"Well, now," says Captain Bob Shorty, "you'd hardly believe it; but the last I see of that ere company, it was engaged in the pursuit of happiness at the rate of six miles an hour, with the rebels at the wrong end of the track. Dang my rations!" says Captain Bob Shorty, "if I don't think that ere bob-tailed company has got to Richmond by this time." "Thunder!" says the general, "didn't they kill any of the rebels?" "Nary a Confederacy," says Captain Bob Shorty. "The bullets all rolled out of them ere muskets of theirs before the powder got fairly on fire. Them muskets," continued Captain Bob Shorty, "would be good for a bombardment. You might possibly hit a city with them at two yards' range; but in personal encounters they are inferior to the putty-blowers of our innocent childhood." As the captain made this observation, my boy, he stepped hurriedly to the table, lifted a tumbler containing the Oath to his pallid lips, took a seat in the coal-scuttle, and burst into a flood of tears. Deeply affected by this touching display of a beautiful trait in our common nature, the general placed a small piece of ice on the captain's slanting brow, and hid his own emotions in a bottle holding about a quart. In reference to the beautiful battle-piece, accompanying this epistle, my boy, allow me to observe that it was taken on the spot by the _Chiar' oscuro_ artist, Patrick de la Roach, well-known in his native Italy as "Roachy." He studied in Rome (New York), and has a style peculiar for its width of tone and length of breath. The dark complexion of the figures in this fine picture represents the effects of the Virginia sun. Our troops are much tanned. The work was painted in oil colors with a bit of charcoal, my boy, and a copy of it will probably be ordered for the Capitol. Yours, for high old art, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER XXIV. NARRATING THE MACKEREL BRIGADE'S MANNER OF CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS, AND NOTING A DEADLY AFFAIR OF HONOR BETWEEN TWO WELL-KNOWN OFFICERS. WASHINGTON, D.C., December 26th, 1861. A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, my boy, and the same to yourself. The recurrence of these gay old annuals makes me feel as ancient as the First Families of Virginia, and as grave as a church-yard. How well I remember my first Christmas! Early in the morning, my dignified paternal presented me with a beautiful spanking, and then my maternal touched me up with her slipper to stop my crying. Sensible people are the women of America, my boy; they slap a boy on his upper end, which makes him howl, and then hit him on the other end to stop his noise. There's good logic in the idea, my boy. That first Christmas of mine was memorable from the fact that my present was a drum, on which I executed a new opera of my own composition with such good effect, that in the evening, a deputation of superannuated neighbors and old maids waited on my father with a petition that he would send me to sea immediately.