Chapter XLIX: Letter XLII

REVEALING A NEW BLOCKADING IDEA, INTRODUCING A GEOMETRICAL STEED, AND NARRATING THE WONDERFUL EXPLOITS OF THE MACKEREL SHARPSHOOTER AT YORKTOWN.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 2d, 1862.

Speaking of the patriarch of the Navy Department, my boy, they say that the respected Ancient has under consideration a new and admirable plan for making the blockade efficient. The idea is, to furnish all the naval captains with spectacles made of looking-glass, so that when they are asleep, on the quarterdeck, their glasses will reflect the figure of any rebel craft that may be trying to slip by. These spectacles could all be ready in twenty years; and when the Secretary told a Congressman of the plan, the latter thought carefully over the suggestion, "as dripping with coolness it rose from the Welles," and says he:

"My dear madam, the idea lacks but one thing--the looking-glass spectacles ought to be supplied with a comb and brush, so that the captain could fix himself up after capturing the pirate. Ah, madam," says the Congressman, hastily picking up the Jack of Clubs, which he had accidentally pulled out with his pocket-handkerchief, "you will rank next to Mary, the mother of Washington, in the affections of future generations."

The _mother_ of Washington, my boy!--the MOTHER of Washington!--why, the Secretary is already celebrated as the grandmother of Washington--city.

On the occasion of my last visit to Yorktown, my boy, I found the Mackerel Brigade so well up in animal spirits that each chap was equal to a pony of brandy, and capable of capturing any amount of glass artillery. At the present time, my boy, the brigade is formed in the shape of a clam-shell, with the right resting on a beer wagon, and the left on a traveling free-lunch saloon. I was examining the new battery of the Orange County Howitzers--whose guns have such large touch-holes that the chaps keep their crackers and cheese in them when not in action--and was also overhearing the remarks of a melancholy Mackerel concerning what he wished to be done with his effects in case he should perish with old age before the battle commenced--when I beheld Captain Villiam Brown, approaching me on the most geometrical beast I ever saw--an animal even richer in sharp corners, my boy, than my own gothic steed, Pegasus.

"Ha!" says Villiam, hastily swallowing something that brought tears to his eyes, and taking a bit of lemon-peel to clear his voice, "you are admiring my Arabian courser, and wondering whether it is one of the three presented to Secretary Seward by the Emperor of Egypt."

"You speak truly, my Bayard," says I; "that superb piece of horseflesh looks like the original plan of the city of Boston--there's so many bisecting angles about him."

"Ah!" says Villiam, with an agreeable smile, "in the words of the anthem of childhood--

"'The angles told me so.'"

Villiam's idea of angels, my boy, constitutes a theory of theology in itself.

"What call you the charger?" says I.

"Euclid," says Villiam, pausing for a moment, to catch the gurgle of a canteen just reversed. "Ah!" says Villiam, recovering his presence of mind, "this here marvel of natural history is a guaranteed 2.40."

"No!" says I.

"Yes," says Villiam, calculatingly, "this superb animal is a sure 2.40--he cost me just Two dollars and Forty cents. But come with me," said Villiam, proudly, "and see the sharpshooter contingent I have just organized to aid in the suppression of this here unnatural rebellion."

I followed the splendidly-mounted warrior, my boy, to a spot not far from the nearest point of the enemy's lines, where I found a lengthy Western chap polishing a rifle with a powerful telescope on the end of it. He had just been organized, and was preparing to make some carnage.

"Now then, Ajack," said Villiam, classically, "let us see you pick off that Confederacy over there, which looks like a mere fly at this distance."

The sinewy sharpshooter sprang to his feet, called a drummer-boy to hold his chew of tobacco, looked at the rebel gunner through his telescope, shut up the telescope, took aim with both eyes shut, turned away his head, and _fired_!

I must say, my boy, that I at first thought the Confederacy was not hit at all, inasmuch as he only scratched one of his legs and squinted along his gun; but Villiam soon showed me how exquisitely accurate the sharpshooter's aim had been.

"The bullet struck him," says Villiam, confidently, "and would have reached his heart, but for the Bible given him by his mother when he left home, which arrested its fatal progress. Let us hope," says Villiam, seriously, "that he will henceforth search the Scriptures, and be a dutiful son."

I felt the tears spring to my eyes, for I once had a mother myself. I couldn't help it, my boy--I couldn't help it.

The second shot of the unerring rifleman was aimed at a hapless contraband, who had been sent out to the end of a gun by the enemy, to see that the ball did not roll out before the gunner had time to pull the trigger. Crack! went the deadly weapon of the sharpshooter, and down went the unhappy African--to his dinner.

"Ah!" says Villiam, skeptically, "do you think you hit him, Ajack?"

"Truelie, stranger," responded the unmoved marksman, sententiously. "He will die at twenty minutes past three this afternoon."

Sick of this dreadful slaughter, my boy, I turned from the spot with Villiam, and presently overtook the general of the Mackerel Brigade, who was seated on a fence by the roadside, trying to knock the cork out of a bottle with a piece of rock. We saluted, and went on to the camp.

Sharpshooters, my boy, are a source of much pain to hostile gunners, and if one of them should happen to put a bullet through the head of navigation, it would certainly cause the tide to fall.

Yours, take-aimiably,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.