LETTER LXXI.
SHOWING HOW THE PRESIDENT AND THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE ISSUED GREAT EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATIONS, AND HOW THE CHAPLAIN WROTE A RADICAL POEM.
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 strictlyConstitutional Army, has at length made a great strategic movement, andevoked 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, ororder, the full amount of its deserts.
"$ _Emancipation._ H. O. ABE."
The morning after this little settlement was made, my boy, I met theconservative Kentucky chap on Pennsylvania avenue, and was greatlyedified by his high-minded remarks on the subject. "Having recentlydisposed of any attached contrabands to good advantage," says he,sagely, "I am now deeply convinced that my brother-in-law, the SouthernConfederacy, has brought this dispensation upon himself. I have saidall 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 heheld 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 theBlack Republicans."
When I remembered the sentiments held by this accommodating chap onlyabout a week ago, my boy, I could not but feel that he had made aremarkably sudden revolution on the axes he had to grind; and as therewas a pleasing spice of human audacity in his easy way of suiting hisstyle to the political demands of the moment, I was strongly remindedof a chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward.
He was a young chap of gorgeous vest-pattern, and one Sunday afternoonhe went out riding with another sprightly young chap, who wasaccompanied by his plighted pink bonnet. They were riding joyouslyalong in their hired vehicle, my boy, pleasantly discussing the meritsof Eighty's new foreman, and other subjects equally well calculated toentertain and improve the fond female mind, when, as they turned asharp corner, there loomed up, at some distance ahead, a house bearinga sign reading:
FEED STORE
OATS FOR SALE HERE.
No sooner did the spirited livery-horse observe this dangerous sign, myboy, than he dashed toward it in a manner worthy of my own gothicsteed, the architectural Pegasus; and as there happened to be a fewstones in the way, the two chaps and the pink bonnet were presentlyshot into the surrounding atmosphere without regard to the character ofthe day. While the excited quadruped went on with the two fore-wheelsof the vehicle for the purpose of reading the sign nearer by, the chapof the gorgeous vest-pattern announced his safe arrival in a sand-bankby the appropriate and cheery cry of "Fire! fire! fire!" and the otherchap and the pink bonnet warbled hasty thanksgivings in the bosom of aromantic ditch. How they finally caught the spirited livery horse, andinduced him to come back to the city again by making a copy of the signon a bit of paper, and placing it in his mouth, and how they ultimatelyreached home, you must imagine. But in about a week after, theunnatural livery-stable keeper brought suit against the smitten chapfor the two hind-wheels of his wagon; and when the young chap ofgorgeous vest-pattern was put upon the stand to prove that thecatastrophe was not the driver's fault, he winked agreeably at thepeople, and says he: "My friend and assoshate exerted hisself visiblyto subdue the fiery old oat-mill. As it was, his brains was nearlydashed out, his neck-tie was sprained, and he _found his watch woundup_."
Here the livery lawyer thought he had the friendly chap in a tightplace, and says he:
"You say that by being thrown from the wagon so violently, thedefendant's watch was wound up. Perhaps you will inform the court howsuch a strange phenomenon _could_ occur?"
The young chap merely paused long enough to make another desperateattempt to reconcile the bottom-edge of his waistcoat to the top-edgeof his inexpressibles, and says he, with a fine smile:
"Why, it was easy enough for his watch to be wound up by it, my covey;because _he turned three times in the air before he lit_."
Accommodating conservative chaps, my boy, though momentarily thrown outof their reckoning, by reason of sudden proceedings caused by thelatest signs of the times, have a happy aptitude for turning-about asoften as may seem necessary, before alighting on a fixed principle.
The Mackerel chaplain, who came up from Harper's Ferry on Mondayafternoon, was delighted with H. O. Abe's promissory note, andconsiders that old John Brown is at last
AVENGED.
GOD'S scales of Justice hang between The deed Unjust and the end Unseen, And the sparrow's fall in the one is weighed By the Lord's own Hand in the other laid.
In the prairie path to our Sun-set gate, In the flow'ring heart of a new-born State, Are the hopes of an old man's waning years, 'Neath headstones worn by an old man's tears.
When the bright sun sinks in the rose-lipped West, His last red ray is the headstone's crest; And the mounds he laves in a crimson flood Are a Soldier's wealth baptized in blood!
Do ye ask who reared those headstones there, And crowned with thorns a sire's gray hair? And by whom the Land's great debt was paid To the Soldier old, in the graves they made?
Shrink, Pity! shrink, at the question dire; And, Honor, burn in a blush of fire! Turn, Angel, turn from the page thine eyes, Or the Sin, once written, never dies!
They were men of the Land he had fought to save From a foreign foe that had crossed the wave, When his sun-lit youth was a martial song, And shook a throne as it swelled along.
They were sons of the clime whose soft, warm breath Is the soul of earth, and a life in death; Where the Summer dreams on the couch of Spring, And the songs of birds through the whole year ring;
Where the falling leaf is the cup that grew To catch the gems of the new leaf's dew, And the winds that through the vine-leaves creep Are the sighs of Time in a pleasant sleep.
But there lurked a taint in the clime so blest, Like a serpent coiled in a ring-dove's nest, And the human sounds to the ear it gave Were the clank of chains on a low-browed Slave!
The Soldier old at his sentry-post, Where the sun's last trail of light is lost, Beheld the shame of the Land he loved, And the old, old love in his bosom moved.
He cried to the land, Beware! Beware Of the symboled Curse in the Bondman there! And a prophet's soul in fire came down To live in the voice of old John Brown.
He cried; and the ingrate answer came In words of steel from a tongue of flame; They dyed his hearth in the blood of kin, And his dear ones fell for the Nation's Sin!
O, matchless deed! that a fiend might scorn, O, deed of shame! for a world to mourn; A Soldier's pay in his blood most dear, And a land to mock at a Father's tear!
Is't strange that the tranquil soul of age Was turned to strife in a madman's rage? Is't strange that the cry of blood did seem Like the roll of drums in a martial dream?
Is't strange the clank of the Helot's chain Should drive the Wrong to the old man's brain, To fire his heart with a santon's zeal, And mate his arm to the Soldier's steel?
The bane of Wrong to its depth had gone, And the sword of Right from its sheath was drawn; But the cabined Slave heard not his cry, And the old man armed him but to die.
Ye may call him Mad, that he did not quail When his stout blade broke on the unblest mail; Ye may call him Mad, that he struck alone, And made the land's dark Curse his own;
But the Eye of God looked down and saw A just life lost by an unjust law; And black was the day with God's own frown When the Southern Cross was a martyr's Crown!
Apostate clime! the blood then shed, Fell thick with vengeance on thy head, To weigh it down 'neath the coming rod When thy red right hand should be stretche
d to God.
Behold the price of the life ye took; At the death ye gave 'twas a world that shook; And the despot deed that one heart broke, From their slavish sleep a Million woke!
Not all alone did the victim fall, Whose wrongs first brought him to your thrall; The old man played a Nation's part, And ye struck your blow at a Nation's heart!
The freemen-host is at your door, And a Voice goes forth with a stern "No More!" To the deadly Curse, whose swift redeem Was the visioned thought of John Brown's dream.
To the Country's Wrong, and the Country's stain, It shall prove as the scythe to the yielding grain; And the dauntless pow'r to spread it forth, Is the free-born soul of the chainless North.
From the East, and West, and North they come, To the bugle's call and the roll of drum; And a form walks viewless by their side-- A form that was born when the Old Man died!
The Soldier old in his grave may rest, Afar with his dead in the prairie West; But a red ray falls on the headstone there, Like a God's reply to a Soldier's pray'r.
He may sleep in peace 'neath the greenwood pall, For the land's great heart hath heard his call; And a people's Will and a people's Might, Shall right the Wrong and proclaim the Right.
The foe may howl at the fiat just, And gnash his fangs in the trodden dust; But the battle leaves his bark a wreck, And the Freeman's heel is on his neck.
Not all in vain is the lesson taught, That a great soul's Dream is the world's New Thought; And the Scaffold marked with a death sublime Is the Throne ordained for the coming time.
The chaplain runs as naturally to poetry, my boy, as a water-melon doesto seed, and his muse is apt to be--alas! what a melancholy one!
In my last epistle, I was somewhat hyperbolical when I meant to bemetaphorical, as some of the older writers were allegorical when theymeant to be categorical. I told you, my boy, that we had cornered theprudish Confederacy in Accomac, and "thrown our arms around her." Yournatural ignorance will demand an explanation; and I deem it fit to say,that by the phrase "thrown our arms around her," I meant to say thatcertain Mackerel regiments, in furtherance of the profound strategy ofthe General of the Mackerel Brigade, had thrown their arms away, onevery side of the entrapped Confederacy. It was believed that theConfederacy was perfectly safe for immediate capture, my boy; but uponthe discovery that the fords of Allkwyet River, in the rear of Accomac,where the Confederacy could cross, were adjoining each other, andextended from the source of the river to its mouth, it was deemedproper to let the Confederacy court further ruination by retiring inthat direction. Hence, whilst the watchful Conic section took a briefnap, the Anatomical Cavalry was sent rapidly in front of thedisgracefully retreating Confederacy to clear the road for it to theriver, and then telegraph the news of the great victory to all theexcellent morning journals.
It was another splendid stroke of profound strategy, my boy, and wouldhave crowned the idolized General of the Mackerel Brigade with newlaurels, had he not been too bashfully modest to understand it himself.
Finding, however, that it seemed to be better than something worse, hetold his staff a small story to clear his throat, and then unfurled thefollowing
PROCLAMATION.
I, the General of the Mackerel Brigade, next President of the UnitedStates of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Mackerel Army andsuperior improved iron-plated squadron, do hereby swear, that on thisoccasion, as in a previous instance, the war will be prosecuted for theobject of practically maintaining the Constitution forever destroyed,and restoring friendly relations between the sections and Statesinexorably alienated; that it is my practical purpose to suggest, atthe next orderly meeting of the Mackerel Brigade, a practical offer ofpecuniary compensation for the slaves of the so-called Border Stateswhich have refrained, through patriotic fear, from waging unnaturalhostilities with the United States of America and my practical self.Gradual Emancipation having thus set in, as far as those States areconcerned, either voluntarily, or by virtue of a superior discretion,persons of African descent will again be privileged, or voluntarilycompelled to colonize in Nova Zembla, where bear hunting is still infull bloom; that on the first day of April, in the year of our Lord onethousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves bywhat is then known as the ruins of the Southern Confederacy, shall bethen, thence, thenceforward and forever free, if they choose toconsider themselves so, and are able to achieve their independence;that on the aforesaid first of April, the General of the MackerelBrigade will designate the States, or parts of States, which haverendered this proclamation nugatory, by returning involuntarily, and byforce of our arms, to their allegiance, inviting them to elect membersof Congress, boarders at Willard's and Senators as usual, the same asthough their somewhat-prolonged rebellion against the United States ofAmerica had been a rather meritorious arrangement, entitling them tomore than ordinary consideration.
And I do hereby respectfully request all officers to refrain in futurefrom paying the traveling expenses of persons of African descent sentby them to their revolted masters after a term of trench service, asthere don't appear to be any common-sense in such expenditure.
And the General of the Mackerel Brigade will further recommend, thatall citizens of the United States remaining loyal now, or who maybecome loyal, voluntarily or otherwise, at any period of the world'shistory, be fully compensated for all losses sustained by the UnitedStates, including the loss of memory or eye sight.
In witness whereof, behold the signature and seal of the
GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE. (Green Seal.)
While I am compelled to admit, my boy, that I do not exactly understandby what authority the General of the Mackerel Brigade is empowered toissue this Proclamation; and that some of its clauses--particularly thelast--strike me as being somewhat muddled, I yet regard it as at leasta faint evidence that the tremendous farce in which we have so longbeen playing such bloody parts is at last coming to an end.
And since the farce seems drawing to a close, perhaps your farcicalOrpheus C. Kerr could select no fitter time than this to withdraw withgrace from the field.
As this thought occurs to me, my boy, I look up, and behold a couple ofour brigadiers a few paces off, with only two tumblers between them.Their faces are expressionless. I have seen apple-dumplings with moreexpression, especially when dressed with sauce. It is impossible, myboy, that any wise thing should enter into the heads of ourbrass-buttoned generals under any possible circumstances; and withheavy heart, I acknowledge the conviction that I must still rush thequill.
Yours, enduringly, ORPHEUS C. KERR.