Chapter XXIX: Letter XXII

TREATING OF VILLIAM'S OCCUPATION OF ACCOMAC, AND HIS WISE DECISION IN A CONTRABAND CASE.

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 16th, 1861.

After sleeping with Congress for two days, my boy, and observing four statesmen and a small page driven to the verge of apoplexy by the exciting tale called the President's Message, I thought it was about time to mingle with the world again, and sent my servant, Percy de Mortimer, to bring me my gothic steed Pegasus. After a long search in the fields after that chaste architectural animal, my boy, he met a Missouri picket chap, and says he:

"Hev you seen a horse hereabout, my whisky-doodle?"

"Hoss!" says Missouri, spitting with exquisite precision on one of De Mortimer's new boots. "No, I aint seen no hoss, my Fejee bruiser; but there's an all-fired big crow-roost down in that corner, I reckon; and it must be alive, for I heard the bones rattle when the wind blew."

My _valet_, Mr. De Mortimer, paid no heed to his satirical lowness, my boy, but proceeded majestically to where my gothic beast was eating the remains of a straw mattress. Brushing a few crows from the backbone of the fond charger, upon which they were innocently roosting, he placed the saddle amidships, and conducted the fiery stallion to my hotel.

Mounting in hot haste, I was about to start for Accomac, when the General of the Mackerel Brigade came down the steps in hot haste, and says he:

"Is the Army of the Potomac about to advance?"

"Why do you ask?" says I.

"Thunder!" says he, "I've been so long in one spot that I was going to get out my naturalization papers as a citizen of Arlington Heights. Ah!" says he, with a groan, "when the advance takes place I shall be too old to enjoy it."

I asked him why he didn't make arrangements to have his grandson take his place, if he should become superanuated before the advance took place; and he said that he be dam.

On reaching Accomac, my boy, I found the Conic Section of the Mackerel Brigade reconnoitering in force after a pullet they had seen the night before. Which they couldn't catch it.

Captain Villiam Brown, my boy, has his head quarters in a house with the attic and cellar on the same floor. I found two fat pickets playing poker on the roof, six first class pickets doing up Old Sledge on the rail-fence in front of the door, and eight consumptive pickets eating a rooster belonging to the Southern Confederacy on the roof of a pig-pen.

As I entered the airy and commodious apartment of the commander-in chief, I beheld a sight to make the muses stare like the behemoth of the Scriptures, and cause genius to take another nip of old rye. There was the cantankerous captain, my boy, seated on a keg of gunpowder, with his head laid sideways on a table; one hand grasping a bottle half full of the Oath, and the other writing something on a piece of paper laid at right angles with his nose.

"Hallo, my interesting infant," says I, "are you drawing a map of Pensacola for an enlightened press?"

"Ha!" says Villiam, starting up, and eyeing me closely through the bottom of a bottle, "you behold me in the agonies of composition. Read this poickry," says he, "and if it aint double X with the foam off, where's your Milton?"

I took the paper, my boy, which resembled a specimen-card of dead flies, and read this poem:

"The God of Bottles be our aid,
When rebels crack us;
We'll bend the bottle-neck to him,
And he will Bacchus.

"By Capt. VILLIAM BROWN, Eskevire."

I told Villiam that everything but the words of his poem reminded me of Longfellow, and says he:

"Don't mention my undoubted genius in public; because if Seward knew that I wrote poickry, he'd think I wanted to be President in 1865, and he'd get the Honest Old Abe to remove me. I think," says Villiam, abstractedly, "that the Honest Old Abe is like a big bumble bee with his tail cut off, when his Cabinet comes humming around him."

Villiam once stirred up the monkeys in a menagerie, my boy, and his metaphors from Natural History are chaste.

At this moment a file of the Mackerel Brigade came in, bringing a son of Africa, who looked like a bottle of black ink wrapt up in a dirty towel, and a citizen of Accomac, who claimed him as his slave.

"Captain," says the citizen of Accomac, "this nigger belongs to me, and I want him back. Besides, he stole a looking-glass from me, and has got it hid somewheres."

Villiam smiled like a pleased clam, and says he: "You say he stole a looking-glass?"

"I reckon," says Accomac.

"Prisonier!" says Villiam, to the Ethiop, "did you ever see the devil?"

"Nebber, sar, since missus died."

"Citizen of Accomac," says Villiam, sternly, "you have told a whopper; and I shall keep this child of oppression to black the boots of the United States of America. You say he stole a looking-glass. He says he has never seen the devil. Observe now," says Villiam, argumentatively, "how plain it is, that if he _had_ even _looked_ at your looking-glass, he _must_ have seen the devil about the same time."

The citizen of Accomac saw that his falsehood was discovered, my boy, and returned to the bosom of his family cursing like a rifled parson. Villiam then adjourned the court for a week, and sent the contraband out to enjoy the blessings of freedom, digging trenches.

It is pleasing, my boy, to see our commanders dispensing justice in this manner; and I don't wonder at the President's wanting to abolish the Supreme Court.

Yours, judicially,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.