NOTING THE REMARKABLE RETROGRADE ADVANCE OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE UPON WASHINGTON, AND THE UNSEEMLY RAIDS OF THE RECKLESS CONFEDERACY. WASHINGTON, D. C., August 30th, 1862. As every thing continues to indicate, my boy, that President Lincoln is an honest man, I am still of the opinion that the restoration of the Union is only a question of time, and will be accomplished some weeks previous to the commencement of the Millennium. It is the "Union as it was" that we want, my boy, and those who have other articles to sell are hereby accused of being accursed Abolitionists. I was talking the other day to a venerable Congressman from Maryland, who had just arrived to protest against the disturbance of mail facilities between Baltimore and the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and says he, "I have several friends who are Confederacies, and they inform me that they are perfectly willing to return to the Union as it Was, in case they should fail in their present enterprise. If I thought," says the Congressman, hastily placing a lottery-ticket in his vest-pocket, "if I thought that this war was to be waged for the purpose of injuring the Southern Confederacy, rather than to restore the Union as it was, I should at once demand more mileage of the Government, and repeatedly inquire what had become of all the 'Wide-Awakes.'" As he uttered this last horrible threat, my boy, I was impressed with a sense of something darkly democratic. Too many of the "Wide-Awakes" of the last campaign are indeed fast asleep now, when their country needs them. I saw one of them slumbering near Culpepper Court House last week. He was sleeping with his right arm twisted in the spokes of a disabled cannon wheel, and a small purple mark was on his right temple. But he was not alone in his forgetful sloth, my boy; for near him, and rigidly grasping his disengaged hand, was a Democrat slumbering too! The sight, I remember, rendered me so honestly indignant, that I could not help pointing it out to the Mackerel Chaplain, who was engaged in selling hymn-books to the wounded. The Chaplain looked a moment at the Fusion Ticket before us. "They sleep for the Flag," says he, softly, "and may its Stars shed pleasant dreams upon their loyal souls for ever." The Chaplain is an enthusiast, my boy, and this is what he has written about OUR GUIDING STARS. The planets of our Flag are set In God's eternal blue sublime, Creation's world-wide starry stripe Between the banner'd days of time. Upon the sky's divining scroll, In burning punctuation borne, They shape the sentence of the night That prophesies a cloudless morn. The waters free their mirrors are; And fair with equal light they look Upon the royal ocean's breast, And on the humble mountain brook.