The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Ii Part 36

MUGVILLE, July 4, 1776.

DEAR SIRRAH,--Justly regarding you as the next President of the United States, and an honored successor of my old friend, Georgey Washington, I deem it proper, by reason of my great importance and infirmities, to repeat in writing with a pen what I have before spoken to you with my tongue--this supplement to my printed views (dated April the First) on the highly inflamed condition of our glorious and distracted Union.

To meet the expectations of a populace admiring my venerable shape, I deem it consistent with my retiring modesty and infirmities to dictate to you the four plans you may pursue by way of making yourself President of our distracted Commonwealth in 1865.

I.--Throw off the old and a.s.sume a new designation--the sly old party; give the South entire control of the whole country, and, my wig upon it, we shall have no secession; but, on the contrary, an early return of the entire Confederacy to Washington. Without some equally benignant measure, we shall be compelled to fight all the Border States and put them down at once, instead of keeping two hundred thousand soldiers peaceably employed in making their loyalty continually sure.

II.--Collect the war taxes outside of the States where the tax-payers live, or declare upon paper that they are already collected.

III.--Conquer the seceded States by the unheard-of agency of an actual army. I think this might be done in a few hundred years by a young and able general to be found on some railroad, with six hundred thousand disciplined spades. Estimating a third of this number to remain for ever stationary on the Potomac, and a loss of a still greater number by consummate strategy and changings of base. The loss of chickens and contrabands on the other side would be frightful, however great the morality of the mudsills.

This conquest would cost money that might otherwise go to beautify the South, secure fifteen swearing and deeply-offended provinces, and be immediately followed by a new election for President in 1865.

IV.--Say to the Seceded States, in one of which I own some mortgages: "_How are you, Southern Confederacy?_"

Deliberately, I remain, Your father and the country's, V. GAMMON.

This touching letter, my boy, I recommend to your most prayerful consideration, as a paternal outpouring of shirt-collared old age.

Old age! how beautiful art thou in the glory of thy spectacles, and the sublime largeness of thy stomach and manner. And yet, would you believe it, my boy? I am sometimes possessed of great doubtings as to the genuineness of that majesty which makes a continually-looming Venerable Shape such a great blessing to an imperiled land. Sometimes there comes to me a rickety vision of:

AGE BLUNTLY CONSIDERED.

As Age advances, ails and aches attend, Backs builded broadest burdensomely bend; Cuttingly cruel comes consuming Care, Dealing delusions, drivelry, despair.

Empty endeavor enervately ends, Fancy forlornly feigns forgotten friends; Gout, grimly griping, gluttonously great, Hasten's humanity's hard-hearted hate.

Intentions imbecile invent ideas Justly jocunding jolly jokers' jeers: Knowledge--keen kingdom knurlyably known-- Lingers, lamenting life's long lasting loan,

Mammonly mumming, magnifying motes, Nurtures numb Nature's narrowest nursery notes, Opens old age's odious offering out-- Peevish punctilio, parrot-pining pout.

Qualmishly querrying, quarrelsomely quaint, Rousing rife ridicules' repealed restraint; Speaking soft silliness--such shallow show That tottering toysters, tickled, t.i.tter too.

Useless, ungainly unbeloved, unblest, Virtue's vague visor, vice's veiling vest, Wheezingly whimpering, wanting wisdom, wit, Xistence, Xigent, Xclaims--Xit!

Youths, you're yelept youth's youngest; yet you'll Zestless zig-zaggers zanyable zealed.

I exhibited that pleasing little poem to a Mackerel chap, who stuttered, my boy; and he came so near going into apoplexy through his endeavors to read it, that I was obliged to make a joke, in order that he might smile, relax, and recover.

And now let your mind fly, like a wearied dove, to the celebrated Arcadian scenes of festive Accomac, where the Mackerel Brigade continues to reconnoitre in force, and awaits the death of the Confederacy by old age. Men, my boy, who entered this strategic war in the full bloom of youth, now go with stooping shoulders and tottering gait when they have a barrel of flour to carry, and the bloom has departed from every part of them save the extreme tip of that handle of the human countenance which first meets the edge of an open door in the dark. Even the Mackerel bra.s.s-band begins to grow feeble, often making pitiable attempts to execute stirring strains on his night key bugle, as though unconscious that by long disuse in his pocket it had become clogged with bread and cheese.

There is, on the Southern border of Accomac, my boy, a solitary house, containing furniture and the necessaries of life, which the Conic Section of the Mackerel Brigade had been ordered to guard. It stands immediately on the verdant banks of Awlkwyet River, where that stream must be at least ten inches deep; and as the first regular bridge is ten miles below it, of course the Conic Section, to guard the house, was placed at the end of that bridge--it being a principle of national strategy never to recognize any Confederate raid not made across a regular bridge.

Now it chanced, that while the Conic Section at the bridge was taking a short nap, having been up very late the night before; and while the beloved General of the Mackerel Brigade was visiting a portion of his beautiful home-circle in Paris, that a very dirty Confederacy, riding in a seedy go-cart, made his appearance on the bank of the river opposite the house, and commenced to make a raid right through the water to the sh.o.r.e this side. His geometrical steed wet his feet thereby, and the wheels of his squeaking vehicle were damped by this barbarian way of offering irregular opposition to the Government; but what cared he for the rules of civilized warfare, which are the only authorized West Point editions? Like all his infatuated countrymen, he was rendered less than strategic by the demon of Secession, and he crossed by the unmilitary ford instead of by the military bridge.

This is, indeed, heart-sickening.

There was a Mackerel chap who slept in the house to take care of a large black bottle, and when he heard the go-cart driving up before the door, he stuck his head out of the window, and says he:

"What is it which you would have in these irregular proceedings, Mr.

Stuart?"

The Confederacy dismounted from his chariot, tied a bag of oats over his charger's head, and says he:

"I'm making a raid."

The Mackerel waved his hand southward, and says he:

"You'll find the bridge just below. Don't stay here," says the Mackerel, earnestly, "or you'll exasperate the North to fury."

Here the Confederacy made some remark in which the name of the North and a profane expletive were connected very closely, and proceeded to bring from the house a hobby-horse which stood in the hall. After placing this valuable article in his go-cart, he next brought out a cooking-stove; closely following this with some chairs, a dining-table, two feather beds, a tea-set, four wine-gla.s.ses and some tumblers, a looking-gla.s.s, four sheets, two cottage bedsteads, a Brussels carpet, and a Maltese cat. With these and a few other exceptions, my boy, he made no attempt to disturb private property; thereby proving that the President's Proclamation has already produced a wholesome effect in the degenerate South.

While this was going on, the vigilant Mackerel guard descended privately from a back window, and made a forced march to where the Conic Section were watching something which looked like a man in the Southern horizon--instantly making known the audacious raid of the thieving Confederacy, and asking whether the new levies of the Executive's last call were likely to arrive early enough to take measures for the prevention of the capture of Washington.

While the question was in debate, my boy, the beloved General of the Mackerel Brigade arrived with his trunk and umbrella from Paris, and having caused it to be telegraphed to all the reliable morning journals that the Confederacy were now in a fair way to be captured alive, he at once took measures to cut off the retreat of the latter. Captain Villiam Brown, with Company 3, Regiment 5, was at once ordered to construct a pontoon bridge across the river some miles below, and watch it vigilantly day and night; Captain Bob Shorty and Colonel Wobert Wobinson, with the Anatomical Cavalry, were dispatched to take possession of a railroad leading to Mana.s.sas; whilst Captain Samyule Sa-mith with the balance of the Conic Section, was commanded to make a detour of three hundred miles, and endeavor to reach the invaded house before midwinter set in.

All these movements were in accordance with profound strategy, my boy, and cut off the Confederacy from retreat by every route in the world, except the insignificant one he came by.

Satisfied that the war was going to end in about sixty days, after which we should have time to defeat combined Europe, the Mackerel guard hastened back to the domicil, which he reached just in time to find the Confederacy topping his go-cart with some kindling-wood from the cellar.

I regret to say, my boy--I blush for my species as I make the incredible revelation--that upon receiving the information of his surrounding and probable strategic capture by the vigilant Mackerel Brigade, the irreverent Confederacy burst into a hideous horse-laugh, and at once proceeded to appropriate the poor Mackerel chap's own shoes and stockings. With the deepest horror I record, that he also tweaked the Mackerel's nose.

"I did not intend this as a permanent invasion," says the impious Confederacy, as he remounted his go-cart and turned his geometrical Arabian toward the water again; "but I have just married a daughter of South Carolina--one of two twins--and reckoned that I needed some things to set up housekeeping. Farewell, foul Hessian," says the Confederacy, as he splashed through the water to the opposite bank--"fare thee well, and tell your fiendish ruler, that it is somewhat impossible to conquer the sunny South."

The Mackerel chap gazed thoughtfully after the go-cart as it disappeared on the other side of the balmy Awlkwyet stream, and says he: "Rail on, my erring brother; but if you'd only stayed here one more week, you might not have escaped thus for seven whole days. Had the army been insufficient to secure you," says the Mackerel to himself, "had the army been insufficient to secure you, why, there's the police."

Raids, my boy, are so intrinsically irregular in their character, that no provision can be made for them in a regular army; hence they are sometimes necessitated to take provisions for themselves as they go on.

Yours, radiantly, ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER LXXVI.

REFERRING TO THE MOSQUITO AS A TEST OF HUMAN NATURE, EXPLAINING THE LONG HALT OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE, AND NOTING THE COURT OF INQUIRY ON CAPTAIN VILLIAM BROWN.

WASHINGTON, D. C., October 26th, 1862.

Early this morning, my boy, I sauntered across the Long Bridge and took my seat upon the topmost rail of a fence enclosing a trampled meadow.

There I sat, like Marius, my boy, contemplating the architectural ruin embodied in my Gothic steed, Pegasus, and ever and anon whistling abstractedly to my frescoed dog, Bologna.

By the G.o.ds! I really love these dumb friends of mine. The speculative eye of the world sees in poor Pegasus nothing more than an architectural dream--the church architecture of the future--and, I must confess, my boy, that the Gothic charger _does_ look something like a skeleton chapel at a distance; it sees in Bologna only a mongrel cur, whose taste for the calves of human legs is an epicurean outrage on walking society. But for me, my boy, there is a human pathos in the patient fidelity of these zoological curiosities which appeals to my best manhood. I have had a hard and thankless life of it; my experience with the knowing political chaps of the Sixth Ward was enough to grind everything like human tenderness out of my nature, and make me turn into an arrogant and contemptuous misanthrope; but there are times when the cold nose of Pegasus against my cheek, or a wag from that speaking tail of Bologna--which curls up behind him like a note of interrogation, to ask how his master feels--will give me such a sensation of wishing to protect and be kind to the Helpless, that I feel myself a better man for the practical Christianity of such humble society.

There is my mosquito, the youthful Humboldt, too! He came to me one night, about two years ago, my boy, practising much profound strategy to capture my nose; and when I foiled him by a free use of both arms of the service, the unterrified and humming manner in which he changed the base of his operations and came on again, excited my admiration and respect. Catching him in a little net cage made from the musquito bars of my bed, I kept him safely by me, and now use him as a test of human nature. In G.o.d's providence, each minute created thing has its appointed use, my boy, and depend upon it, the use of the musquito is to test human nature.

There was a veteran political chap from Albany called upon me last Sunday night. A sage and aged chap of infinite vest, who wears the broad-brimmed hat of reticent respectability, and nestles in much shirt-collar like a centuried owl. Having taken a pinch of snuff after the dirty manner of a Gentleman of the Old School, he merely paused to take a hasty glance at the plan for the next Senatorial election in his note book, and then says he: