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
DEAR SIRRAH,--Justly regarding you as the next President of the United
States, and an honored successor of my old friend, Georgey Washington,
I deem it proper, by reason of my great importance and infirmities, to
repeat in writing with a pen what I have before spoken to you with my
tongue--this supplement to my printed views (dated April the First) on
the highly inflamed condition of our glorious and distracted Union.
To meet the expectations of a populace admiring my venerable shape, I
deem it consistent with my retiring modesty and infirmities to dictate
to you the four plans you may pursue by way of making yourself
President of our distracted Commonwealth in 1865.
I.--Throw off the old and assume a new designation--the sly old party;
give the South entire control of the whole country, and, my wig upon
it, we shall have no secession; but, on the contrary, an early return
of the entire Confederacy to Washington. Without some equally benignant
measure, we shall be compelled to fight all the Border States and put
them down at once, instead of keeping two hundred thousand soldiers
peaceably employed in making their loyalty continually sure.
II.--Collect the war taxes outside of the States where the tax-payers
live, or declare upon paper that they are already collected.
III.--Conquer the seceded States by the unheard-of agency of an actual
army. I think this might be done in a few hundred years by a young and
able general to be found on some railroad, with six hundred thousand
disciplined spades. Estimating a third of this number to remain for
ever stationary on the Potomac, and a loss of a still greater number by
consummate strategy and changings of base. The loss of chickens and
contrabands on the other side would be frightful, however great the
morality of the mudsills.
This conquest would cost money that might otherwise go to beautify the
South, secure fifteen swearing and deeply-offended provinces, and be
immediately followed by a new election for President in 1865.
IV.--Say to the Seceded States, in one of which I own some mortgages:
"_How are you, Southern Confederacy?_"
Deliberately, I remain,
Your father and the country's,
V. GAMMON.
This touching letter, my boy, I recommend to your most prayerful
consideration, as a paternal outpouring of shirt-collared old age.
Old age! how beautiful art thou in the glory of thy spectacles, and the
sublime largeness of thy stomach and manner. And yet, would you believe
it, my boy? I am sometimes possessed of great doubtings as to the
genuineness of that majesty which makes a continually-looming Venerable
Shape such a great blessing to an imperiled land. Sometimes there comes
to me a rickety vision of:
AGE BLUNTLY CONSIDERED.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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