Fort Bledandide is the name of the Mackerel institution destined to receive immortality in Mr. Tacitus Greeley's exciting History of this distracting war; but to me belongs the earlier privilege of enabling a moral weekly journal to confuse its readers with the first reliable report of the marvellous battle of Fort Bledandide. It was at quite an early hour, my boy, on the morning of my arrival before Paris, that a faint sound, as of gentlemen firing guns, was heard to proceed from a point some six feet outside Fort Bledandide. Nobody was up at the time, save a few venerable Mackerels, who, in daily expectation of some carnage, had selected that hour at which to write their wills; and it was left for these antique beings to be the first of our troops disturbed by a shameless Confederacy who lifted his head slowly above our works, and deliberately aimed a deadly horse-pistol at Jacob Barker, the regimental dog. Hideous was the explosion ensuing, as the night-key with which the dread weapon was loaded went hurtling through the air some ten yards above its mark; and an aged Mackerel looked up from his penmanship. "What!" says he, with some animation, "are my spectacles guilty of a falsehood, or have I indeed the pleasure of seeing Mr. Davis?" The Confederacy reloaded his horse-pistol with a handful of carpet-tacks, and says he: "I am that individdle." Raising a bell that stood by his side, the venerable Mackerel rang a hasty peal, which had the effect to arouse two or three of the other scribes from their writing, and cause them to apply ear-trumpets to their ears. Simultaneously the first warrior roared, through a fire-trumpet: "Comrades! We are surprised." At the same instant the Confederacy burst into a tempest of unseemly chuckles, and fired his carpet-tacks into the soft hat of the nearest Mackerel, causing that hoary veteran to drop his will and scratch his head with an air of hopeless bewilderment. "Have you any tea that you could give me?" says the Confederacy, scrambling into the Fort,--"any Hyson senior or junior? Have you any coffee? Oh, _do_ give me some coffee." Here the Confederacy winked profoundly, to indicate that his request was intended merely as a bit of surprising humor. Meantime, six other Confederacies with horse-pistols had walked in to look for breakfast, and the facetious business of relieving the slowly-awakened garrison of their loud-ticking and rather cheap gold watches was performed with neatness and dispatch. After which the aged Mackerels were dismissed to join the main body of the ancient Brigade some ten yards to the rear of the work, with the remark, that their vandal rulers would find it somewhat difficult to reconstruct the sunny South.