Chapter 42
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., June 1st, 1862.
It is my belief--my solemn and affecting belief, my boy, that our once distracted country is destined to be such a great military power hereafter, that an American citizen will be distinguishable in any part of the world by his commission as a brigadier. Even Congressmen will answer to the command of "Charge--mileage!" and it is stated that sons of guns in every variety are already being born at the West--sons of "Pop" guns, my boy.
The last time the General of the Mackerel Brigade was here, he was so much pleased with the high state of strategy developed at the War Office, that he visited all the bar-rooms in Was.h.i.+ngton, and ordered the tumblers to be at once illuminated.
"Thunder!" says the general to Colonel Wobert Wobinson, of the Western Cavalry, as they were taking measures to prevent any possible mistake by seeing the enemy double, "this war is making great tacticians of the whole nation, and if I wanted my sons to become Napoleons, I'd put them into the War Office for a week. My sons! my sons!" says the general hysterically, motioning for a little more hot water, "why are you not here with me in glory, instead of remaining home there, like ripe plums on the parent tree."
"Plums! plums!" says Colonel Wobinson, thoughtfully. "Ah! I see," says the colonel, pleasantly, "your sons are damsons."
The general eyed the speaker with much severity of countenance, my boy, and says he:
"If _you_ have any sons, my friend, they are probably fast young men, and take after their father--at the approach of the enemy."
The general is rather proud of his sons, my boy, one of whom wrote the following, which he keeps pinned against the wall of his room:--
POOR p.u.s.s.y.
We count mankind and keep our census still, We count the stars that populate the night; But who, with all his computation, can Con catty nations right?
In all the lands, in zones of all degrees, No spot im-puss-able is known to be; And sure, the ocean can't ignore the Cat, Whose capital is C.
Despise her not; for Nature, in the work Of making her, remembered human laws, And gave to Puss strange gifts of human sort; Before she made her paws:
First, Puss is like a soldier, if you please; Or, like a soldier's officer, in truth; For every night brings ample proof she is A fencer from her youth.
A model cosmopolitan is she, Indifferent to change of place or time; And, like the hardy sailor of the seas, Inured to every climb.
Then, like a poet of the n.o.ble sort, Who spurns the ways of ordinary crews, She courts the upper-storied attic salt, And hath her private mews.
In mathematics she eclipses quite Our best professors of the science hard, When, by her quadrupedal mode, she shows Her four feet in a yard.
To try the martial simile once more: She apes the military drummer-man, When, at appropriate hours of day and night, She makes her ratty plan.
She is a lawyer to the hapless rat, Who strives in vain to
Then turn not from poor p.u.s.s.y in disdain, Whose pride of ancestry may equal thine; For is she not a blood-descendant of The ancient Catty line?
Speaking of strategy, my boy, you will remember that Company 3, Regiment 5, Mackerel Brigade, started for an advance on Richmond last week, and were within ten miles of that city. Subsequently they made another forced march of five miles, leaving only fifteen miles to go; and on Tuesday, a messenger came in from them to Captain Villiam Brown, with the intelligence that the advance was already within twenty-five miles of the rebel head-quarters.
"Ha!" says Villiam, "the Confederacy is doomed; but I must curb the advancing impetuosity of these devoted beings, or they'll be in Canada in a week. I think," says Villiam, calculatingly, "that a retreat would bring us to the summer residence of the Southern Confederacy in less time."
Here another messenger came in from the Richmond storming party, and, says he:
"The advance on Richmond has failed in consequence of the shoes furnished by the United States of America."
"Ah!" says Villiam, hastily setting down a goblet.
"Yes," says the chap, mournfully, "them air shoes has demoralized Company 3, which is advancing back to Paris at double-quick. Them shoes," says the chap, "which was furnished by the sons of Revolutionary forefathers by a contractor, at only twenty-five dollars a pair for the sake of the Union, has caused a fatal mistake. They got so ragged with being exposed to the wind, that when Company 3 hastily put them on for an advance on Richmond, they got the heels in front and have been going in the wrong direction ever since."
"Where did you leave your comrades?" says Villiam.
"At Joneses Court House," says the chap.
"Ah!" says Villiam, "is that a healthy place?"
"No," says the chap, "it's very unhealthy--I was drunk all the time I was there."
"I see," says Villiam, with great agitation, "my brave comrades are in a tight place. Let all the newspaper correspondents be ordered to leave Paris at once," says Villiam to his adjutants, "and we'll take measures for a second uprising of the North."
When it became generally known, my boy, that Company 3, Regiment 5, Mackerel Brigade, were falling back across Duck Lake, there was great agitation in Government circles, and the general of the Mackerel Brigade prepared to call out all persons capable of bearing arms.
"The Const.i.tution is again in danger," says the general, impulsively, "and we must appeal to the populace."
"Ah!" says Villiam, "it would also aid our holy cause to call out the women of America. For the women of America," says Villiam, advisedly, "are capable of baring arms to any extent."
"No!" says the general. "Woman's place in this war is beside the couch of the sick soldier. Thunder!" says the general, genially, "it's enough to make us fonder of our common nature to see the devotion of women to the invalid volunteer. As I was pa.s.sing through the hospital just now,"
says the general, feelingly, "I saw a tender, delicate woman acting the part of a ministering angel to a hero in a hard ague. She was fanning him, my friend--she was fanning him."
"Heaven bless her!" says Villiam, with streaming eyes; "and may she never be without a stove when she has a fever. I really believe," says Villiam, glowingly, "that if woman found her worst enemy, even, burning to death, she would heap coals of fire upon his head."
Villiam's idea of heaping coals of fire, my boy, is as literal as was the translation of Enoch.
On learning of the repulse from Richmond, all the Southern Union men of Paris commenced to remember that the rebels are our brethren, and that this war was wholly brought about by the fiendish abolitionists.
"Yes!" says a patriotic chap from Accomac, sipping the oath loyally, "the Abolitionists brought this here war about, and I have determined not to support it. Our slaves read the _Tribune_, and have learned so much from military articles in that paper that the very life of the South depended upon separation."
In fact, my boy, notwithstanding the efforts of Captain Villiam Brown to tranquillize public feeling by seizing the telegraph office and railroad depot, telegraphing to everybody he knew for reenforcements, the excitement was steadily increasing, until word came from Company 3, Regiment 5, Mackerel Brigade, that no enemy had been in sight at all.
When the intelligence was brought to the General of the Mackerel Brigade, and as soon as the band had finished serenading him, he called for a fresh tumbler, and says he:
"I may as well tell you at once, my children, that this whole matter is simply a part of my plan for bringing this unnatural war to a speedy termination. Company 3 retired by my design, and--and--in fact, my children," says the general, confidingly, "it's something you can't understand--it's strategy."
Perhaps it was, my boy--perhaps it was; for there is more than one reason to believe that strategy means military shoes with the heels in front.
Yours, cautiously,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER XLIX.
NOTING THE ARCHITECTURAL EFFECTS OF THE GOTHIC STEED, PEGASUS, AND DESCRIBING THE MACKEREL BRIGADE'S SANGUINARY ENGAGEMENT WITH THE RICHMOND REBELS.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., June 8th, 1862.