by R. H. Newell
"It's the only thing that will save him," says he to my mother, "and Imust either send him off, or expect to see him sink by degrees toeditorship, and commence to wear disgraceful clothes."
I went to New York; I became private secretary and speech-scribe to anunscrupulous and, therefore, rising politician; and now--I am inWashington.
Thus, my boy, have I answered your desire for an outline of my personalhistory; and henceforth let me devote my attention to other and moreimportant inhabitants of our distracted country. I had a certainpostmastership in my eye when I first came hither; but war's alarmsindicate that I may do better as an amateur hero.
Yours inconoclastically,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER IV.
DESCRIBING THE SOUTH IN TWELVE LINES, DEFINING THE CITIZEN'S FIRSTDUTY, AND RECITING A PARODY.
WASHINGTON, D.C., April --, 1861.
The chivalrous South, my boy, has taken Fort Sumter, and only wants tobe "let alone." Some things of a Southern sort I like, my boy;Southdown mutton is fit for the gods, and Southside particular isliquid sunshine for the heart; but the whole country was growing tiredof new South wails before this, and my present comprehensive estimateof all there is of Dixie may be summed up in twelve straight lines,under the general heading of
REPUDIATION.
'Neath a ragged palmetto a Southerner sat, A-twisting the band of his Panama hat, And trying to lighten his mind of a load By humming the words of the following ode: "Oh! for a nigger, and oh! for a whip; Oh! for a cocktail, and oh! for a nip; Oh! for a shot at old Greeley and Beecher; Oh! for a crack at a Yankee school-teacher; Oh! for a captain, and oh! for a ship; Oh! for a cargo of niggers each trip." And so he kept oh-ing for all he had not, Not contented with owing for all that he'd got.
In view of the impending conflict, it is the duty of every Americancitizen, who has nothing else to do, to take up his abode in thecapital of this agonized Republic, and give the Cabinet the sanction ofhis presence. Some base child of treason may intimate that Washingtonis not quite large enough to hold every American citizen; but I'msatisfied that, if all the democrats could have one good washing, theywould shrink so that you might put the whole blessed party into anordinary custom house. Some of the republicans are pretty large chapsfor their size, but Jeff Davis thinks they can be "taken in" easilyenough; and I know that the new tariff will be enough to make themcontract like sponges out of water. The city is full of Western chaps,at present, who look as if they had just walked out of acharity-hospital, and had not got beyond gruel diet yet. Every soul ofthem knew old Abe when he was a child, and one old boy can evenremember going for a doctor when his mother was born. I met one of themthe other day (he is after the Moosehicmagunticook post-office), andhis anecdotes of the President's boyhood brought tears to my eyes, andseveral tumblers to my lips. He says, that when Abe was an infant ofsixteen, he split so many rails that his whole county looked like awholesale lumber-yard for a week; and that when he took toflat-boating, he was so tall and straight, that a fellow once took himfor a smoke-stack on a steamboat, and didn't find out his mistake untilhe tried to kindle a fire under him. Once, while Abe was practising asa lawyer, he defended a man for stealing a horse, and was so eloquentin proving that his client was an honest victim of false suspicion,that the deeply-affected victim made him a present of the horse as soonas he was acquitted. I tell you what, my boy, if Abe pays a post-officefor every story of his childhood that's told, the mail department ofthis glorious nation will be so large that a letter smaller than atwo-story house would get lost in it.
* * * * *
Of all the vile and damning deeds that ever rendered a city eternallyinfamous, my boy--of all the infernal sins of dark-browed treacherythat ever made open-faced treason seem holy, the crime of Baltimore isthe blackest and worst. All that April day we were waiting with batedbreath and beating hearts for the devoted men who had pledged theirlives to their country at the first call of the President, and wereknown to be marching to the defence of the nation's capital. That nightwas one of terror: at any moment the hosts of the rebels might pourupon the city from the mountains of guilty Virginia, and grasp the verythroat of the Republic. And with the first dim light of morning camethe news that our soldiers had been basely beset in the streets ofBaltimore, and ruthlessly shot down by a treacherous mob! Those whomthey had trusted as brothers, my boy--whose country they were marchingto defend with their lives--assassinating them in cold blood!
I was sitting in my room at Willard's, when a serious chap from NewHaven, who had just paused long enough at the door to send a waiter forthe same that he had yesterday, came rushing into the apartment with along, fluttering paper in his hand.
"Listen to this," says he, in wild agitation, and read:
BALTIMORE.
Midnight shadows, dark, appalling, round the Capitol were falling, And its dome and pillars glimmered spectral from Potomac's shore; All the great had gone to slumber, and of all the busy number That had moved the State by day within its walls, as erst before, None there were but dreamed of heroes thither sent ere day was o'er-- Thither sent through BALTIMORE.
But within a chamber solemn, barred aloft with many a column, And with windows tow'rd Mount Vernon, windows tow'rd Potomac's shore, Sat a figure, stern and awful; Chief, but not the Chieftain lawful Of the land whose grateful millions Washington's great name adore-- Sat the form--a shade majestic of a Chieftain gone before, Thine to honor, BALTIMORE!
There he sat in silence, gazing, by a single planet's blazing, At a map outspread before him wide upon the marble floor; And if 'twere for mortal proving that those reverend lips were moving, While the eyes were closely scanning one mapped city o'er and o'er-- While he saw but one great city on that map upon the floor-- They were whispering--"BALTIMORE."
Thus he sat, nor word did utter, till there came a sudden flutter, And the sound of beating wings was heard upon the carved door. In a trice the bolts were broken; by those lips no word was spoken, As an Eagle, torn and bloody, dim of eye, and wounded sore, Fluttered down upon the map, and trailed a wing all wet with gore O'er the name of BALTIMORE!
Then that noble form uprising, with a gesture of surprising, Bent with look of keenest sorrow tow'rd the bird that drooped before; "Emblem of my country!" said he, "are thy pinions stained already In a tide whose blending waters never ran so red before? Is it with the blood of kinsmen? Tell me quickly, I implore!" Croaked the eagle--"BALTIMORE!"
"Eagle," said the Shade, advancing, "tell me by what dread mischancing Thou, the symbol of my people, bear'st thy plumes erect no more? Why dost thou desert mine army, sent against the foes that harm me, Through my country, with a Treason worlds to come shall e'er deplore?" And the Eagle on the map, with bleeding wing, as just before, Blurred the name of BALTIMORE!
"Can it be?" the spectre muttered. "Can it be?" those pale lips uttered; "Is the blood Columbia treasures spilt upon its native shore? Is there in the land so cherished, land for whom the great have perished, Men to shed a brother's blood as tyrant's blood was shed before? Where are they who murder Peace before the breaking out of war?" Croaked the Eagle--"BALTIMORE."
At the word, of sound so mournful, came a frown, half sad, half scornful, O'er the grand, majestic face where frown had never been before; And the hands to Heaven uplifted, with an awful pow'r seemed gifted To plant curses on a head, and hold them there forevermore-- To rain curses on a land, and bid them grow forevermore-- Woe art thou, O BALTIMORE!
Then the sacred spirit, fading, left upon the floor a shading, As of one with arms uplifted, from a distance bending o'er; And the vail of night grew thicker, and the death-watch bea
t the quicker For a death within a death, and sadder than the death before! And a whispering of woe was heard upon Potomac's shore-- Hear it not, O BALTIMORE!
And the Eagle, never dying, still is trying, still is trying, With its wings upon the map to hide a city with its gore; But the name is there forever, and it shall be hidden never, While the awful brand of murder points the Avenger to its shore; While the blood of peaceful brothers God's dread vengeance doth implore, Thou art doomed, O BALTIMORE!
"There!" says the serious New Haven chap, as he finished reading,stirring something softly with a spoon, "what do you suppose Poe wouldthink, if he were alive now and could read that?"
"I think," says I, striving to appear calm, "that he would be 'Raven'mad about it."
"Oh--ah--yes," says the serious chap, vaguely, "what will _you_ take?"
Doubtless I shall become hardened to the horrors of war in time, myboy; but at present these things unhinge me.
Yours, unforgivingly,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER V.
CONCERNING THE GREAT CROWD AT THE CAPITAL, OWING TO THE VAST INFLUX OFTROOPS, 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 respectablefence, and fare sumptuously on three granite biscuit a day, and a glassof water, weakened with brandy. A high private in the Twenty-secondRegiment has promised to let me have one of his spare pocket-handkerchiefsfor a sheet on the first rainy night, and I never go to bed on mycomfortable window-brush without thinking how many poor creatures thereare in this world who have to sleep on hair mattresses and feather-bedsall their lives. Before the great rush of the Fire Zouaves and the restof the menagerie commenced, I boarded exclusively on a front stoop onPennsylvania Avenue, and used to slumber, regardless of expense, in awell-conducted ash-box; but the military monopolize all suchaccommodation 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 ifthey 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 Zouavesremarked, there seems to be enough danger laying around loose onArlington Heights to make a very good blood-and-thunder fiction innumerous pages. If the vigilant and well-educated sentinels happen tosee 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 lessthan a minute. Then all the cheap reporters telegraph to their papersin New York and Philadelphia, that "Jeff. Davis is within two minutes'walk of the Capital, with a few millions of men," and all the freestates send six more regiments a piece to crowd us a little more. Isha'n't stand much more crowding, for my fence is full now, and therewere six applications yesterday to rent an improved knot-hole. Mylandlord says that, if more than three chaps set up housekeeping on onepost, he'll be obliged to raise the rent.
Those Fire Zouaves are fellows of awful suction, I tell you. Just forgreens, 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 andyour fires--especially your _fires_." General Scott says that if hewanted to make these chaps break through the army of a foe, he'd have afire-bell rung for some district on the other side of the rebels. Hesays that half a million of the traitors couldn't keep the Fire Zouavesout of that district five minutes. I believe him, my boy!
The weather here is highly favorable to the free development ofperspiration and mint-juleps, and I have enjoyed the melancholysatisfaction of losing ten pounds of flesh in three days. One of thelieutenants of the Eighth has a gutter about half an inch deep worndown the bridge of his nose by the stream of perspiration sinceWednesday; 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 tosend home to his rich but pious family.
In fact, this weather makes the Northern boys fall away awfully; one ofthe Fire Zouaves fell away tremendously yesterday; he fell away fromWashington to Annapolis, and then somebody had to put him in aguard-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 whenhe came here that his captain refused to use him as a sentinel, becausehe could not see far enough over his stomach to detect any oneapproaching him. Well, my boy, that chap has fallen away to such anextent that it took me half an hour last night to find out what part ofhis uniform he lived in. He blew down three or four times while we werewalking up Pennsylvania avenue; and while I was helping him up the lasttime, 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, onWednesday, when we raised the Star-spangled particular on thePost-office. Says he: "On this present occasion, I feel that it willnot be out of place to make a few remarks which were not applicable ata former period. Yesterday, the flag hung on the staff throughout theUnion, and in consequence of the scarcity of a breeze, there was notmuch wind blowing at the time. On the present happy occasion, however,the presence of numerous zephyrs causes the atmosphere to agitate forour glorious Union, and this flag, which now unfolds itself to thesight, is observed, upon closer inspection, to present a star-spangledappearance."
Mr. Seward's speech, which was also received with frantic enthusiasm,sounded equally well. He said: "I trust that this glorious spectaclewill make a deep impression upon all present, notwithstanding the factthat I am still convinced that peace may yet put an end to this unhappyconflict by means of a convention of all the States on the Fourth ofJuly, 2776, which I have always advocated. As the President hasremarked, the breeze which has just arisen in the bay of Naples, causesthe Star-Spangled Banner to arouse a far prouder feeling in everyAmerican breast, than if a vessel should come in with a palmetto flagat her peak, and upon being asked where it came from, should reply:'Oh, from one of the petty republics of America.' I have nothing moreto say."
I know this report is correct, for I copied both the speeches from aphonographic reporter's copy, and the phonographic reporter had onlytaken six glasses of old peach and honey before he went to work.
Yours, hastily,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER VI.
INTRODUCING THE MACKEREL BRIGADE, DILATING ON HAVELOCKS AS FIRST MADEBY THE WOMEN OF AMERICA, ILLUSTRATING THE STRENGTH OF HABIT ANDWEAKNESS OF "SHODDY," AND SHOWING HOW OUR CORRESPONDENT INDULGED IN AHUGE CANARD, AFTER THE MANNER OF AN ENLIGHTENED DAILY PRESS.
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 15th, 1861.
The members of the Mackerel Brigade, now stationed on Arlington Heightsto watch the movements of the Potomac, which is expected to riseshortly, desire me to thank the women of America for supplies ofHavelocks and other delicacies of the season just received. TheHavelocks, my boy, are rather roomy, and we took them for shirts atfirst; and the shirts are so narrow-minded, that we took them forHavelocks. If the women of America could manage to get a little lesslinen in the collars of the latter article, and a little more into theother departments of the graceful garment, there would be fewer coldsin this division of the Grand Army.
The Havelocks, as I have said before, are roomy--very roomy, my boy.Villiam Brown, of Company 3, Regiment 5, put one on last night, when hewent on sentry-duty, and looked like a broomstick in a pillow-case, forall the world. When the officer of the night came round and caughtsight of Villiam in his Havelock, he was struck dumb with admirationfor a moment. Then he ejaculated:
"What a splendid moonbeam!"
Villiam made a movement, and the sergeant came up.
"What's that white object?" says the officer to the sergeant.
"The young man which is Villiam Brown," says the sergeant.
"Thunder!" roars the officer, "tell him to go to his tent, and take offthat night-gown!"
"You're mistaken," says the sergeant. "The sentry is Villiam Brown, inhis Havelock, which was made by the wimmen of America.
"
The officer was so justly exasperated at his mistake, that he wentimmediately to his head-quarters, and took the Oath three timesrunning, with a little sugar.
The Oath is very popular, my boy, and comes in bottles. I take itmedicinally myself.
The shirts made by the women of America are noble articles, as far downas the collar; but would not do to use as an only garment. CaptainMortimer de Montague, one of the skirmish squad, put one on when hewent to the President's Reception, and the collar stood up so high,that he couldn't put his cap on, while the other departments didn'tquite reach to his waist. His appearance at the White House waspicturesque and interesting, and as he entered the drawing-room,General Scott remarked, very feelingly:
"Ah! here comes one of our wounded heroes."
"He's not wounded, general," remarked an officer, standing by.
"Then, why is his head bandaged up so?" asked the venerable veteran.
"Oh!" says the officer, "that's only one of the shirts made by thepatriotic wimmen of America."
In about five minutes after this conversation, I saw the venerableveteran, the wounded hero, and the officer taking the Oath together.
The Seventy-ninth, Highlanders, came to town early last week, and arethe finest body of Scotchmen that were ever half _kilt_ by uniformalone. My heart warmed to them when I first saw them; and, with armsoutspread, I greeted the gallant fellow nearest to me. With a tear ofgratified pride in his eye, he exclaimed:
"Auld lang syne and Scots who ha'e; but gang awa' wi' Heeland laddiethegither o' John Anderson my Jo; and, moreover, we'll tak' a rightgude willie wacht for muckle twa and braw chiel."