Читать книгу The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 2 - R. H. Newell - Страница 11

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WHEREIN ARE PRESENTED SOME FEMININE REFERENCES, AN ANECDOTE BY THE EXECUTIVE, AND CERTAIN NOTES OF A VISIT TO THE FESTIVE SHENANDOAH VALLEY.

Washington, D. C., July 19th, 1862.

Permit me to return thanks through your mail, my boy, for a large feather fan recently consigned to my address by one of the admiring Women of America. It looks like a tail freshly plucked from a large-sized American eagle, and is decorated with a French-plate mirror in the centre and other French plates around the edges. The kind-hearted woman of America (who writes from Boston) says in her presentation note—"I admire to see a fan in the hands of the sterner sex; for it shows that the same hero-fist that grasps the sword has enough inherent gentleness to wave the cooling bauble. Such is life. The hand which falls like a hundred pounds of granite on the flinty eye of his ke-yuntery's foes has the softness of a blessing when it caresses the golden head of plastic childhood.

Yours, gushingly, Zephyrina Percy."

I find the "cooling bauble" very useful to brush the flies from my gothic steed Pegasus, my boy, and am a fanatic "to this extent, no more."

And here is what another young woman of America says to me in a note:

"My ma requests me to tell you that you ought to be ashamed of yourself, you hateful thing, for encouraging the vulgar people to be in favor of this nasty war, that is causing their superiors so much trouble, and has driven away the opera, and made enemies of those nice Southerners, with their beautiful big eyes and elegant swearing. Why don't you advocate a compromise, or a Habeas Corpus, or some other paper with names to it, and get Mr. Lincoln to stop the Constitution and order the war to be ended before there's any more assassinations and things? My pa was once a leather banker, and sold shoes for plantation servants, and made a great deal of money by it; but now he's a captain, or a surveyor, or some ridiculous thing, of the Home Guard, and may be massacred in cold blood the first time there's a battle in our neighborhood. My pa has to go to drill every night, and when he comes home in the morning he's so worn out with exhaustion that I've known him to lay right down in the hall and shed tears. My ma often says, that if Beauregard, or Palmerston, or any other foes should attack our house while pa is in that state, it would kill her dead. And I know it would make me so nervous that I should be a perfect fright for a week. My brother, Adolphus, has likewise joined the Home Guard, and has already had a bloody engagement with a Southerner named Tailor, who used to sell him clothes when the two sections were at peace. Adolphus says if it hadn't been for his double-quick, or some ridiculous military thing or other, he would have been made a prisoner. It makes me sick to see how much lowness there is about Adolphus since he joined the ridiculous army; he calls his dinner 'rations,' and addresses me as 'Corporal Lollypop,' (the absurd thing!) and calls ma's crinoline a 'counter-scarp.'

"My pa says that he shall have to sell the carriage and the beautiful dog-cart if this hateful war don't end by the first of next month; and when I asked him yesterday if we couldn't have the gothic villa next to the Jones's at Newport this summer, he actually swore! The Joneses, you know, are very pleasant, sociable, vulgar sort of people, with a little money; and it would kill me to see them putting on airs over us because we didn't happen to take a cottage with bow-windows like them. My pa says that old Jones has got a contract to make clothes for the soldiers, and has made a great deal of money by manufacturing coats and other ridiculous things out of blue paper instead of cloth. Augustus Jones says if he don't meet me at Newport this summer he will enlist as soon as he comes back; and it would be just like the absurd creature to do it. I don't see why pa can't get out an indictment or something against the blockade, and call on the postmaster or some other ridiculous thing to send his new stock of plantation shoes to Alabama under a guard, and bring back the money. I don't see the use of living in a republic if one can't do that much. My ma says that you newspaper people could stop the dreadful war if you would only advocate compromises and things, and not be so ridiculous. Why can't you leave out some of those absurd advertisements, and publish an article telling Mr. Lincoln that the war is ruining society? If it continues much longer, I shall have to wear my last year's bonnet a whole month, and I'd rather die. Do say something absurd, you ridiculous thing."

Have the war stopped right away, my boy—have the war stopped right away.

Matters and things here are still in a strategic condition, and naught has disturbed our monotony, for a week, save a story they tell about the Honest Old Abe. It seems that two of the conservative Border State chaps, who are here for the express purpose of protesting against everything whatever, had a discussion about the Honest Abe, and one chap bet the other chap five dollars that he couldn't, by any possible means, speak to the President without hearing a small anecdote.

"Done!" says the other chap, gleefully, "I'll take the bet."

That very same night, at about twelve o'clock, he tore frantically up to the White House, and commenced thundering at the door like King Richard at the gates of Ascalon. The Honest Abe stuck his night-capped head out of the window, and says he:

"Is that you, Mr. Seward?"

"No, sir," says the Border State chap, glaring up through the darkness. "I'm a messenger from the army. Another great strategic movement has taken place, and our whole army have been taken prisoners by the Southern Confederacy. In fact," says the conservative chap, frantically, "the backbone of the rebellion is broken AGAIN."

"Hem!" says the Honest Abe, shaking a musquito from his nightcap, "this strategy reminds me of a little story. There was a man, out in Iowa, sat down to play a game of checkers with another man, inducing his friends around him to lend him the change necessary for stakes. He played and he played, and he lost the first game. Then he played much more cautiously, and lost the next game. His friends commenced to grumble; but, says he: 'Don't you worry yourselves, boys, and I'll show you a cute move pretty soon.' So he played, and he played, and he lost the third game. 'Don't be impatient, boys,' says he; 'you'll see that great move pretty soon, I tell you.' Then he played with great care, taking a long time to consider every move, and, by way of change, lost the fourth game. Close attention to what he was about, and much minute calculation, also enabled him to lose the fifth game. By this time his friends had lent him all their change, and began to think it was time for that great move of his to come off. 'Have you any more change?' says he. 'Why, no,' says they. 'Then,' says he, with great spirit, 'the time for that move I was telling you about has come at last.' As he commenced to rise from his chair, instead of continuing to play, his cleaned-out friends bethought themselves to ask him what that famous move was? 'Why,' says he, pleasantly, 'it's to move off for a little more change.'"

At the conclusion of this quaint tale, my boy, the Border State chap fled groaning to his quarters at Willard's, stuck a five-dollar Treasury Note under the pillow of the other Border State chap, and immediately took the evening train for the West.

Such is the story they tell, my boy; but I'm inclined to accept it merely as a work of fiction, with a truthful moral. Certain it is, that as strategy increases, small change grows scarcer, and it is the general opinion that no small change is needed in military matters.

In company with a patriotic democratic chap, who had come up from New York, for the express purpose of seeing that the negroes of the Southern Confederacy were not permitted to inform our forces of the movements of the enemy in contravention of the Constitution, I made a reconnoissance in force, on Monday, to the festive Shenandoah Valley. On our way thither, the democratic chap was greatly bitten by musquitos, for which he justly blamed the black republicans, who are trying to break up this Government, and on our arrival near Winchester, we stumbled upon a phlegmatic fellow-man in a swallow-tailed coat and green spectacles, who was seated on a stone by the roadside, reading the "Impending Crisis." The democratic chap passed on, swearing, to the nearest camp; but I paused before this interesting student.

"Well, old swallow-tails," says I, affably, "what are you doing in this section?"

He looked up at me with great severity of countenance, and says he: "I have come here, young man, to agitate the Negro Question; to open African schools; and, peradventure, to start a water cure establishment."

"What for?" says I.

"For the love of my species," says he, eagerly, "and for any little contract in the way of red breeches and spelling books that may be required for the reclaimed contrabands?"

Was this a case of purely disinterested philanthropy? Perhaps so, my boy, perhaps so; but the old swallow-tails reminded of a chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward. He was a high toned moral chap of much shirt-collar, with a voice that sounded like a mosquito in the bottom of a fish-horn, and a chin like a creased apple-dumpling. Years before he had married a Southern crinoline and talked about the glories of slavery in a polished and high-moral way; but as there happened just then to be a chance for him to run for alderman on the abolition ticket, he experienced a change of heart, and addressed a meeting on the evils of human bondage: "My friends," says he, patting his stomach in a heartfelt manner, "I once lived at the South and owned slaves; but never could I feel that it was right. My pastor would say to me: 'These men-slaves are black, you say; but have they not the same feelings with you, the same features—only handsomer?' I felt this to be so, my friends; I commenced to appreciate the enormity of holding human souls in bondage."

Here a susceptible venerable maiden in the audience became so overpowered by her emotions, that she placed her head in the lap of a respectable single gentleman, and fainted away.

"My friends," continued the high-toned moral chap, "I could not bear the stings of conscience; my nights were sleepless, but I slept during the day. There was I, pretending to be a Christian, yet holding men and women as chattels! Heavens himself was outraged by it, and I resolved to make a sacrifice for the sake of principle—to cease to be a slaveholder! I called my slaves together: I addressed them paternally and piously, and then I—(here the great, scalding tears rolled down the cheeks of the orator, and the audience sobbed horribly)—I bade them be good boys and girls, and then I—SOLD EVERY ONE OF THEM!"

* * * * *

There was a movement of the audience toward the door. Men and women went out silently from the place, exchanging covert glances of smothered agitation with each other. Only one person remained with the orator. It was an old file with a blue umbrella, who had occupied a back seat and paid breathless attention to all the performances. After the others had left the hall, he walked deliberately from his seat to where the high-toned moral chap was still standing, and gazed into the face of the latter with an expression of unmitigated wonder. He then walked twice around him; having done which he confronted him again, thumped the ferule of his umbrella on the floor, and says he: "Well!" The old file paused an instant, and then says he: "well, I'll be dam," and waddled precipitately from the place.

I've often thought of it since then, my boy; and I've always wondered why it was that the solitary old file with the blue umbrella should say that he be dam.

To return to Western Virginia; I found, upon my arrival in one of the camps near Winchester, that the patriotic democratic chap was making arrangements to divide the army there into Wards, instead of regiments, in order, as he said, that the returns might come in systematically.

"For instance," says he, "suppose that in the skirmish with the Confederacy which is going on just ahead of us, we should lose—say seventy-five votes; how much easier it would be to say; the 'Fourth Ward shows a decrease since last year of seventy-five Republicans', than to say that such a regiment, of such a brigade, of such a division, has lost so and so?"

I was reflecting upon this novel and admirable way of putting it, my boy, when an orderly came tearing in, with a report of the skirmishing going on.

"Ha!" says the patriotic chap to him; "how does the canvas proceed?"

"Well," says the orderly, breathlessly, "Banks' outpost has lost twenty votes in the Tenth Ward by desertions, and has thirty double-votes wounded; but I think Banks can still keep neck-and-neck with McDowell."

"You do, hey?" says the patriotic chap, in great excitement. "Then McDowell must not lend Banks a single vote. Tell him to keep his Ward Committees under cover until Banks gets through with his canvas; for if he takes part in that, and the election results in a victory over the Confederacy, Banks will get all the credit of it, and win the card in the next Nominating Convention."

So McDowell's votes didn't re-enforce Banks in the skirmish, my boy, and Banks lost much popularity by being worsted, by the Confederacy.

As soon as the firing had ceased, I went out to meet some of the returning Wards, and came plump upon the swallow-tail chap, who was agitating the negro question in a corner of the late battle-field, surrounded by fugitive contrabands.

"Friend of the human race," says I, "how now?"

"Young man," says he, hastily tying a red silk pocket-handkerchief about his head, "I am teaching these oppressed beings to spell, having extemporized a college on the very scene of their recent emancipation."

"How far have the collegians progressed?" says I.

"They have got," says he, "to their a-b, abs. Thus; a-b, ab; o-abo; l-i li, aboli; t-i-o-n shun—abolition."

Shameful to relate, my boy, the swallow-tailed chap had no sooner said this, than a cavalry ward came charging helter-skelter, right through the college, tumbling the faculty into the mud, and bruising several sophomore graduates. Simultaneously, the patriotic democratic chap appeared on the scene, and insisted upon it that the contrabands should be immediately returned to the Southern Confederacy, as this is a white man's war. "Otherwise," says he, cholerically, "future reconciliation and reconstruction will be impossible."

Fearful that I should become confused a little if I remained there any longer, my boy, I at once retired from the place, in company with two sick votes, who were going home on furlough, and reached this city again in good order.

Almost the first fellow-being I met on my return was a seedy and earnest chap from New York, who was worth about a quarter in ready money, and had come to Washington post-haste to pledge the Empire State's last dollar, and last drop of blood for the vigorous prosecution of the war.

"See here, my self-denying Brutus," says I, as we took Richmond together at the bar, "who commissioned you to pledge so much as all that?"

"To tell the truth," says the seedy chap, confidentially, "it's all I've got left to pledge. I pledged my pinchbeck chronometer for three dollars," says he, sadly, "just before I left New York; and I'm trying this pledge on speculation."

I have sometimes feared, my boy, that our Uncle Samuel's concern is turning into a pawnbroking establishment on a large scale, where they make advances on everything tangible and intangible, except Richmond, my boy—except Richmond.

Yours, with a presentiment,

Orpheus C. Kerr.