The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Ii Part 24

Yours, drowsily, ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER LXIX.

ILl.u.s.tRATING THE IMPERTURBABLE CALMNESS OF THE NATIONAL CAPITOL, AND NOTING THE MEMORABLE INVASION OF ACCOMAC.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C., September 12th, 1862.

As I sit looking out of my window, my boy, on the street below, and notice how tranquilly all things are going on here, despite the excitement of the time, a deep sense of satisfaction steals over me, and the American Eagle of patriotic pride flaps his breezy pinions on the oak tree of my heart. Though I have just been laughing myself almost sick at the ludicrous manner in which my friend, the Confederacy, has walked right straight into the cunning trap prepared for his destruction by our own n.o.ble and profound generals, actually hastening his own annihilation by rus.h.i.+ng blindly through our lines, and capturing the twenty or thirty artful villages, towns, and garrisons left there for the express purpose of tempting him to his dreadful doom--though I have just been splitting my sides over this roaring case of ridiculous suicide, my boy, the city of Was.h.i.+ngton still maintains its calmness! Ever conscious that conquer we must, for our cause it is just, this city remains as placid as a summer dream; nearly all the liquor-shops doing a good business through the day, and the evening finding a majority of our army officers at their posts.

Lamp-posts, my boy.

There is something touchingly grand in the calmness of Was.h.i.+ngton under such circ.u.mstances, and it reminds me of a pleasing little incident in the Sixth Ward.

There was a female millinery establishment on the third floor of a building composed princ.i.p.ally of stairs, fed with frequent small rooms, and the expatriated French comtesse, who realized fas.h.i.+onable bonnets there, used one of her windows to display her wares. At this window, my boy, she always kept a young woman of much bloom and symmetry, with the latest Style on her head, and an expression of unutterable smile on her face. A young chap carrying a trumpet in the Fire Department happened to notice that this angel of fas.h.i.+on was always at the window when he went by; and as the thought that she particularly admired his personal charms crept over him, he at once adopted the plan of pa.s.sing by every day, attired in the garments best calculated to render fire-going manhood most beautiful to the eye. He donned a vest representing in detail the Sydenham flower-show on a yellow ground, wore inexpressibles representing innumerable black serpents ascending white columns, a.s.sumed a neck-tie concentrating all the highest glories of the Aurora Borealis, mounted two breast-pins and three studs torn from some gla.s.s-house, and wore a hat that slanted on his head in an engaging and intelligent manner. Day after day he pa.s.sed before the millinery establishment, my boy, still beholding the beloved object at the window, and occasionally placing his hand upon his heart in such a way as to show a large and gorgeous seal-ring containing the hair of a fellow-fireman who had caught such a cold at a great fire that he died some years after. "How cam she is!" says he to himself, "and she's as pretty as ninety's new hose-carriage. It seems to me," says the young chap to himself, stooping down to roll up the other leg of his pants--"it seems to me that I never see anything so cam. She observes my daily agoing and yet she don't so much as send somebody down to see if there's any overcoats in the front entry."

One day, my boy, a venerable Irish gentleman, keeping a boarding-house and ice-cream saloon in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the establishment, happened to go to sleep on the stairs with a lighted camphene lamp in his hand, and pretty soon the bells were ringing for a conflagration in that district. Immediately our gallant firemen were on their way to the spot; and having first gone through forty-two streets on the other side of the city to wake the people up there and apprise them of their great danger, reached the dreadful scene, and instantly began to extinguish the flames by bringing all the furniture out of a house not more than three blocks below. In the midst of these self-sacrificing efforts, a form was seen to dart into the burning building like a spectre. It was the enamored young chap who carried a trumpet in the department. He had seen the beloved object sitting at the window, as usual, and was bent upon saving her, even though he missed the exciting fight around the corner. Reaching the millinery-room door, he could see the object standing there in the midst of a sea of fire. "How cam she is," says he. "Miss Milliner," says he, "don't you see you're all in a blaze?"

But still she stood at the window in all her calmness. The devoted young chap turned to a fellow-fireman who was just then selecting two spring bonnets and some ribbon for his wife, in order to save them from the flames, and says he: "Jakey, what shall I do?" But Jakey was at that time picking out some artificial flowers for his youngest daughter, my boy, and made no answer. Unable to reach the devoted maid, and rendered desperate by the thought that she must be asleep in the midst of her danger, the frantic young chap madly hurled his trumpet at her. It struck her, and actually _knocked her head off_! Horrified at what he had done, the excited chap called himself a miserable wretch, and was led out by the collar. It was Jakey who did this deed of kindness, and says he: "What's the matter with you, my covey?" The poor young chap wrung his hands, and says he: "I've killed her, Jakey, I've killed her--and she so cam." Jakey took some tobacco, and then says he: "Why, that was only a pasteboard gal, you poor devil." And so it was, my boy--so it was; but the affair had such an effect upon the young chap that he at once took to drinking, and when delirium tremens marked him for its own, his last words were: "I've killed her, Jakey, I've killed her--and she so cam."

Was.h.i.+ngton, my boy, is "cam" in the midst of a conflagration. That is to say, the Government is "cam," they say; and it may be doubted whether it would be otherwise, even with its head knocked off.

The other day, I paid another visit to the Mackerel camp across the river, and was present at a meeting of officers called to debate upon the propriety of presenting a sword to the beloved general, for his heroism in the late great battle. Captain Samyule Sa-mith was in favor of the presentation, and says he: "Our inimitable leader, which is the admiration of everybody, richly deserves the blade in question. In the thickest of that deadly fray, his coat-tails were torn entirely off by a parrot sh.e.l.l."

Captain Villiam Brown placed the bottle on the table again, and says he:

"At which joint were the tails amputated, Samyule?"

Samyule took a little more sugar with his, and says he:

"Close to the b.u.t.tons."

"Ah!" says Villiam, "which way was the conqueror's face turned at the time?"

"I can't say," says Samyule; "but I don't see what that has to do with it."

"That's because you have a feeble intelleck, Samyule," says Villiam, mildly. "The human form," says Villiam, reasoningly, "has such variations of surface, that a projectile hurled at it in a straight line, cannot simply graze it to any extent without making a wound in some place. The coat-tails of the human form," says Villiam, lucidly, "could not without injury to that form be severed at the b.u.t.tons by a ball, unless they were _sticking straight out_ at the instant; and it is important that the United States of America should know whether the face of the wearer was turned toward the Southern Confederacy, or in an opposite direction, at the exact moment of the disaster."

The electrifying wisdom of this thoughtful speech, my boy, had the effect to produce an immediate adjournment of the general's friends; for when the test of anatomy is applied to a man's bravery, that bravery becomes a mere matter of form.

The general, my boy, is the idol of his Mackerel children, and as our armies slowly advance to deal the death-blow to this impious rebellion, it will be proved that he was not responsible for a single one of the mistakes he has made, and could have taken Richmond long ago, but for his inability to do so. Heaven forgive these Jacobin black-republicans who object to his being President in 1865! This is the prayer of twenty millions of free white men under the Const.i.tution, as was very justly observed to me by a political chap from New Haven last week. On Tuesday, the Mackerel Brigade was on the outskirts of Accomac--Company 3, Regiment 1, being sent ahead, under Colonel Wobert Wobinson, to watch the movements of some regiments of Confederacies, who were believed to be either there or in South Carolina. The advance-guard stayed there two days, my boy, and then an orderly came riding in to the general, with the request that he would immediately send re-enforcements and provisions, as Company 3, Regiment 1, was in danger of starvation and defeat, at short notice.

The general ceased fanning himself for a moment, and says he to the perspiring orderly:

"I have heard your request, my child; but before I comply with it, I wish to know what is the present political complexion of Colonel Wobinson."

The half-starved orderly clasped his thin hands together, and says he:

"I don't know; but for G.o.d's sake, general, send us something to eat, and some help, or not one of us can be saved."

The general waved his hand magisterially, and says he:

"That's very true. But I must first know what are the sentiments of Colonel Wobinson on the negro question."

The orderly might have responded, my boy, had he not fainted just then from weakness. In pity for his comrades, orders were at once given for the transportation of provisions, and re-enforcements to Company 3 before the end of the month; and had the before mentioned Confederacies delayed marching into Accomac until that time, I should not be obliged now to chronicle another of those disasters to our arms, which the traitorous harangues of Wendell Philips have so outrageously produced.

If this war is to be prosecuted with vigor, my boy, we must repose unlimited confidence in the ability of the Administration and of our generals, resolutely frowning down all Jacobin demonstrations at home, and suffering our leaders to be interfered with by no one but each other. If we permit civilians to manage matters, the country will be undone; but if, on the contrary, we trust everything to our generals, the country will be "done"--brown.

Luckily for us all, the occupation of Accomac by the celebrated Southern Confederacy, is a part of the great plan of the General of the Mackerel Brigade to end this rebellion in one crus.h.i.+ng blow, and as soon as the entire Confederacy shall have entered Accomac in safety, the Mackerel Brigade will proceed to bag it.

You don't see exactly how this is to be done, eh?

There you go again, my boy! always meddling with what you don't understand, and presuming, in your civilian imbecility, to doubt the practicability--not to say the utility--of a covert invincibility, rendering it a futility on the part of Southern agility to take for weak debility what is really strategic facility, and bound, in its great fertility of warlike inventibility and utter reliability, to turn all the foe's agility to a final accountability, that shall cause him, in future humility, to treat us, at least, with civility.

Such, my boy, is the Mackerel plan, to a T.

This strategy's like some plan for grain depending so much on a fall of rain, that, in less than a week, should the drought remain, 'twould ruin it altogether. It pondereth blindly whether or no the opposite hosts will do so-and-so: and how it will end at last, you know, dependeth upon the "whether".

Yours, calmly, ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER LXX.

COMMENCING WITH HISTORICAL REFERENCE; RELATING THE EPISODE OF SPURIOSO GRIMALDI, AND DETAILING THE LAMENTABLE FAILURE OF CAPTAIN SAMYULE SA-MITH TO PERISH HEROICALLY.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C., September 20, 1862.

I am in a star-spangled state of mind, my boy, in consequence of our recent great victories, and would most respectfully request the Governors of all the States to push forward re enforcements immediately. Having rashly ventured into Accomac after forage and the pursuit of happiness, the well-known Southern Confederacy is now hemmed-in with much carnage, and finds itself hem'd and haw'd. The South, the South, we love her still, no love than ours profounder; and, having cornered her at last, we've thrown our arms around her.

Let us rejoice together, my boy, over the victory that has brought new l.u.s.tre to our flag, and proceed to extract from history a few parallels calculated to indicate that the United States of America are somewhat superior to the ancients in the art of war.

At the battle of Thermopylae the heroic Greeks engaged in the conflict with their foes to the number of some thousands, and as their foes also prosecuted hostilities simultaneously, the result was a struggle terminating in the discomfiture of the defeated party. _Omnium vincit omnia._ At the siege of Troy, the Trojans became involved in active warfare with the Greeks, the latter being the adversaries of their opponents, and though either side used their weapons against the other side, victory finally perched upon the banners of the conqueror, and produced the general effect of _sic transit gloria mundi_. The Troy _Tribune_ suppressed all mention of McClellan in its account of this spirited affair. The dreadful struggle of Argentium was commenced by the attack of one host upon its antagonists, and raged bitterly, until a cessation of hostilities found the victors holding an advantage over the defeated. Burnside's division was not engaged. In the awful affair of Roncesvalles, the myrmidons of Charlemagne and the hirelings of Spain committed a breach of the peace by prosecuting a mutual affray, resulting in the overthrow of the legions which were princ.i.p.ally overcome, and an advantage for the brigades chiefly ent.i.tled to the victory. _Nihil est nullus._

It will be perceived, my boy, that the army of the Potomac was engaged in none of those celebrated contests, as they did not all take place in the same week. We make much better time, my boy, than the ancients.

I told you in my last, that the celebrated Southern Confederacy had courted inevitable destruction by marching madly into Accomac at the very moment when the victorious Mackerel Brigade was marching out--and before I proceed further with the tale of invasion, I must pause to relate the strange episode of Spurioso Grimaldi.

Spurioso Grimaldi, my boy, superintended the emigration from Italy to this country of a hand-organ that was banished for playing revolutionary tunes some time ago, and on arriving upon our sh.o.r.es proceeded immediately to don a red s.h.i.+rt, and plan revolutions for the coming fall and winter seasons. Upon the breaking out of the war he enlisted three volunteers under his banner from the chorus of the Academy of Music; but it was not until the recent occupation of Accomac that he attempted to put his first revolutionary scheme into operation.

Then, indeed, he armed his three divisions with three George Law muskets, and having gained the borders of suffering Accomac, he issued the following:

PROCLAMATION.

Accomackians! How are you to day? This is, indeed, a pleasant morning, and the crops look well. Accomackians, arise! For years you have been the terror of all strangers stopping at your hotels. The accommodations you offer, taken into consideration with the prices you charge, are sufficient to appal the world! Arise! Remember Waterloo, and Wagram, and Bull Run, and other battles in which you took no active part. Now!