Chapter XXV: Letter XVIII

DESCRIBING THE TERRIBLE DEATH AND MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A CONFEDERATE PICKET, WITH A TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 28th, 1861.

My head swells with patriotic pride when I casually remark that the Mackerel Brigade occupy the post of honor to the left of Bull Run, which they also left on the day we celebrated. The banner which was presented to us by the women of America, and which it took the orator of the day six hours and forty minutes to describe to us, we are using in the shape of blazing neck-ties; and when the hard-up sun of Virginia shines upon the glorious red bands around the sagacious necks of our veterans, they all look as though they had just cut their throats. The effect is gory, my boy--extremely gory and respectable.

At the special request of Secretary Seward, who wrote six letters about it to the Governors of all the States, I have been appointed a picket of the army of the Upper Potomac. In your natural ignorance, my boy, you may not know why a man is called a picket. He is called a picket, my boy, because, if anybody drops a pocket-book or a watch anywhere, his natural gifts would cause him to pick-it up. If he saw a pocket, he would not pick-it--oh, no! But pick-it--picket.

The Picket, my boy, has been an institution ever since wars began, and his perils are spoken of by some of the high old poets in these beautiful lines:

"The chap thy tactics doom to bleed to-day--
Had he thy reasons, would he poker play?
Pleased to the last, he does a deal of good,
And licks the man just sent to shed his blood."

I am weeping, my boy.

While on my lonely beat, about an hour ago, a light tread attracted my attention, and looking up, I beheld one of secesh's pickets standing before me.

"Soldier," says he, "you remind me of my grandmother, who expired before I was born; but this unnatural war has made us enemies, and I must shoot you. Give me a chaw terbacker."

He was a young man, my boy, in the prime of life, and descended from the First Families of Virginia.

I looked at him, and says I:

"Let's compromise, my brother."

"Never!" says he. "The South is fighting for her liberty, her firesides, and the pursuit of happiness, and I desire most respectfully to welcome you with bloody hands to a hospitable grave."

"Stand off ten paces," says I, "and let's see whose name shall come before the coroner first."

He took his place, and we fired simultaneously. I heard a ball go whistling by a barn about a quarter of a mile on my right; and, when the smoke cleared away, I saw the secesh picket approaching me with an awful expression of woe on his otherwise dirty countenance.

"Soldier," says he, "was there anything in my head before you fired?"

"Nothing," says I, "save a few harmless insects."

"I speak not of them," says he. "Was there anything _inside_ of my head?"

"Nothing!" says I.

"Well," says he, "just listen now."

He shook his head mournfully, and I heard something rattle in it.

"What's that?" I exclaimed.

"That," says he, "is your bullet, which has penetrated my skull, and is rolling about in my brain. I die happy, and with an empty stomach; but there is one thing I should like to see before I perish for my country. Have you a quarter about you?"

Too much affected to speak, I drew the coin from my pocket and handed it to him.

The dying man clutched it convulsively, and stared at it feverishly.

"This," said he, "is the first quarter I've seen since the fall of Sumter; and, had I wounded you, I should have been totally unable to give you any quarter. Ah! how beautiful it is! how bright, how exquisite, and good for four drinks! But I have not time to say all I feel."

The expiring soldier then laid down his gun, hung his cap and overcoat on a branch of a tree, and blew his nose.

He then died.

And there I stood, my boy, on that lonely beat, looking down on that fallen type of manhood, and thinking how singular it was he had forgotten to give me back my quarter.

As I looked upon him there, I could not help thinking to myself, "here is another whose home shall know him no more."

The sight and the thought so affected me, that I was obliged to turn my back on the corpse and walk a little way from it. When I returned to the spot, the body was gone! Had it gone to Heaven? Perhaps so, my boy--perhaps so; but I hav'n't seen my quarter since.

Your own picket,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.