The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 2Newell, R. H. (Robert Henry)
History
The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 2
Newell, R. H. (Robert Henry)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
WASHINGTON, D. C., September 27th, 1862.
"John Brown's body," which has been "marching on" for some time past,
my boy, being thus considerably in advance of our strictly
Constitutional Army, has at length made a great strategic movement, and
evoked the following promissory note from our Honest Old Abe:
COLORLESS DOMICIL, Sept. 22d, 1862.
"Ninety days after date I promise to pay the Southern Confederacy, or
order, the full amount of its deserts.
"$ _Emancipation._ H. O. ABE."
The morning after this little settlement was made, my boy, I met the
conservative Kentucky chap on Pennsylvania avenue, and was greatly
edified by his high-minded remarks on the subject. "Having recently
disposed of any attached contrabands to good advantage," says he,
sagely, "I am now deeply convinced that my brother-in-law, the Southern
Confederacy, has brought this dispensation upon himself. I have said
all along that it would be so at last," says the genial Kentucky chap,
casting another glance at the score of a recent game of Euchre which he
held in his hand. "I have said all along that it would be so at last,
and I am still disposed to sustain the Administration and crush the
Black Republicans."
When I remembered the sentiments held by this accommodating chap only
about a week ago, my boy, I could not but feel that he had made a
remarkably sudden revolution on the axes he had to grind; and as there
was a pleasing spice of human audacity in his easy way of suiting his
style to the political demands of the moment, I was strongly reminded
of a chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward.
He was a young chap of gorgeous vest-pattern, and one Sunday afternoon
he went out riding with another sprightly young chap, who was
accompanied by his plighted pink bonnet. They were riding joyously
along in their hired vehicle, my boy, pleasantly discussing the merits
of Eighty's new foreman, and other subjects equally well calculated to
entertain and improve the fond female mind, when, as they turned a
sharp corner, there loomed up, at some distance ahead, a house bearing
a sign reading:
FEED STORE
OATS FOR SALE HERE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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