At the special request of Secretary Seward, who wrote six letters about it to the Governors of all the States, I have been appointed a picket of the army of the Upper Potomac. In your natural ignorance, my boy, you may not know why a man is called a picket. He is called a picket, my boy, because, if anybody drops a pocket-book or a watch anywhere, his natural gifts would cause him to pick-it up. If he saw a pocket, he would not pick-it--oh, no! But pick-it--picket. The Picket, my boy, has been an institution ever since wars began, and his perils are spoken of by some of the high old poets in these beautiful lines: "The chap thy tactics doom to bleed to-day-- Had he thy reasons, would he poker play? Pleased to the last, he does a deal of good, And licks the man just sent to shed his blood." I am weeping, my boy. While on my lonely beat, about an hour ago, a light tread attracted my attention, and looking up, I beheld one of secesh's pickets standing before me. "Soldier," says he, "you remind me of my grandmother, who expired before I was born; but this unnatural war has made us enemies, and I must shoot you. Give me a chaw terbacker." He was a young man, my boy, in the prime of life, and descended from the First Families of Virginia. I looked at him, and says I: "Let's compromise, my brother." "Never!" says he. "The South is fighting for her liberty, her firesides, and the pursuit of happiness, and I desire most respectfully to welcome you with bloody hands to a hospitable grave." "Stand off ten paces," says I, "and let's see whose name shall come before the coroner first." He took his place, and we fired simultaneously. I heard a ball go whistling by a barn about a quarter of a mile on my right; and, when the smoke cleared away, I saw the secesh picket approaching me with an awful expression of woe on his otherwise dirty countenance. "Soldier," says he, "was there anything in my head before you fired?" "Nothing," says I, "save a few harmless insects." "I speak not of them," says he. "Was there anything _inside_ of my head?" "Nothing!" says I. "Well," says he, "just listen now." He shook his head mournfully, and I heard something rattle in it. "What's that?" I exclaimed. "That," says he, "is your bullet, which has penetrated my skull, and is rolling about in my brain. I die happy, and with an empty stomach; but there is one thing I should like to see before I perish for my country. Have you a quarter about you?" Too much affected to speak, I drew the coin from my pocket and handed it to him. The dying man clutched it convulsively, and stared at it feverishly. "This," said he, "is the first quarter I've seen since the fall of Sumter; and, had I wounded you, I should have been totally unable to give you any quarter. Ah! how beautiful it is! how bright, how exquisite, and good for four drinks! But I have not time to say all I feel."