The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Iii Part 35

"SIR,--I propose to receive the surrender of the well-known Southern Confederacy on the following terms:

"Fresh rolls for all the officers and men to be made at once, and the boots of the Southern Confederacy to be blacked by officers duly appointed by the United States of America. All the officers to give their individual pay rolls, that they may be cashed by the United States. Such public and private property as has been stolen by the well-known Southern Confederacy to be turned over to the police-officers appointed to take charge of it.

"Each officer will be permitted to retain both of his arms, and, together with the men, is expected to return calmly to his family, and not commit a.s.sault upon the United States of America without due provocation.

"THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE.

("Green Seal.")

It is related in tradition, that when the knightly Munchausen received this epistle, he laughed horribly for the s.p.a.ce of at least half an hour, as though greatly rejoiced at a bit of unparalleled waggishness.

After which he delivered himself of four sinister winks at nothing, simultaneously exclaiming:

"By Chivalry! here's magnanimity."

After which he wrote thus:

"GEN. MACK. BRIG.:

"SIRRAH,--I have received your scrawl of this date, containing what may be denominated terms of first-cla.s.s board for the celebrated Southern Confederacy. Inasmuch as said terms give me rather more advantage than half a dozen strategical victories over your vandals could possibly have procured for us, I hereby permit you to capture us at once, in order to avoid further carnage in your ranks.

"MUNCHAUSEN X his mark."

Other letters incidental to this business pa.s.sed between the two paladins, my boy; but as the letters of all great men are proverbial for their great dignity and heaviness, and are immensely calculated to incline readers to untimely repose, I have spared you the infliction.

Suffice it to say, that when Captain Villiam Brown read the Mackerel terms of surrender, he spasmodically applied his lips to a canteen, with the air of one who takes poison because the butcher's daughter has refused to be won by his manly shape.

"Ah!" says Villiam, "such magnanimity!"

Captain Bob Shorty was playing Old Sledge with three members of the Sanitary Commission when the doc.u.ment arrived.

"By all that's Federal!" says Captain Bob Shorty, "it appears to me--it really appears to me, Villiam, that I never see so much magnanimity!"

They took it to Captain Samyule Sa-mith as he sat by the roadside, straightening his highly-tempered sabre with a stone.

"I cannot always agree entirely with my brother officers on all points," says Samyule, reflectively, "for some of them are ineddicated: but I find in this doc.u.ment great magnanimity!"

Magnanimity, my boy, is the revenge of generous minds; as the venerable male parent feelingly observed when he made over his whole property to the interesting son who had just tried to poison him by putting a.r.s.enic into his coffee, and expressed an intention to burn him to death in his bed that night.

The glorious news of the surrender had no sooner reached the city of Paris than the aged and gifted Miss P. Hen organized an enthusiastic ma.s.s meeting of the decrepit Union element, and a speaker's stand was quickly erected, over which floated a banner inscribed

REGULAR MAGNANIMOUS NOMINATION

FOR

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

IN 1869,

_COLORADO JEWETT_.

The meeting being called to order, Miss P. Hen came to the front with her umbrella, and addressed the populace. She stated that this meeting was designed for no political purpose, but only to show Providence that a great nation knows how to be grateful for victory. Now was the time to heed the heart-sobs and gushing soul-pangs of the misguided Confederacies, and receive back all the Rebel leaders with kisses on their penitent noses. As for our present President, he meant well; but--

The speaker was suddenly interrupted by a burst of fifes and drums coming up the Accomac road, and right quickly there appeared a procession of political chaps with immense stomachs, from Chicago, who carried a fine banner inscribed:

REPUBLICAN NOMINATION

FOR

PRESIDENT IN 1869,

THE

_GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE_.

At this apparition Miss P. Hen ate a Graham biscuit with great accerbity of bearing, and was about to go on with her _Te Deum_, when a fleshy Chicago chap lightly jumped upon the platform and pushed the venerable maiden aside. He said that no scheme of politics brought them together this time: but a humble, heartfelt wish to thank a benignant Heaven for the downfall of a mighty people's enemies. As for the chief of those enemies, the Rebel leaders, they must every one of them be hanged without mercy, or justice might as well be ignored forever. The present President was too--

At this moment the hum of an approaching mult.i.tude drowned all other sounds, and there advanced from the rear of Paris a great band of high-moral citizens, with a banner announcing

UNION NOMINATION

FOR

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

IN 1869.

_OUR UNCLE ABE_.[7]

Forward surged this new audience toward the platform, and both Miss P.

Hen and the Chicago chap had recommenced their hymns of grat.i.tude, when an athletic citizen from Baltimore made a dash for the front railing and eloquently addressed the meeting. He was proud to see such a glorious concourse a.s.sembled, for no wrangling party object, but solely to unite in thankfulness to a greater than all earthly powers for the blessing of returning peace. To make that peace permanent and solid,--

[7] Four days after the date of this letter, ABRAHAM LINCOLN--the wise, the just, the merciful--fell beneath the dastard blow of an ign.o.ble a.s.sa.s.sin! All that is beautiful and good in the world must mourn his irreparable loss; and I need not say how consoling it is to me in this dark hour to feel, that, in all my extravagances of nonsense, I have never penned one word concerning the Martyr-President that was not inspired by a sentiment of actual affection for his genial and guileless character. Thank G.o.d! his eternally-infamous murderer came of a line not native to my country!

O. C. K.

Here Miss P. Hen got to the front and brought down her umbrella with awful violence upon the bare head of the speaker, and says she: "I'm the Republican party myself!"

"I beg your pardon, miss," says the Baltimore citizen, hotly, "but _I'm_ the Republican party!"

"You're both impostors!" roared the Chicago chap, scientifically squaring-off; "for I'M the Republican party!"

Crash goes the platform; down tumble the banners. Fists are plunging wildly in all directions, while such howls and screams arise from the tempest as though pandemonium were let loose to run a gamut of diabolical sounds.

Seated upon a barrel a short distance off, I was taking a deep interest, through my bit of smoked gla.s.s, in this scene of exciting National Thanksgiving, when a strange ringing noise, or lively bellow, and a sharp crash very unexpectedly sounded above the din, and, on looking up, I beheld the Conservative Kentucky chap joyously dancing upon the roof of Paris, with a huge dinner-bell in his right hand, and a smoking three-pounder beside him.

"Hooray!" shouted the Conservative Kentucky chap, blissfully standing on one leg. "Go in! That's the style! Sic 'em! Sic 'em! Hit 'em again, boys. Hem!" says the Conservative chap, with delirious enthusiasm; "this here sort of thing in the enemy's camp is just the ticket for our National Democratic Organization, of which I am the large Kentucky branch!"

Turn away your eyes, my boy, from such scenes as these, and look with me along that hill-side yonder, where the gentle sun casts his tenderest beams upon the new spring gra.s.s. You see there are irregular mounds scattered all the way up the slope,--hundreds,--hundreds!

Beneath them sleep the brave, the beautiful, the wept of the patriot home. Their loyal blood, poured in a fervid river to the twilight ocean of Eternity, has washed a pollution from our Flag, a blot from our escutcheon; and, oh! that it had also borne hence upon its purifying current that unholy, shifting beacon of political discord, which ever lures our Ship of State toward the breakers.