As they were passing the quarters of the officer with whom I was spending the night, the expiring Zouave stopped to twist the tail of an old darkey's cat, which made such a noise that the officer's attention was attracted, and he called the whole party into his room. I at once noticed that the top of Mr. Shorty's head was completely gone, and that one of his eyes was half-way down the back of his neck. Upon entering the room he took a pipe from the mantel and commenced to smoke it, giving us, at the same time, a history of Nine's Engine and the first "muss" he was ever engaged in. After finishing the pipe, and requesting me to wrap him up in the American flag, he spit on one of my boots, and then died. I append a short biographical sketch. THE LATE PRIVATE SHORTY. Mr. James Shorty, the gallant Zouave who was shot last night by the Southern Confederacy, was born some years ago in a place I am not aware of, and graduated with high honors in the New York Fire Department. He was universally beloved for his genial manner of taking the butt, and never hit a feller bigger than himself. In the year 1861, he entered the United States army as a private Zouave, and was in it when the fate of war deprived the country of his beloved presence. His remains will be taken to the first fire that occurs. * * * * * Poor Shorty! I knew him well, my boy, and shall never forget how ready he always was to take a cigar from Yours, mournfully, ORPHEUS C. KERR. P.S.--Since writing the above, I have heard that no such occurrence took place at Alexandria. The alarm was occasioned by the fall of a bag of hay in one of the officers' quarters, the noise being mistaken for the firing of a battery. Mr. Shorty, it seems, does not belong to the Zouaves, at all, and is still in New York. O. C. K. LETTER VII. RECORDING THE FIRST SANGUINARY EXPLOIT OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE, AND ITS VICTORIOUS ISSUE. WASHINGTON, D.C., June 20th, 1861. I have just returned, my boy, with my fellow-mercenaries and several mudsills from a carnival of gore. I am wounded--my sensibilities are wounded, and my irrepressibles reek with the blood of the slain. These hands, that once opened the oysters of peace and toyed with the bivalves of tranquillity, are now sanguinary with the _red juice of battle_ (gushing idea!), and linger in horrid ecstacy about the gloomy neck of a bottle holding about a quart. Eagle of my country, proud bird of the menagerie! thou art avenged!