Yours, contemplatively,
Orpheus C. Kerr.
SHOWING HOW THE NATIONAL INSANITARY COMMITTEE MADE A STRANGE BLUNDER; HOW THE BELOVED GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE WAS REMOVED AND EXALTED; AND ENDING WITH AN INFALLIBLE RECIPE.
Washington, D. C., November 15th, 1862.
As I calmly observe the present situation of our military affairs, my boy, and consider how persistently the Blue Ridge continues to get between our great strategic army and the dilapidated Southern Confederacy, I am impressed with the idea that the salvation of our distracted country demands the removal of either the Blue Ridge or the beloved General of the Mackerel Brigade.
I admit, my boy, that the Mackerel Brigade has spent time enough in one locality since the last battle to remove the incompetent and imbecile Blue Ridge, and that the immense number of spades consigned to that veteran corps might be construed into the belief that they were really engaged in that great stragetic task. Furthermore, that the Mackerels have only succeeded in marching fifteen miles in six weeks, legitimates the supposition that they are going up very steep hills; but it must be borne in mind, my boy, that it is the Honest Abe's best policy to conciliate all political parties for the sake of Northern unity of action, and it cannot be doubted that the removal of the Blue Ridge at this crisis would occasion the bitterest heart-burnings and jealousies in the manly bosom of our nation's Democratic organization. It would be construed into proof that the Honest Abe had yielded to the fiendish clamor of the crazy Abolitionists, and had rendered a restoration of the adored Union-as-it-Was of our forefathers impossible, by destroying that Blue Ridge which was an essential part of the Union. The manly Organization, my boy, would prefer an armistice with the unseemly Confederacy to a removal of the Blue Ridge—a removal, my boy, authorized neither by the Constitution, the pursuit of happiness, nor the rights of man. The Blue Ridge is at the head of our army, and our army is at the foot of the Blue Ridge. The mistaken Confederacy is on the other side, my boy, and the Organization very justly reasons, that the fiendish Abolitionists virtually confess themselves to be, in heart, on the same side with the Confederacy; for if their desired removal of the Blue Ridge were carried out, the distinction of the two opposite sides would be practically lost, and the United States of America and the Southern Confederacy would be all on one side, and there might be an unconstitutional collision.
Hence, my boy, the Honest Abe has concluded to leave the Blue Ridge where it is, and remove the idolized General of the Mackerel Brigade.
But before I proceed to describe the inexpressible anguish produced by the adoption of even this grievous alternative, permit me to record the useful proceedings of the National Insanitary Committee, in their philanthropical investigation of the lunacy now prevailing to an alarming extent in the Army of Accomac.
For some weeks past, my boy, insanity has been frightfully upon the increase in the ranks of the unconquerable Mackerel Brigade. Many Mackerels have even gone raving at times, persisting in the vague and incoherent exclamation that they "Couldn't See It." There was some hope that this terrible mental aberration might be stayed, if the superannuated corps were supplied with spectacles; but the relief thus given was only temporary; and finally, when one of the poor maniac chaps went so far as to yell, that, even by the aid of his spectacles, he couldn't see what was the use of butting against the Blue Ridge all the time, it was deemed proper to call in the National Insanitary Committee.
Captain Samyule Sa-mith, whose duty it was to draw the Brigade up in two lines—the sane chaps on one side of the fence, and the insane on the other—hastened back to Accomac to finish a game of "Old Sledge," on which four drinks were distinctly pending, and left the aged Committee to perform its task at leisure.
In anticipation of this sad ceremony, my boy, I had sent my architectural steed, the gothic Pegasus, down to Accomac, and thither I went on Tuesday morning, to amble totteringly from thence to the scene of Insanitary proceedings.
The Committee had just commenced work upon its line of chaps, and was examining the patients one by one.
The first invalid, Lively Mike, was born in the Sixth Ward, and weighed ninety-two pounds. He was a poor, slouching chap, my boy, resembling poverty's Ruin, two-thirds covered by an ivy vine of rags. His angular countenance was rich with unwashings, save a clean irregular circle just around his ugly mouth.
I asked how it happened that this one part of his face was clean, when all the rest was dirty; and they told me, my boy, that it was the place where his poor old mother had kissed him at parting.
Lively Mike's first symptom of his dreadful malady was a feeling of overwhelming weariness, as though he had been for a long time in one spot doing nothing. The feeling deepened into sullen, dangerous madness, until it was finally unsafe to let him go at large, as he had several times attempted to shoot scouting Confederacies.
The next hopeless patient was Big-nose Jake. Born at the commencement of his career in the Sixth Ward, and weighing ninety-four pounds without his knapsack, Big-nose had always enjoyed good health, with the exception of starvation; but was in the habit of muttering to himself that Strategy was a great humbug, and he'd rather die at home in his bunk in the engine-house than in a swamp, without a single fire in six months. His only way of keeping warm was by occasionally huddling up to a Confederate picket, and receiving his fire.
No. 3 was Baby Jim, a resident of the Sixth Ward for many years, and weighing ninety-one pounds. His first attack of his malady came in the shape of an incoherent and irrepressible desire to get up a Directory of Army Names, so that the families of Mackerels in the Army of Accomac might know where their relatives were, and how old they had got to be. Sometimes he would be suddenly seized with the absurd notion that the General of the Mackerel Brigade was killing more men by strategy than would be slain in fifty battles.
Another hapless maniac was Cross-eyed Tom. His family is well known in the Sixth Ward; weight, ninety-seven pounds. Always enjoyed excellent health, until one day, when it suddenly struck him—uncalled-for, as it were—that he hadn't seen the Colonel of his regiment for six months. The demon of insanity tempted him to believe that his Colonel had all along been drinking bad gin and threatening to resign, in Washington, instead of staying with his men and getting acquainted with them. He knew that he must be entirely mistaken about this, but couldn't shake off the horrible delusion.
A fifth lunatic was the Worth street Chicken. Had voted several times a day in the Sixth Ward, and weighed ninety-nine pounds. The Chicken could not say that he was really a sick man; but had moments when he could not resist the malignant temptation to imagine, that the celebrated Southern Confederacy was just as even with us now as it was a year ago, with several majestic raids for small trumps. At times he was troubled with bad dreams about all the Treasury Notes becoming worthless if the General of the Mackerel Brigade went into winter quarters.
And so the Insanitary Committee went down the whole line, my boy, closely questioning the poor chaps who had lost their reason, and eliciting continued proofs of the national ravages of Insanity.
"Truly," says the chief Insanitary chap, cleaning his nails with his jack-knife; "truly these unhappy beings are hopelessly deranged, and must be sent to the Asylum. Their ravings are beyond all precedent."
Just as he finished speaking, my boy, and whilst he was picking his teeth to assist meditation, Captain Samyule Sa-mith came riding hastily in from his successful game of "Old Sledge," bringing the stakes with him, and says he:
"Well, old Medicusses, have you examined the beings which is unhappily bereft of sense?"
"Yea," says the Insanitary chap, with a grievous groan, "we've examined all those poor creatures, in that whole line, and find them all hopelessly and incurably mad."
Samyule gave such a start that he split one of his boots, and says he:
"Which line?"
"Why, that line there," says the chap, pointing.
"By all that's Federal!" says Samyule, slapping his left leg; "I'll be blessed if you old goslings hav'n't been examining the WRONG LINE! Them veterans there are the sane ones!"
Insanity, my boy, like Charity, so seldom begins at home, that we sometimes mistake the best kind of sanity for it when we meet the latter, as a stranger, abroad. The man we call a maniac is frequently nothing more than a sane man seen through a maniac's spectacles.
But the whole body of Mackerels, sane and insane alike, unite in a feeling of strong anguish blended with enthusiasm, at the removal of the beloved General of the Mackerel Brigade. He has been so much a Father to them all, that they never expected to get a step farther while he was with them.
There's a piece of domestic philosophy for you, my boy.
When the General heard of his removal, my boy, he said that it was like divorcing a husband from a wife, who had always supported him, and immediately let fly the following
Farewell Address.
Head-quarters of the Army of Accomac,
Foot of the Blue Ridge.
My Children:
An order from the Honest Abe divorces us, and gives the command of all these attached beings to Major-General Wobert Wobinson. (Heartrending and enthusiastic cheers.)
In parting with you, I cannot express how much I love your dear bosoms. As an army, you have grown from youth to old age under my care. In you I have never found doubt nor coldness, nor anything else. The victories you have won under my command will live in the nation's works of fiction. The strategy we have achieved, the graves of many unripe Mackerels, the broken forms of those disabled by the Emancipation Proclamation—the strongest associations that can exist among men—still make it advisable that you should vote for me as President of the United States in 1865. Thus we shall ever be comrades in supporting the Constitution, and making the Constitution support us.
The General of the Mackerel Brigade.
[Green Seal.]
It was while this affecting document was being read to the Army, my boy, that a procession of political chaps with banners and a small cannon, landed from a boat on Awlkwyet River, and came filing affably into camp. Only pausing to insult two correspondents of the Tribune, and to fire the cannon so close to a farmhouse that it broke all the windows, these pleasant chaps at once organized a meeting and gave orders that all fighting should be postponed till after the session.
The Hon. Mr. X. Stream proceeded to say that he considered Mr. Lincoln a strictly honest, upright, able, and noble-hearted man (cheers); but it could not be denied that his Administration was a wretched failure—a blending of brutal imbecility with hellish despotism. (Much enthusiasm). While it continued so, everything in the stock-market would go up—up—UP! until the bubble burst. The General of the Mackerel Brigade had been removed (universal sobbing) but it was only that he might shine the brighter before a Democratic Convention in 1865.
The Hon. Prince Van Brumagen next spoke. Undoubtedly, he would be called a traitor for what he was about to say, but he was accustomed to that sort of talk from every one who knew him. He wished to see this war vigorously pushed forward; but he could never consent to see violence offered to men who only warred against us because they were mistaken. Our Southern friends had imagined that the Abolitionists wanted to prevent their enjoyment of the pursuit of happiness which was guaranteed to them by the Constitution. They were mistaken, and seceded. The Union as it was had passed away from us, but was undoubtedly somewhere on the Globe; and as the Globe was constantly revolving, we had only to stand still, and it would come round again to us in due time.
The Hon. Fernando Fuel next undressed his thoughts to the meeting. As proprietor of the City of New York, which he had frequently bought, he protested against the removal of the General of the Mackerel Brigade at this inclement season of the year. The idolized General was beloved even by the Rebels, and his own devoted troops had cheered even louder when parting with him, if possible, than when he had first come among them.
Here the speaker was interrupted by a chap who suddenly touched off the cannon and simultaneously unfurled a new banner. Borrowing a piece of smoked glass, I looked through it at the dazzling standard, and read upon its eloquent folds:
Observe, my boy, this simple rule, to make a hero of a fool:
Just keep him where he is, until his lack of wisdom, want of Skill, attract unto his banner those who, from perverseness, will have foes. Then freely make his dullness known; and when you'd cast him from his throne, you'll find become his followers true, all men who seek a feud with you. To serve the always-malcontent, and give their spleen a chance for vent, a knave, a dunce, a stump! would do as well, my boy, as I, or you.
When cats and politicians quarrel, "use any cat's-paw", is the moral.
Yours, sagely,
Orpheus C. Kerr.
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