Chapter 44
Villiam remained silent, my boy, and drooped his proud head. Could nothing induce those devoted patriots to strike for the forlorn hope?
Suddenly, a glow of inspiration came over his face, he rose in his saddle like a flash, waved his sword toward the foe, and shouted--
"I know you now, my veterans! The day is hot, yonder lies our road, and--my peerless Napoleons," said Villiam, frenziedly:
"COME AND TAKE A DRINK!"
In an instant I was blinded with a cloud of dust, through which came the wild tramp and fierce hurrahs of Company 3, Regiment 5, Mackerel Brigade. The appeal to their finer feelings had carried them by storm, and they charged like the double-extract of a compound avalanche. I was listening to their cheers as they drove the demoralized foe before them, when a political chap came riding post-haste from Paris, and says he:
"How many voters have fallen?"
Before I could answer him, my boy, the triumphant Mackerels came pouring in, just in time to meet the General of the Mackerel Brigade, who had just rode up from a village in the rear, with an umbrella over his head to keep off the sun.
"My children," says the general, kindly, as their shouts fell upon his ears, "you have sustained me n.o.bly this day, and we will enjoy the thanks of our grateful country together. I thank you, my children."
Here the political chap threw up his hat, and says he: "Hurroar for the Union! My fellow-beings," says the political chap, glowingly, "I announce the idolized General of the Mackerel Brigade for President of the United States in 1865."
"Ah!" says Villiam--he would have said more, but at that moment his horse's legs became entangled in something, and both horse and rider went to gra.s.s. I looked, my boy, and behold, it was my frescoed dog Bologna, who had run against the geometrical steed of the warrior in pursuit of an army biscuit. I whistled, my boy, and the docile quadruped shrunk toward me with criminal aspect.
And so, the unblest cause of treason has received a decisive blow. The end approaches; but I can't say which end, my boy--I can't say which end.
Yours, martially,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER L.
REMARKING UPON A PECULIARITY OF VIRGINIA, AND DESCRIBING COMMODORE HEAD'S GREAT NAVAL EXPLOIT ON DUCK LAKE, ETC.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., June 15th, 1862.
Early in the week I trotted to the other side of the river on my gothic steed Pegasus, and having lent that architectural pride of the stud to a thoughtful individual, who wished to make a sketch of his facade, I took a branch railroad for a circuitous pa.s.sage to Paris, intending to make one stoppage on the way. The locomotive was about two-saucepan power, my boy, and wheezed like a New York Alderman at a free lunch.
First we stopped at a town composed of one house, and that was a depot.
"What place is this?" says I to my fellow pa.s.senger, who was the conductor, and was reading the _Tribune_, and was swearing to himself.
"It's Mulligan's Court-House, the Capital of Sally Ann County," says he, and again took out the bill I had paid my fare with to see if it was good.
I took another branch road here, and we snailed along to another town, composed of a wood-pile. "What place is this?" says I to my fellow-traveller, the brakeman. "It's Abednego Junction,
"Virginia," says a modern Southern giant of intellect, "is one grand embodied poem."
I believe him, my boy; for, like a poem, Virginia appears to have a capital at the commencement of every line.
Reaching London, and brus.h.i.+ng past a crowd of our true friends the contrabands, whose cries of anguish upon hearing that I had brought them no plum-pudding, were truly harrowing, I pushed forward to the new Union paper, the London Times, with whose editor I had business.
Just as I entered the office, my boy, there rushed out in great rage an exasperated southern Union man. Having no gun about the house to pick off our pickets as they came into town, he borrowed a barber's pole and stuck it out of the window, proclaimed himself an oppressed Unionist, had a meeting of his family to elect him to the United States Congress from Anna Maria County, and made a thrilling Union address to two contrabands from his back-stoop. He wound up this great speech, my boy, by saying:
"Young men, it is your duty to fight for the Union, which has caused us all so many tears. If any young man's wife would fain dissuade him, let him say to her, in the language of the poet,
"'I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Honor more!'"
This touching peroration was sent in ma.n.u.script to the London Times, and this is the way it appeared in that intellectual American journal:
"Young hen, it is your duty to fight for the Onion, which has caused us all so many tears. If any young man's wife would fain dissuade him, let him say to her, in the language of the poet:
"'I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Hannah More.'"
When the southern Union man read this twistification, he put his paper where his wife couldn't see it (she being a very jealous woman), and went out to cowhide the editor. He cowhided him, by frantically placing the cowhide in the editor's hands, and then running his back repeatedly against the weapon. Typographical errors have a unique effect in reports of killed and wounded, my boy; but they knock the Promethean blaze out of eloquence.
Having transacted my business with the editor, and read a dispatch, just received from a Gentleman of Eminence, stating that Beauregard, who was at Okolonna, had a force of 120,000 men; but that Halleck would probably succeed in putting the entire 80,000 to flight before Beauregard could return from Richmond; though it was currently reported that the rebels were sixty thousand strong, and General Pope must be expeditious if he wanted to capture the whole 10,000 before General Beauregard got back from the Shenandoah valley; I turned to the editor, and says I:
"How does newspaper business pay now, my gifted Censor?"
He sighed, as he shoved a demijohn further under his desk, and says he:
"There's only one newspaper in the world that pays now, sonny:
"What's that?" says I.
"The Paris _Pays_," says he.
I left him immediately, my boy. Ordinary depravity don't affect me, for I have known several Congressmen in my time; but I can't stand abnormal iniquity.
Arriving at Paris I found that a recent shower had made Duck Lake navigable, and Commodore Head was preparing his fleet to attack a secession squadron, which some covert rebel had built during the night for the purpose of annoying the Mackerels in Paris.
"Batter my plates!" says the commodore, cholerically, "I could capture that poor cuss easily, if I only had a proper pilot."
As Duck Lake is only about four yards wide at a freshet, my boy, your ignorance may suggest no sufficient reason for a pilot in such a case; but you are no martial mariner, my boy.
Luckily the man for the place was at hand. On Wednesday, a glossy contraband, in a three-story s.h.i.+rt-collar, and looking like a fountain of black ink with a strong wind blowing against it, came into Paris, and surrendered to Captain Villiam Brown.
"Ha!" says Villiam, replacing the newspaper that had just blown off from two lemons and a wicker flask on the table, "what says our cousin Africa?"
"Mars'r Vandal," says the faithful black, earnestly, "I hab important news to combobicate. I knows all de secrets of de rebel Scratchetary of the Navy. True as you lib, Mars'r Vandal, so help me gad, I'se de coachman of de pirate Sumter."
"Ah!" says Villiam, cautiously, "tell me, blessed shade, what has a coachman got to drive on board a vessel?"
The true-hearted contraband modestly eyed a wonder of the insect kingdom which he had just removed from his hair, and says he:
"I drove de ingine, mars'r."
That was enough, my boy. Having learned from this intelligent creature what the rebel Secretary was going to have for dinner next Sunday, and what the Secretary's wife said in her letter to her mother, Villiam ordered him to act as pilot on the Mackerel Fleet.
And now let me draw a long breath before I attempt to describe that terrific and sanguinary naval engagement, which proved conclusively what Europe may expect, if Europe bother us with any more biG.o.dd nonsense.
Having ballasted with mortar, my boy, to seem more naval, the unblus.h.i.+ng commodore mounted his swivel-gun at the bow of the Mackerel Fleet, and selected for his gunner and crew a middle-aged Mackerel chap, whose great fondness for fresh fish made him invaluable for ocean service.