"Domino!" 'Twas nigh upon the hour of noon when Captain Bob Shorty and his veterans approached the beautiful village of Centreville. Cross-trees had been placed under the horses of the cavalry to keep them from falling down, and the infantry were arranging themselves so that the bayonets of the front rank shouldn't stick into the rear rank's eyes every time they turned a corner, when a solitary contraband might have been seen eating hoe-cake by the solemn road-side. "Confederate," said Captain Bob Shorty, approaching him with his sword very much between his legs, "hast seen the rebel Frost and his myrmidions? I come to give him battle, having heard that he was hereabouts." The Ethiopian took a pentagonal bite of hoe-cake, and says he: "Tell Massa Lincon that the frost war werry thick last night, but hab gone by this time." Captain Bob Shorty took off his cap, my boy, looked carefully into it, put it on again, and frowned awfully. "Comrades," says he, addressing the troops, "you have all heard of a big thing on Snyder. You now behold it before you. This here reconnoissance," says he, "is what the French would call a _few-paw_. We must turn it into a foraging expedition. Charge on yonder hay-stack, and remember me in your prayers!" 'Twas early eve, my boy, when that splendid army returned to Potomac's shore, with two hay-stacks for the horses, and ten Confederate chickens for supper. Nobody hurt on our side. I inclose the following brief sketch of the gallant soldier who commanded in this brilliant affair. CAPTAIN ROBERT SHORTY. This brave young officer was born in the Sixth Ward of New York, and was twenty-one years old upon arriving of age. When but a lad, he studied tobacco and the girls, and ran to fires for his health. When eligible to the right of franchise, he voted seven times in one day, and attracted so much attention from the authorities that his parents resolved to make a lawyer of him. On the breaking out of the war with Mexico, he offered his services to the Government as a major-general, but, for some reason, was not accepted. He will probably be sent to supersede General Halleck, in Missouri, as soon as any one of St. Louis writes to ask the President for another change. * * * * * The general was so pleased when he heard of this spirited action, my boy, that he offered to review the Mackerel Brigade the next morning, and privately informed me that he considered the Southern Confederacy doomed to expire in less than three months. He said that it was already tottering to its fall, which must take place in the Spring. Perhaps so, my boy--perhaps so! Yours, for the flag, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER XXVII. TOUCHING INCIDENTALLY UPON THE CHARACTER OF ARMY FOOD, AND CELEBRATING THE GREAT DIPLOMATIC EXPLOIT OF CAPTAIN VILLIAM BROWN AT ACCOMAC. WASHINGTON, D.C., January 19th, 1862.