Chapter XXXI: Letter LXXIV

CONCERNING THE SERIOUS MISTAKE OF THE VENERABLE GAMMON, THE
CHAPLAIN'S POETICAL DISCOVERY, THE PROMOTION OF COMMODORE HEAD,
AND THE RECEPTION OF THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION BY THE
SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

WASHINGTON, D. C., October 12th, 1862.

The Southern Confederacy having delayed to sue for peace, my boy, until the safety of Washington requires that national strategy should continue metaphysical hostilities, it may be as well for you and me as a nation to prepare for a speedy commencement of War in earnest. The North, my boy, has not begun to fight yet; and as the stolid centuries roll on, and the hoary years move one by one into the sunless solitude of Eternity, it becomes daily more evident that the North's actual putting forth of all its strength is merely a question of time. The giant is only just rousing from his slumbers, and nothing but his legs and feet appear to be thoroughly awake yet.

Now, is the time, my boy, for the idiotic Confederacy to save himself, by returning penitently to that beneficent Government which would have realized the millenium at half-past two o'clock on the Fourth of July, 1776, but for the unseemly villainy of the accursed Black Republicans, many of whom are shortly to be hung.

That is to say, such is the opinion of the Venerable Gammon, whose benignant presence is believed to have proved the salvation of our distracted country in the Revolutionary War, though I can find nothing, except his protecting patriarchal deportment toward all the present universe, to justify the idea that he ever benefited anything. It soothes the human soul, my boy, to hear this Venerable man discoursing on the most trite subjects in tones, and with an air calculated to bless all created things as with a paternal benediction. Surrounded by a number of his idolatrous national children, and standing in front of Willard's the other evening, he pointed fatly to a bright star overhead, and says he:

"That star is like our country. That star," says the Venerable Gammon, with a meaningless smile of angelic purity, "is like any other star on our flag; _though clouds may hide it in its ascending node, it is still knowed to be ascending_."

Then everybody felt cheered with the peaceful conviction that Columbia was saved at last; and it's my private belief, my boy--my private belief, that the attached populace looked upon this good old man as the one who had made the star.

Yet, strange as it may seem, this venerable Benefactor made a little mistake on Tuesday. A sportive young chap came to him with a newspaper in his hand, and says he: "Let me see if you can tell, my _Pater Patria_, what paper this article is in"--and proceeded to read the following high-minded editorial:

"TREASON OF THE BLACK REPUBLICANS.

"True to their foul instincts, the Greely, Cheever, and Wendell Phillips herd of treasonable fanatics are now accusing their 'Honest Old Abe' of ruining the country. It was their votes that elected the rail-splitter, and now they turn tail upon him and howl maledictions because he will not carry out their fiendish intents by erecting a revolutionary guillotine in every Northern town and city. That blasphemous mountebank, Beecher, may as well cease his treasonable impiety at once; for he and his Sharps'-rifle crew are responsible for the present bankruptcy of the whole country, and the people will yet hold them to strict account for every drop of blood that has been and will be shed in this unnatural strife."

When sportive chap ceased reading, the Venerable Gammon waved his obese hand with the fond, familiar air of a pleased benignity, and says he:

"Of course, I know what paper that is, my son. I know the ring of those sterling conservative sentiments," says the Venerable Gammon, with calm satisfaction, "and am blessed in the knowledge that our loyal New York Herald is still true to the Constitution and to the principles of my old friend, Georgey Washington--or 'old Wash,' as he permitted me to call him."

The sportive chap softly picked his teeth with a wisp from a broom, and says he: "But this ain't the Herald at all, you dear old soul; it's a copy of the Richmond Whig!" It was at this very moment, my boy, that the Venerable Gammon was first attacked by that dreadful cough which put an end to all further conversation, and has since excited the most fearful apprehensions lest a bereaved country should suddenly be called to mourn the untimely loss of its benign idol.

On Tuesday afternoon, I had a talk with the Mackerel chaplain, who had remained here over Sunday to administer consolation to a dying brigadier, and was grievously wounded in spirit to find that the telegraph had committed a trifling breach of spelling, and that that brigadier was only dyeing his hair, which had suddenly turned white in a single night on the strength of a rumor that there might be some fighting in the morning.

The Mackerel chaplain, my boy, is of inestimable value to a wounded man, his vivid and spiritual manner of describing the celebrated Fire Department of the other world being a source of unspeakable comfort and reassurance to the sufferer. "I am afraid you have led a sinful life, my fellow-worm," says he to the sick Mackerel, "and can only advise you to buy one of these hymn-books from me, which I can afford to sell for six shillings."

But what the chaplain talked to me about, was his discovery, at a village not far from Winchester, of a new

"PICCIOLA."

It was a Sergeant old and gray,
Well singed and bronzed from siege and pillage,
Went tramping in an army's wake,
Along the turnpike of the village.

For days and nights the winding host
Had through the little place been marching,
And ever loud the rustics cheered,
'Till ev'ry throat was hoarse and parching.

The Squire and Farmer, maid and dame,
All took the sight's electric stirring,
And hats were waved and staves were sung,
And kerchiefs white were countless whirring.

They only saw a gallant show
Of heroes stalwart under banners,
And in the fierce heroic glow,
'Twas theirs to yield but wild hosannahs

The Sergeant heard the shrill hurrahs,
Where he behind in step was keeping;
But glancing down beside the road
He saw a little maid sit weeping.

"And how is this?" he gruffly said,
A moment pausing to regard her;--
"Why weepest thou, my little chit?"--
And then she only cried the harder.

"And how is this, my little chit?"
The sturdy trooper straight repeated,
"When all the village cheers us on,
That you, in tears, apart are seated?

"We march two hundred thousand strong!
And that's a sight, my baby beauty,
To quicken silence into song
And glorify the soldier's duty."

"It's very, very grand, I know,"
The little maid gave soft replying;
"And Father, Mother, Brother too,
All say 'Hurrah' while I am crying;

"But think--O Mr. Soldier, think,
How many little sisters' brothers
Are going all away to fight
And may be _killed_, as well as others!"

"Why bless thee, child," the Sergeant said,
His brawny hands her curls caressing,
"'Tis left for little ones like you
To find that War's not all a blessing."

And "Bless thee!" once again he cried;
Then cleared his throat and looked indignant,
And marched away with wrinkled brow
To stop the struggling tear benignant.

And still the ringing shouts went up
From doorway, thatch, and fields of tillage;
The pall behind the standard seen
By one alone, of all the village.

The oak and cedar bend and writhe
When roars the wind through gap and braken;
But 'tis the tenderest reed of all
That trembles first when Earth is shaken.

It is with infinite satisfaction, my boy, that I record the recognition of Commodore Head's priceless services on Duck Lake by the Secretary of the Navy. Our grim old son of Neptune is created Rear-Admiral, with the privilege of snubbing gunboat captains, receiving serenades, attending launches, and lavishing untold scorn upon the feeble imitations of affrighted Europe.

Hence, there would appear to be an imperative demand in current literature for an authoritative

SKETCH OF COMMODORE HEAD.

This venerable ornament of our peerless naval service, to whom the eyes of the whole world are now directed, was born of one of his parents at an early period of his existence, and has since incurred the years temporarily elapsing between that epoch and the present auspicious occasion. The subject of our brief biography entered the navy when he was only fifty years old, as commander of the Mackerel iron-plated squadron on Duck Lake, where he became widely noted for success in fishing, as well as for his skill in eluding vessels running the blockade. At one time, indeed, he came very near capturing a Confederate ram, being only prevented by failing to find the key of the box containing his spectacles in time to reconnoiter the wily foe. Commodore Head's conversation concerning the speedy capture of Vicksburg, Charleston, Savannah and Mobile, is instructive to all minds, and his promotion is an event calculated to prove that the war is about to begin in earnest.

* * * * *

Rear-Admirals, my boy, are an aristocratic institution; and their creation must serve to convince besotted Europe, that in making a naval distinction between rank and file, our discriminating Government knows how to compromise matters by bestowing a new rank upon an old file.

It was on Wednesday that my architectural steed, the Gothic Pegasus, renewed his usual weekly journey to desolated Accomac, cheerfully conveying me thither at a speed that did not keep the same roadside house in view more than half an hour at a time. Having hitched the funereal stallion to a copy of Senator Sumner's recent Faneuil Hall speech, believing that document sufficiently heavy to hold him, I gave him a discarded straw-hat of mine for his dinner, and strolled into the Mackerel camp.

To the everlasting disgrace of our rulers be it said, my boy, I found the devoted Mackerel Brigade progressing toward deep suffering at a rate which made me thank Heaven that I owned no chickens within sight of the harrowing scene. Being thoughtlessly supplied with three days' rations at a time, these neglected martyrs incur all the perils of suffocation and cruel nightmare by doing nothing on the first day but eat from morning till night, what is left over at midnight being used to pelt each other with. Then for two whole days these gallant men who are fighting our battles find famine staring them in the face, and I actually heard one emaciated Mackerel chap offering a whole week's pay to another Mackerel chap for a Confederate cracker which he had picked up in a field, wishing to consign that cracker to his friends at home as a sample of the unnatural food with which an ungrateful Republic feeds its faithful soldiers. I even found many Mackerels without knapsacks and blankets, which they had lost in adventures at "Old Sledge"; and there was that in the countenances of others which sured me that their poor faces had not been washed since the commencement of the war!

My soul turns sick at these things, my boy, and they even have an effect upon a beholder's stomach. To think that our noble volunteers, our country's preservers, should be subjected to sufferings in which they have not even the poor consolation of knowing that somebody else than themselves is responsible therefor.

Reflectively I turned from the scene of agony, and had rambled some fifteen minutes in an adjacent bit of woods, when the sound of voices near by made me stop short behind a tree and peer eagerly through an opening in the nearest thicket.

Seated just beyond some evergreen bushes were four dilapidated Confederacies, solemnly discussing the great Emancipation Proclamation of our Honest Abe; whilst close by them, and astride of a mossy stone, was the accomplished swordsman, Captain Munchausen, frantically, and with many hiccups, endeavoring at one and the same time to catch a phantom fly and maintain his equestrian position.

One of the Confederacies took a bite from a cold potato which he held in his hand, and, says he:

"I reckon that it's near time for the unsubjugated South to adopt Retaliatory measures, and proclaim that all prisoners hereafter taken by the Confederacy shall be previously shot and made into bone-ornaments."

Here Captain Munchausen burst into an unseemly peal of laughter as he made another wild clutch at the phantom-fly, and says he:

"Wher--where's Mary's--ary's--snuff-box?"

Not perceiving that this special remark was relevant to the question in view, a second Confederacy merely tightened the string which held his inexpressibles in place, and, says he:

"What has been proposed by the Honorable Gentleman from the Alms House is not sufficiently severe. No mercy should be shown to the Washington demon, and I move that any Federal soldiers found disturbing a Confederacy during the progress of a battle shall be at once executed for arson."

The impression created by this motion extended even to Captain Munchausen, who fell flat on his face in a frantic attempt to catch the spectral insect, and exclaimed, in tones of awful solemnity:

"I don't want (hic) to be marri--ry--arried--Hic!"

After a moment's pause, the third Confederacy finished buttoning his coat with a bit of corn-cob, and says he:

"I move that the last Resolution be amended, to make it a capital crime for any person whatever to be guilty of Federal extraction."

Now, it chanced, my boy, that there was a Mackerel picket eating a confiscated watermelon in a clump of bushes close behind me; and just at this crisis of the debate, he casually tossed a piece of the rind in the direction of the Confederacies. It happened to fall in their midst, whereupon the enraged statesmen were seized with great tremblings, and immediately skedaddled in all directions, the last being Captain Munchausen, who at first endeavored to carry a rock of some hundred pounds' weight away with him, and ultimately retreated in a highly-circuitous manner, with an expression of abject despair under his cap.

It is said, my boy, that the celebrated Confederacy will resent the Proclamation by raising the Black Flag. It is a common belief, that if such be the case, it will be the duty of our generals to raise the blacks without flagging.

Yours, if it come to that,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.