Chapter VI: Letter V

CONCERNING THE GREAT CROWD AT THE CAPITAL, OWING TO THE VAST INFLUX OF TROOPS, AND TOUCHING UPON FIRE-ZOUAVE PECULIARITIES AND OTHER MATTERS.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 24th, 1861.

I am living luxuriously, at present, on the top of a very respectable fence, and fare sumptuously on three granite biscuit a day, and a glass of water, weakened with brandy. A high private in the Twenty-second Regiment has promised to let me have one of his spare pocket-handkerchiefs for a sheet on the first rainy night, and I never go to bed on my comfortable window-brush without thinking how many poor creatures there are in this world who have to sleep on hair mattresses and feather-beds all their lives. Before the great rush of the Fire Zouaves and the rest of the menagerie commenced, I boarded exclusively on a front stoop on Pennsylvania Avenue, and used to slumber, regardless of expense, in a well-conducted ash-box; but the military monopolize all such accommodation now, and I give way for the sake of my country.

I tell you, my boy, we're having high old times here just now, and if they get any higher, I shan't be able to afford to stay. The city is in "danger" every other hour, and as a veteran in the Fire Zouaves remarked, there seems to be enough danger laying around loose on Arlington Heights to make a very good blood-and-thunder fiction in numerous pages. If the vigilant and well-educated sentinels happen to see an old nigger on the other side of the Potomac, they sing out, "Here they come!" and the whole blessed army is snapping caps in less than a minute. Then all the cheap reporters telegraph to their papers in New York and Philadelphia, that "Jeff. Davis is within two minutes' walk of the Capital, with a few millions of men," and all the free states send six more regiments a piece to crowd us a little more. I sha'n't stand much more crowding, for my fence is full now, and there were six applications yesterday to rent an improved knot-hole. My landlord says that, if more than three chaps set up housekeeping on one post, he'll be obliged to raise the rent.

Those Fire Zouaves are fellows of awful suction, I tell you. Just for greens, I asked one of them, yesterday, what he came here for? "Hah!" says he, shutting one eye, "we came here to strike for your altars and your fires--especially your _fires_." General Scott says that if he wanted to make these chaps break through the army of a foe, he'd have a fire-bell rung for some district on the other side of the rebels. He says that half a million of the traitors couldn't keep the Fire Zouaves out of that district five minutes. I believe him, my boy!

The weather here is highly favorable to the free development of perspiration and mint-juleps, and I have enjoyed the melancholy satisfaction of losing ten pounds of flesh in three days. One of the lieutenants of the Eighth has a gutter about half an inch deep worn down the bridge of his nose by the stream of perspiration since Wednesday; and a chap from Vermont melted so awfully the other day, that they had to put him in a refrigerator to keep enough of him to send home to his rich but pious family.

In fact, this weather makes the Northern boys fall away awfully; one of the Fire Zouaves fell away tremendously yesterday; he fell away from Washington to Annapolis, and then somebody had to put him in a guard-house to keep him from perspiring all the way back to New York. The chap that boards on the next front stoop to me now, was so fat when he came here that his captain refused to use him as a sentinel, because he could not see far enough over his stomach to detect any one approaching him. Well, my boy, that chap has fallen away to such an extent that it took me half an hour last night to find out what part of his uniform he lived in. He blew down three or four times while we were walking up Pennsylvania avenue; and while I was helping him up the last time, a passer-by asked me "What I would take for that ere flag-staff?"

By-the-by, you ought to have heard Honest Old Abe's speech, on Wednesday, when we raised the Star-spangled particular on the Post-office. Says he: "On this present occasion, I feel that it will not be out of place to make a few remarks which were not applicable at a former period. Yesterday, the flag hung on the staff throughout the Union, and in consequence of the scarcity of a breeze, there was not much wind blowing at the time. On the present happy occasion, however, the presence of numerous zephyrs causes the atmosphere to agitate for our glorious Union, and this flag, which now unfolds itself to the sight, is observed, upon closer inspection, to present a star-spangled appearance."

Mr. Seward's speech, which was also received with frantic enthusiasm, sounded equally well. He said: "I trust that this glorious spectacle will make a deep impression upon all present, notwithstanding the fact that I am still convinced that peace may yet put an end to this unhappy conflict by means of a convention of all the States on the Fourth of July, 2776, which I have always advocated. As the President has remarked, the breeze which has just arisen in the bay of Naples, causes the Star-Spangled Banner to arouse a far prouder feeling in every American breast, than if a vessel should come in with a palmetto flag at her peak, and upon being asked where it came from, should reply: 'Oh, from one of the petty republics of America.' I have nothing more to say."

I know this report is correct, for I copied both the speeches from a phonographic reporter's copy, and the phonographic reporter had only taken six glasses of old peach and honey before he went to work.

Yours, hastily,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.