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
Yours, seriously,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER LXII.
CONTAINING FRESH TRIBUTES OF ADMIRATION TO THE DEVOTED WOMEN OF
AMERICA, AND DEVELOPING THE GREAT COLONIZATION SCHEME OF THE
GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BLACK
RACE.
WASHINGTON, D. C., August 15th, 1862.
Once more, my boy, this affectionate heart would render tribute of
gushing admiration to the large souled women of America, who are again
commencing to luxuriate and comfort our majestic troops with gifts
almost as useful to a soldier as a fishing-pole would be to the
hilarious Arab of Sahara. As I ambled airily near Fort Corcoran on
Monday, my boy, mounted on my gothic steed Pegasus, and followed by the
frescoed dog Bologna, after the manner of the British nobility, I
chanced upon a veteran of the Mackerel Brigade, who had come up from
Paris on one of those leaves of absence which grow from the tree styled
Sycamore. He was seated under a wayside oak, examining some articles
that had recently come to him in a package; now and then addressing his
eyes in the more earnest language of the Sixth Ward.
Having reined-in my spirited architectural animal, and merely pausing
to administer a crumb of cracker from my pocket to a hapless
blue-bottle fly which had rashly alighted from the backbone of the
charger, and was there starving to death, I saluted the Mackerel
veteran, and, says I:
"Comrade, wherefore do you select this solitary place to use language
only fitting a brigadier when he is speaking to an inferior officer, or
a high-toned conservative when referring to negroes, Wendell Phillips,
and the republican party?"
The veteran Mackerel sighed deeply, as he spread open the package to
full view, my boy, and says he, respectfully:
"Are you a married man, my cove?"
"No," says I, with a feeling of mingled insignificance and financial
complacency, "I never paid a milliner's bill in my life."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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