Chapter XLII: Letter XXXV

GIVING PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION OF MODERN PATRIOTISM, AND CELEBRATING THE ADVANCE OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE TO MANASSAS, ETC.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 14th, 1862.

Patriotism, my boy, is a very beautiful thing. The surgeon of a Western regiment has analyzed a very nice case of it, and says that it is peculiar to this hemisphere. He says that it first breaks out in the mouth, and from thence extends to the heart causing the latter to swell. He says that it goes on raging until it reaches the pocket, when it suddenly disappears, leaving the patient very Constitutional and conservative. "Bless me!" says the surgeon, intently regarding a spoon with a tumbler round it, "if a genuine American ever dies of patriotism it will be because the Tax Bill hasn't been applied soon enough."

I believe him, my boy!

On Monday morning, just as the sun was rising, like a big gold watch "put up" at some celestial Simpson's, the sentinels of Fort Corcoran were seized with horrible tremblings at a sight calculated to make perpendicular hair fashionable. As far as the eye could reach on every side of the Capital, the ground was black with an approaching multitude, each man of which wore large spectacles, and carried a serious carpet-bag and a bottle-green umbrella.

"Be jabers!" says one of the sentinels, whose imperfect English frequently causes him to be taken for the Duc de Chartres, "it's the whole Southern Confederacy coming to boord with us."

"Aisey, me boy," says the other sentinel, straightening the barrel of his musket and holding it very straight to keep the fatal ball from rolling out, "it's the sperits of all our pravious descindants coming to ax us, was our grandmother the Saycretary of the Navy."

Right onward came the multitude, their spectacles glistening in the sun like so many exasperated young planets, and their umbrellas and carpet-bags swinging like the pendulums of so many infuriated clocks.

Pretty soon the advance guard, who was a chap in a white neck-tie and a hat resembling a stove-pipe in reduced circumstances, poked a sentinel in the ribs with his umbrella, and says he:

"Where's Congress?"

"Is it Congress ye want?" says the sentinel.

"Yessir!" says the chap. "Yessir. These are friends of mine--ten thousand six hundred and forty-two free American citizens. We must see Congress. Yessir!--dammit. How about that tax-bill? We come to protest against certain features _in_ that bill."

"Murther an turf!" says the sentinel, "is it the taxes all of them ould chaps is afther blaming?"

"Yessir!" says the chap, hysterically jamming his hat down over his forehead and stabbing himself madly under the arm with his umbrella. "Taxes is a outrage. Not _all_ taxes," says the chap with sudden benignity, "but the taxes which fall upon us. Why don't they tax them as is able to pay, without oppressing us ministers, editors, merchants, lawyers, grocers, peddlers, and professors of religion?" Here the chap turned very purple in the face, his eyes bulged greenly out, and says he: "Congress is a ass."

"That's thrue for you," says the sentinel: "they ought to eximpt the whole naytion and tax the rest of it."

The multitude then swarmed into Washington, my boy, and if they don't smother the Tax Bill, it will be because Congress is case-hardened.

The remainder of the Mackerel Brigade being ordered to join the Conic Section at Accomac for an irresistible advance on Manassas, I mounted my gothic steed Pegasus on Tuesday morning.

Pegasus, my boy, has greatly improved since I rubbed him down with Snobb's Patent Hair Invigorator, and his tail looks much less like a whisk-broom than it did at first. It is now fully able to maintain itself against all flies whatsoever. The general of the Mackerel Brigade rode beside me on a spirited black frame, and says he:

"That funereal beast of yours is a monument of the home affections. Thunder!" says the general, shedding a small tear of the color of Scheidam Schnapps, "I never look at that air horse without thinking of the time I buried my first baby; its head is shaped so much like a small coffin."

On reaching Accomac, my boy, we found Captain Villiam Brown at the head of the Conic Section of the Mackerel Brigade, dressed principally in a large sword and brass buttons, and taking the altitude of the sun with a glass instrument operated by means of a bottle.

"Ah!" says Villiam, "You are just in time to hear my speech to the sons of Mars, previous to the capture of Manassas by the United States of America."

Hereupon Villiam mounted a demijohn laid length-wise, and says he:

"FELLOW-ANACONDAS:--Having been informed by a gentleman who has
spent two weeks at Manassas, that the Southern Confederacy has gone
South for its health, I have concluded that it is time to be
offensive. The great Anaconda, having eluded Barnum, is about to
move on the enemy's rear:

"'Rear aloft your peaks, ye mountings,
Rear aloft your waves, O sea!
Rear your sparkling crests, ye fountings,
For my love's come back to me.'

"The day of inaction is past, and now the United States of America
is about to swoop down like a exasperated Eagle, on the chickens
left by the hawk. Are you ready, my sagacious reptiles, to spill a
drop or so for your soaking country? Are you ready to rose up as
one man--

"'The rose is red,
The wi'lets blue,
Sugar is sweet, and
Bully for you.'

"Ages to come will look down on this day and say: 'They died
young.' The Present will reply: 'I don't see it;' but the present
is just the last thing for us to think about. Richmond is before
us, and there let it remain. We shall take it in a few years:

"'It may be for years and it may be for ever,
Then why art thou silent, O pride of me heart.'

"which is poickry. I hereby divide this here splendid army into one
_corpse dammee_, and take command of it."

At the conclusion of this thrilling oration, my boy, the _corpse dammee_ formed itself into a hollow square, in the centre of which appeared a mail-clad ambulance.

I looked at this carefully, and then says I to Villiam:

"Tell me, my gay Achilles, what you carry in that?"

"Ha!" says Villiam, balancing himself on one leg, "them's my Repeaters. This morning," says Villiam, sagaciously, "I discovered six Repeaters among my men. Each of them voted six times last election day, and I've put them where they can't be killed. Ah!" says Villiam, softly, "the Democratic party can't afford to lose them Repeaters."

Here a rather rusty-looking chap stepped out of the ranks, and says he:

"Captain, I'm a Repeater too. I voted four times last election."

"It takes six to make a reliable Repeater," says Villiam.

"Yes," says the chap: "but I voted for different coves--twice for the Republican candidate and twice for the Democrat."

"Ha!" says Villiam, "you're a man of intelleck. Here, sargent," says Villiam, imperiously, "put this cherubim into the ambulance."

"And, sargent," says Villiam, thoughtfully, "give him the front seat."

And now, my boy, the march for Manassas commenced, being timed by the soft music of the band. This band, my boy, is _sui generis_. Its chief artist is an ardent admirer of Rossini, who performs with great accuracy upon a night-key pressed closely against the lower lip, the strains being much like those emitted by a cart-wheel in want of grease. Then comes a gifted musican from Germany, whose instrument is a fine-tooth comb wrapped in paper, and blown upon through its vibratory covering. The remainder of the band is composed chiefly of drums, though the second-base achieves some fine effects with a superannuated accordeon.

Onward moved the magnificent pageant toward the plains of Manassas, the Anatomical Cavalry being in advance, and the Mackerel Brigade following closely after.

Arriving on the noted battle-field, we found nothing but a scene of desolation; the rebels gone; the masked batteries gone; and nothing left but a solitary daughter of the sunny South, who cursed us for invading the peaceful homes of Virginia, and then tried to sell us stale milk at six shillings a quart.

When Captain Villiam Brown, surveyed this spectacle, my boy, his brows knit with portentous anger, and says he:

"So much for wasting so much time. Ah!" says Villiam, clutching convulsively at his canteen, "we have met the enemy, and they are hours--ahead of us."

The only thing noticeable we found, my boy, upon searching the late stamping ground of the Southern Confederacy, was a beautiful "romaunt," evidently written by an oppressed Southern Union man, who had gone from bad to verse, and descriptive of

THE SOUTHERN VOLUNTEER'S FAREWELL TO HIS WIFE.

Fresh from snuff-dipping to his arms she went,
And he, a quid removing from his mouth,
Pressed her in anguish to his manly breast
And spat twice, longingly, toward the South.

"Zara," he said, and hiccup'd as he spoke,
"Indeed I find it most (hic) 'stremely hard
To leave my wife, my niggers, and my debts,
And march to glory with the 'Davis Guard;'

"But all to arms the South has called her sons,
And while there's something Southern hands can steal,
You can't (hic) 'spect me to stay here at home
With heartless duns for ever at my heel.

"To-night a hen-coop falls; and in a week
We'll take the Yankee capital, I think;
But should it prove (hic) 'pedient not to do't,
Why, then, we'll take--in short, we'll take a drink.

"I reckon I may perish in the strife--
Some bullet in the back might lay me low--
And as my business needs attendin' to,
I'll give you some directions ere I go.

"That cotton-gin I haven't paid for yet--
The Yankee trusted for it, dear, you know,
And it's a most (hic) 'stremely doubtful thing,
Whether it's ever used again, or no.

"If Yankee's agent calls while I am gone,
It's my (hic) 'spress command and wish, that you
Denounce him for an abolition spy,
And have him hung before his note is due.

"That octoroon--who made you jealous, love--
Who sews so well and is so pale a thing;
She keeps her husband, Sambo, from his work--
You'd better sell her--well, for what she'll bring.

"In case your purse runs low while I'm away--
There's Dinah's children--two (hic) 'spensive whelps;
They won't bring much the way the markets are,
But then you know how every little helps.

"And there's that Yankee schoolmistress, you know,
Who taught our darlings how to read and spell;
Now don't (hic) 'spend a cent to pay _her_ bill;
If she aren't tarred and feathered, she'll do well!

"And now, my dear, I go where booty calls,
I leave my whisky, cotton-crop, and thee;
Pray, that in battle I may not (hic) 'spire,
And when you lick the niggers think of me.

"If on some mournful summer afternoon
They should bring home to you your warrior dead,
Inter me with a toothpick in my hand,
And write a last (hic) _jacet_ o'er my head."

We found this in the shed lately used by the chivalric Constarveracy as a guard-house, my boy, and read it with deep emotion.

Yours, Manassastonished,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.