Chapter LXIII: Letter L

REMARKING UPON A PECULIARITY OF VIRGINIA, AND DESCRIBING COMMODORE HEAD'S GREAT NAVAL EXPLOIT ON DUCK LAKE, ETC.

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 15th, 1862.

Early in the week I trotted to the other side of the river on my gothic steed Pegasus, and having lent that architectural pride of the stud to a thoughtful individual, who wished to make a sketch of his facade, I took a branch railroad for a circuitous passage to Paris, intending to make one stoppage on the way. The locomotive was about two-saucepan power, my boy, and wheezed like a New York Alderman at a free lunch. First we stopped at a town composed of one house, and that was a depot.

"What place is this?" says I to my fellow passenger, who was the conductor, and was reading the _Tribune_, and was swearing to himself. "It's Mulligan's Court-House, the Capital of Sally Ann County," says he, and again took out the bill I had paid my fare with to see if it was good.

I took another branch road here, and we snailed along to another town, composed of a wood-pile. "What place is this?" says I to my fellow-traveller, the brakeman. "It's Abednego Junction, the capital of Laura Matilda County," says he, sounding my quarter on his seal ring to make sure that it was genuine. Now, as London, the city I was going to, happened to be the capital of Anna Maria County, my boy, I made up my mind that the sacred soil had as many metropolises as railways.

"Virginia," says a modern Southern giant of intellect, "is one grand embodied poem."

I believe him, my boy; for, like a poem, Virginia appears to have a capital at the commencement of every line.

Reaching London, and brushing past a crowd of our true friends the contrabands, whose cries of anguish upon hearing that I had brought them no plum-pudding, were truly harrowing, I pushed forward to the new Union paper, the London Times, with whose editor I had business.

Just as I entered the office, my boy, there rushed out in great rage an exasperated southern Union man. Having no gun about the house to pick off our pickets as they came into town, he borrowed a barber's pole and stuck it out of the window, proclaimed himself an oppressed Unionist, had a meeting of his family to elect him to the United States Congress from Anna Maria County, and made a thrilling Union address to two contrabands from his back-stoop. He wound up this great speech, my boy, by saying:

"Young men, it is your duty to fight for the Union, which has caused us all so many tears. If any young man's wife would fain dissuade him, let him say to her, in the language of the poet,

"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more!'"

This touching peroration was sent in manuscript to the London Times, and this is the way it appeared in that intellectual American journal:

"Young hen, it is your duty to fight for the Onion, which has caused us all so many tears. If any young man's wife would fain dissuade him, let him say to her, in the language of the poet:

"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Hannah More.'"

When the southern Union man read this twistification, he put his paper where his wife couldn't see it (she being a very jealous woman), and went out to cowhide the editor. He cowhided him, by frantically placing the cowhide in the editor's hands, and then running his back repeatedly against the weapon. Typographical errors have a unique effect in reports of killed and wounded, my boy; but they knock the Promethean blaze out of eloquence.

Having transacted my business with the editor, and read a dispatch, just received from a Gentleman of Eminence, stating that Beauregard, who was at Okolonna, had a force of 120,000 men; but that Halleck would probably succeed in putting the entire 80,000 to flight before Beauregard could return from Richmond; though it was currently reported that the rebels were sixty thousand strong, and General Pope must be expeditious if he wanted to capture the whole 10,000 before General Beauregard got back from the Shenandoah valley; I turned to the editor, and says I:

"How does newspaper business pay now, my gifted Censor?"

He sighed, as he shoved a demijohn further under his desk, and says he:

"There's only one newspaper in the world that pays now, sonny:

"What's that?" says I.

"The Paris _Pays_," says he.

I left him immediately, my boy. Ordinary depravity don't affect me, for I have known several Congressmen in my time; but I can't stand abnormal iniquity.

Arriving at Paris I found that a recent shower had made Duck Lake navigable, and Commodore Head was preparing his fleet to attack a secession squadron, which some covert rebel had built during the night for the purpose of annoying the Mackerels in Paris.

"Batter my plates!" says the commodore, cholerically, "I could capture that poor cuss easily, if I only had a proper pilot."

As Duck Lake is only about four yards wide at a freshet, my boy, your ignorance may suggest no sufficient reason for a pilot in such a case; but you are no martial mariner, my boy.

Luckily the man for the place was at hand. On Wednesday, a glossy contraband, in a three-story shirt-collar, and looking like a fountain of black ink with a strong wind blowing against it, came into Paris, and surrendered to Captain Villiam Brown.

"Ha!" says Villiam, replacing the newspaper that had just blown off from two lemons and a wicker flask on the table, "what says our cousin Africa?"

"Mars'r Vandal," says the faithful black, earnestly, "I hab important news to combobicate. I knows all de secrets of de rebel Scratchetary of the Navy. True as you lib, Mars'r Vandal, so help me gad, I'se de coachman of de pirate Sumter."

"Ah!" says Villiam, cautiously, "tell me, blessed shade, what has a coachman got to drive on board a vessel?"

The true-hearted contraband modestly eyed a wonder of the insect kingdom which he had just removed from his hair, and says he:

"I drove de ingine, mars'r."

That was enough, my boy. Having learned from this intelligent creature what the rebel Secretary was going to have for dinner next Sunday, and what the Secretary's wife said in her letter to her mother, Villiam ordered him to act as pilot on the Mackerel Fleet.

And now let me draw a long breath before I attempt to describe that terrific and sanguinary naval engagement, which proved conclusively what Europe may expect, if Europe bother us with any more bigodd nonsense.

Having ballasted with mortar, my boy, to seem more naval, the unblushing commodore mounted his swivel-gun at the bow of the Mackerel Fleet, and selected for his gunner and crew a middle-aged Mackerel chap, whose great fondness for fresh fish made him invaluable for ocean service.

"Crack my turret!" says the commodore, as the Fleet pushed off amid the cheers of Company 4, Regiment 1, Mackerel Brigade; "I'll take that craft by compound fracture. Belay the starboard ram there, you salamander, and take a reef in the grating. Up with the signal--two strips of pig iron rampant, with a sheet of tin in the middle."

All this was splendidly performed by the crew, my boy, who trimmed the rudder, did the rowing, and tended the gun--all at once. The craft fairly flew through the water in the direction of the rebel craft, whose horse-pistol amidship still remained silent.

It was an awfully terrific and sublime sight, my boy. I shall never forget it, my boy, if I live till I perish.

The faithful colored pilot sat in the stern of the Fleet, examining some silver spoons which he had found somewhere in the Southern Confederacy, and we could see the noble old commodore mixing something that steamed in the fore-sheets.

Two seconds had now passed since our flotilla had started, and the hostile squadrons were rubbing against each other. We were expecting to see our navy go through some intricate manoeuvre before boarding, when the Mackerel crew accidentally dropped a spark from his pipe on the touch-hole of the swivel; and bang! went that horrid engine of destruction, sending some pounds of old nails right square into the city of Paris.

Simultaneously, four-and-twenty foreign Consuls residing near Paris got up a memorial to Commodore Head, protesting against any more firing while any foreigners remained in the country, and declaring that the use of gunpowder was an outrage on civilized warfare and the rights of man. They tied a stone to this significant document and threw it to Commodore Head, who instantly put the Mackerel crew on half rations and forbid smoking abaft the big gun.

Meanwhile the enemy had wounded our brave pilot on the shins with his oar, and exploded his horse-pistol in an undecided direction, with such dreadful concussion that every glass in Commodore Head's spectacles was broken.

It was at this dreadful crisis of the fight that the gay Mackerel crew leaned over the side of our fleet, placed one hand on the inside of the enemy's squadron, and with the other, regardless of the shower of old-bottles and fish-bones flying about him, deliberately bored a small hole, with a gimlet, through the bottom of the adversary. At about the same moment the commodore touched off the swivel-gun at the enemy's rudder, and threw one of his boots against the rear stomach of the rebel captain.

This sickening carnage might have lasted five minutes longer, had not the Confederate squadron sunk in consequence of the gimlet-hole. Down went the doomed craft of unblest treason, and in another moment the officer and crew of her were in the water, which reached nearly to their knees, imploring our fleet not to let them drown.

Oh, that sight! the thrilling yet terrifying and agonizing grandeur of that dreadful moment! shall I ever forget it--ever cease to hear those cries ringing in mine ears? I'm afraid not, my boy--I'm afraid not.

The Commodore rescued the sufferers from a watery grave; and having been privately informed by them that the South might be conquered, but never overcome, brought them ashore by the collars.

Need I describe how our noble old nautical sea-dog was received by the Mackerel Brigade? need I tell how the band whipped out his key-bugle and played all the triumphant airs of our distracted country, and several original cavatinas?

But, alas! my boy, this iron-plate business is taking all the romance out of the navy. How different is the modern from

THE ANCIENT CAPTAIN.

The smiles of an evening were shed on the sea,
And its wave-lips laughed through their beardings of foam;
And the eyes of an evening were mirrored beneath
The shroud of the ship and her home.

And as Time knows an end, so that sea knew a shore,
Afar in a beautiful, tropical clime,
Where Love with the Life of each being is blent,
In a soft, psychological Rhyme.

Oh, grand was the shore, when deserted and still
It breasted the silver-mailed hosts of the Deep!
And like the last bulwark of Nature it seemed,
'Twixt Death and an Innocent's sleep.

But grander it was to the eyes of a knight,
When clad in his armor he stood on the sands,
And held to his bosom its essence of Life--
An heiress of titles and lands.

Ah, fondly he gazed on the face of the maid!
And blush-spoken fondness replied to his look;
While heart answered heart with a feverish beat,
And hand pressed the hand that it took.

"Fair lady of mine," said the knight, stooping low,
"Before I depart for the banquet of Death,
I crave a new draught from the fountain of Life,
Whose waters are all in thy breath.

"The breast that is filled with thine image alone,
May safely defy the dread tempest of steel;
For while all its thoughts are of love and of thee,
What peril of Self can it feel?"

He paused; and the silence that followed his words,
Was spread like a Hope, 'twixt a Dream and a Truth;
And in it, his fancy created a world
Wrought out of the dreams of his youth.

Then shadows crept over the beautiful face
Turned up to the sky in the pale streaming light,
As shadows sweep over the orient pearl,
Far down in the river at night.

"You're going," she said, "where the fleets are in leash,
Where plumed is a knight for each wave of the sea;
Yet all the wide Ocean shall have but One wave,
One ship and One sailor for me!"

He left her, as leaveth the god of a dream
The portals that close with a heavier sleep;
And then, as he sprang to the shallop in wait,
The rowers pushed off in the Deep.

When a captain leaves his lady-fair nowadays, my boy, he's not an economical man if he don't destroy his life-insurance policy, and defer making his will.

Yours, navally,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.