The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 3 by R. H. Newell
LETTER XCVII.
INTRODUCING THE GREAT MORAL EXHIBITION OF THE "EFFIGYNIA," GLANCING AT A FOURTH NEW MACKEREL GENERAL, AND SHOWING HOW THE PRESIDENT'S DRAFT ON ACCOMAC WAS PROTESTED AT SIGHT.
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 10th, 1863.
As I wax numerous in exciting years, my boy, and observe more and moreof the long-headed and strategic manner in which our wealthy butdistracted country prosecutes the Restoration of the Union, thestronger grows my belief that, inasmuch as the way of the transgressoris hard, the way of the well-doer is inexpressibly "soft." Each day ofthe present national crisis brings fresh evidence of the exceedinglysoft character of the policy by which our upright government would turnto nought the wrathful devices of its enemies, and further demonstratesthe vast difference existing between everything upright and anythingdownright. We discomfit the well-known Southern Confederacy, at everyturn, my boy,--we discomfit it at every turn; but, the trouble is, wekeep turning all the time, like a Thomas cat after his tail, constantlybelieving that we are approaching the end, but never quite reaching it.
Fearing lest I should become metaphysical if I pursued this train ofthought any farther,--thereby encroaching upon the bottomless provinceof the Awful and Unfathomable German mind, which rejoices gloomily inthe solemn investigation of all that verges upon muddledabstraction;--fearing lest I should become thus erudite, profound, andsnuffily unintelligible, my boy, I repress my morbid inclination totake a funereal canter into abstruse speculation on the elephants ofthought, and digress from theory to fact.
This city, which is destined to become in time another Waterloo in thesense of offering everything drinkable in lieu of water, presents butvery little except bar-rooms in the way of entertainment just now.Hence, my boy, we can properly appreciate the "Effigynia," as it isclassically called, which a thoughtful yellow-vested chap of muchbreastpin, from Pequog, has just opened on Pennsylvania Avenue.According to advertisement, "this chaste and plastic exhibitionconsists of wax effigies of the five successive Generals of theMackerel Brigade, with the peculiar personalities of each one, and thesuperiority of each over the other, unmistakably stamped on the formsand features of each!" Being a moral man, my boy, and much addicted toentertainments which differ from the prevailing drama of the day inobviating the necessity for steadily blushing, I repaired to theEffigynia the other evening and was much edified by the spectaclepresented. Five mirrors standing at different angles with a wax figureof the first General of the Mackerel Brigade, were made each to reflectsaid figure; and I could not help feeling, my boy, that the likenesseswere correct. I saw before me the counterfeit presentments of the fivesoldiers who had successively arisen to the highest Mackerel Command,and I found myself wondering how many more mirrors the exhibition wouldneed before the war came to a head--containing brains.
It was on Tuesday morning that I ascended majestically to the slantingroof of my Gothic steed, the sagacious Pegasus, and moved perceptiblyacross Long Bridge once more, toward the camp of the Mackerel Brigade.It is worthy of note, my boy, that the architectural animal in questionhas greatly improved of late upon a diet of condemned straw hats, andnow trots an hour in sixty minutes with the greatest ease of manner. Anoccasional cough but adds to the melancholy interest of his funerealcast of countenance; and as his head grows more and more vivid in itsresemblance to an infant's coffin, his whole effect deepens in itschurchliness and sepulchral solemnity.
As I neared the national head-quarters, the Mackerel Surgeon-Generalsaluted me, and I observed that he kept his glance dreamily fixed uponthe Gothic Pegasus.
"As I gaze upon that bony fabric," says he, biting a piece of calamusin soft professional abstraction,--"as I gaze upon that fleet skeletonyou bestride, I cannot help thinking that Rule Britannia is frequentlyright in speaking of a horse as an 'oss; though she may use asuperfluous 's' in the word. You see," says the surgeon, pausing totake a gray powder, and to try his lancet on his left thumb-nail,--"yousee, the classical term '_os_' signifies bone; and as bone is theprevailing aspect of your present charger, he might be termed an'_'os_' without violence to the lingual proprieties."
I have always suspected this surgeon, my boy, of being an accursedsecessionist in disguise, and now I feel confident that he would nothesitate, if opportunity offered, to carry his fiendish affection forthe well-known Southern Confederacy to the extent of actually differingwith me upon some point in conversation. In such times as these, myboy, there can be no middle ground for a man; he must either be heartand soul with his country's murderous foes, or ready to agree entirelywith me in anything I may say or think. God save the Republic!
Upon arriving at a locality, which I refrain from naming, lest I shouldthereby betray my beloved country or make a mistake in spelling, Ifound the venerable and spectacled veterans of the thrice-valorousMackerel Brigade just returned from a spirited pursuit of certainregiments of disreputable Confederacies who were stealing farms on theoutskirts of Paris. These Confederacies had even penetrated intostoried Accomac, and removed everything they found upon the farms thereexcept the mortgages. Hence the demand upon the aged and unconquerableMackerel Brigade for an immediate walk in that direction, and therethey had gone by the most circuitous and profoundly strategical routeafforded by the county maps. General John Smith, the latest edition ofMackerel Commander, gave leadership of his advance guard to CaptainVilliam Brown, and immediately five-and-twenty inflamed reportersfrantically telegraphed to as many excellent and reliable morningjournals, that all the thieving Confederacies were about to be bagged,and that all the revolting details would be given in our next issue. Itwas toward evening, my boy, when Captain Villiam Brown, mounted uponhis geometrical steed, Euclid, came riding up to the advancedhead-quarters of the new general to report results.
"Well, young man," says the General, with Spartan equanimity, "have webagged the enemies of human freedom?"
Villiam looked up from the demijohn under the table, upon which he hadbeen earnestly gazing, and says he, "No, sire; but the very next thingto bagging them has occurred."
"Relate the tale," says the General, with dignity.
"Why," says Villiam, "instead of our bagging them, they have beensacking us."
It is a remarkable and beautiful peculiarity of our flexible language,my boy, that its semi-syno-nymical effects permit the transmission oftrying intelligence in terms of soothing similarity to those whichmight have been employed had the news been more felicitous. Thus are welet down easily from pride to humiliation, and spared much interveningagony of soul.
So the Mackerel Brigade turned their gleaming old spectacles once morein the direction of our National Capital, and are again acharacteristic of the landscape enclosing Washington. Furtherconsummate strategy is postponed for a time on account of the weather,which has become villanously hot through the fanatical machinations ofthe insidious Black Republicans. Thus are Greeley, Beecher, WendellPhillips, and their deluded followers weakening the military arm of thegovernment and endeavoring to obtain fat contracts for worthless fans!
Methinks I hear you ask, "Has the new general of the Mackerel Brigademade a failure, after all the credit the public have given him forsuperiority over his predecessors?"
Far be it from me to judge hastily, but I may be permitted to say, myboy,--I may be permitted to say, that men in the military line havethis point in common with men in a mercantile business; by obtainingtoo much on credit at the start, they are very apt to make badfailures, leaving nothing but their lie-abilities for the consolationof those who trusted them.
Upon reaching the Mackerel camp, and exchanging festive salutationswith Captain Bob Shorty, who was trying to purchase the dressed skin ofa handsome copperhead snake from Corporal Veller, of the CaliforniaReserve, to use as a sword-belt,--after exchanging salutations, Irepaired to the tent of the chaplain, to witness the marriage of one ofthe younger Mackerels to a pretty Shenandoah belle. As the happy pairstood before the drum to be made wife and man, I noticed that thebride's rosy cheeks paled like a sun
And now, my boy, let me say a few words respecting the recent attempteddraft of Abe L. bodied men in thrice-famous Accomac, and thefreedom-loving spirit in which it was met by the Sovereign People. Witha prescient view to being amply prepared for an overwhelming assaultupon combined Europe, which is shortly to be made by Secretary Sewardand the muscular United States of America, our Uncle Abe ordered adraft of Accomackians to be made at once. Hereupon the Accomac "MorningDog," an excellent daily journal, indulged in a high-minded editorialon the fiendish proclivities of the Governor of Accomac, and thegeneral wildness of all the Accomackians to be drafted if he would letthem. With great promptness, that admirable palladium of human freedom,the "Evening Cat," avowed that it spit upon the gubernatorialscurrility of its growling contemporary; that it deprecated mobviolence and trusted that no mob would resist the draft; but could nothelp believing that the Sovereign People might possibly arise in theirmajesty and occasion a speedy funeral in the family of theeditor-in-chief of the venomous and intolerable "Morning Dog."
It was at 10 o'clock A.M., my boy, when the drafting commenced inAccomac, and in half an hour thereafter the Sovereign People,consisting of several gentlemen from Ireland, were asserting thedignity of a free community in a manner worthy of the sacred cause ofEmigration. It is a touching fact, my boy,--a touching and aestheticalfact, that the American people are ever so able to find foreignchampions to protect their freedom from governmental infringement thatthey seldom have occasion to do any fighting for it themselves.
The Sovereign People of Accomac, being fully aroused and slightlyinebriated, proceeded to vindicate the majesty of our excellentnational Democratic Organization by relieving a bloated aristocracy oftheir watches and loose change, ransacking sundry private residences onaccount of the great draft of their chimneys, and performing otherawe-inspiring acts of rude majesty, equally well calculated to evince afreeborn people's distaste for despotism. Furthermore, the SovereignPeople fearlessly attacked a large and aristocratic Hospital, beatingmany of the patients to death; for, by some corrupt chicanery, thesepatients were barefacedly exempted from the Conscription which bore soheavily upon the down-trodden and healthy poor man. The "Evening Cat,"in a special edition, was genial enough to express a hope that "theoutraged people now muttering ominously in the air," would not burstupon the office and editor of the "Morning Dog" with _too_ much justfury; whereupon the incensed Sovereign People said that, be jabers,they'd come mighty near forgetting that entirely; and forthwithproceeded to stone the office of the "Dog" until the hasty discharge ofan ink-stand from one of the upper windows thereof induced them to makea hasty change of base.
Without indulging in farther details, suffice it to say that theSovereign People finally desisted from their struggle for liberty uponbeing satisfied that no more watches, purses, nor sick despots were tobe got at conveniently, and the "Evening Cat" came out in a spiritedarticle in favor of an immediate war with France.
How grateful should it be to our national pride, my boy, that even thestranger that is within our gates feels inspired by the very atmospherewith a jealous, a fighting love for perfect freedom,--especially ifsaid gates be those of a State prison.
Yours, exuberantly,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.