he had to leave him there.
Upon reaching the scene of strife, my boy, we discovered that the ten Western Cavalry men had routed the rebels, killing four regiments, which were all carried away by their comrades, and capturing six columbiads, which were also carried away. On our side n.o.body was killed nor wounded. In fact, two of our men, who went into the fight sick with the measles, were entirely cured, and captured four good surgeons. I
I believe him, my boy!
The women of America, my boy, are a credit to the America eagle, and a great expense to their husbands and fathers, but they don't exactly understand the most pressing wants of the soldier. For instance, a young girl, about seventy-five years of age, has been sending ten thousand pious tracts to the Mackerel Brigade, and the consequence is, that the air around the camp has been full of spit-b.a.l.l.s for a week.
These tracts, my boy, are very good for dying sinners and other Southerners, but I'd rather have Bulwer's novels for general reading.
Villiam Brown, of Company 3, Regiment 5, got one of them the other day, headed, "Who is your Father?" The n.o.ble youth read the question over once or twice, and then dashed the publication to the ground, and took some tobacco to check his emotions. (That brave youth's father, my boy, is a disgrace to his species; he has been sinking deeper and deeper in shame for some months past, until at last his name has got on the Mozart Hall ticket.) I saw that Villiam didn't understand what the tract really meant, and so I explained to him that it was intended to signify that G.o.d was his Father. The gifted young soldier looked at me dreamily for a moment, and then says he:
"G.o.d is my Father!" says he. "Well, now I am hanged if that ain't funny; for, whenever mother spoke of dad, she always called him 'the old devil!'"
Villiam never went to Sabbath-school, my boy, and his knowledge of theology wouldn't start a country-church.
Wis.h.i.+ng to find out if he knew anything about catechism, I asked him, last Sunday afternoon, if he knew who Moses was.
"Yes," says he, "I know him very well; he sells old clothes in Chatham street."
I went over to Virginia the other day to review Berdan's Sharpshooters, and was much astonished, my boy, at their wonderful skill with the rifle. The target is a little smaller than the side of a barn, with a hole through the centre exactly the size of a bullet. They set this up, my boy, just six hundred yards away, and fire at it in turn. After sixty of them had fired, I went with them to the target, but couldn't see that it had been hit by a single bullet. I remarked this to the captain, whereupon he looked pityingly at me, and says he:
"Do you see that hole in the bull's eye, just the size of a bullet?"
I allowed that I did.
"Well," says he, "the bullets all went through that hole."
Now I don't mean to say that the captain lied, my boy; but it's my opinion--my private opinion, my boy, that if he ever writes a work of fiction, it will sell!
La Mountain has been up in his balloon, and went so high that he could see all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and observe what they had for dinner at Fort Pickens. He made discoveries of an important character, my boy, and says that the rebels have concentrated several troops at Mana.s.sas. A reporter of the _Tribune_ asked him if he could see any negro insurrections, and he said that he _did_ see some black spots moving around near South Carolina, but found out afterward that they were some ants which had got into his telescope.
The Prince de Joinville's two sons, my boy, are admirable additions to General McClellan's staff, and speak English so well that I can almost understand what they say. Two Arabs are expected here tomorrow to take command of Irish brigades, and General Blenker will probably have two Aztecs to a.s.sist him in his German division.
Yours, musingly,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER XVIII.
DESCRIBING THE TERRIBLE DEATH AND MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A CONFEDERATE PICKET, WITH A TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., October 28th, 1861.
My head swells with patriotic pride when I casually remark that the Mackerel Brigade occupy the post of honor to the left of Bull Run, which they also left on the day we celebrated. The banner which was presented to us by the women of America, and which it took the orator of the day six hours and forty minutes to describe to us, we are using in the shape of blazing neck-ties; and when the hard-up sun of Virginia s.h.i.+nes upon the glorious red bands around the sagacious necks of our veterans, they all look as though they had just cut their throats. The effect is gory, my boy--extremely gory and respectable.
At the special request of Secretary Seward, who wrote six letters about it to the Governors of all the States, I have been appointed a picket of the army of the Upper Potomac. In your natural ignorance, my boy, you may not know why a man is called a picket. He is called a picket, my boy, because, if anybody drops a pocket-book or a watch anywhere, his natural gifts would cause him to pick-it up. If he saw a pocket, he would not pick-it--oh, no! But pick-it--picket.
The Picket, my boy, has been an inst.i.tution ever since wars began, and his perils are spoken of by some of the high old poets in these beautiful lines:
"The chap thy tactics doom to bleed to-day-- Had he thy reasons, would he poker play?
Pleased to the last, he does a deal of good, And licks the man just sent to shed his blood."
I am weeping, my boy.
While on my lonely beat, about an hour ago, a light tread attracted my attention, and looking up, I beheld one of secesh's pickets standing before me.
"Soldier," says he, "you remind me of my grandmother, who expired before I was born; but this unnatural war has made us enemies, and I must shoot you. Give me a chaw terbacker."
He was a young man, my boy, in the prime of life, and descended from the First Families of Virginia.
I looked at him, and says I:
"Let's compromise, my brother."
"Never!" says he. "The South is fighting for her liberty, her firesides, and the pursuit of happiness, and I desire most respectfully to welcome you with b.l.o.o.d.y hands to a hospitable grave."
"Stand off ten paces," says I, "and let's see whose name shall come before the coroner first."
He took his place, and we fired simultaneously. I heard a ball go whistling by a barn about a quarter of a mile on my right; and, when the smoke cleared away, I saw the secesh picket approaching me with an awful expression of woe on his otherwise dirty countenance.
"Soldier," says he, "was there anything in my head before you fired?"