The Board was so pleased with Villiam's learning, my boy, that it gave him his commission, presented him with two gun-boats and a cannon, and recommended him for President of the New York Historical Society.
It was rumored in camp last night, that the army would go into winter-quarters, and I asked Colonel Wobinson if he couldn't lend me a few of the quarters in advance, as I felt like going in right away. He explained to me that winter-quarters would only be taken in exchange for Treasury Notes, and I withdrew my proposition for a popular loan.
Yours, speculatively,
Orpheus C. Kerr.
LETTER XX.
CONCERNING A SIGNIFICANT BRITISH OUTRAGE, AND THE CAPTURE OF MASON AND SLIDELL.
Washington, D.C., November 24th, 1861.
Mr. Seward, my boy, who takes the Oath with much sugar in it, and is likewise Secretary of State, will probably write twenty-four letters to all the Governors this week, in consequence of a recent outrage committed by Great Britain. I may remark with great indignation, that Great Britain is a member of one of the New York regiments, my boy, and enlisted for the express purpose of stretching his legs. He is shaped something like a barrel of ale, and has a chin that looks like an apple-dumpling with a stitch in its side. As I rode slowly along near Fort Corcoran, on my Gothic steed Pegasus, about an hour ago, admiring the beauties of Nature, and smoking a pipe which was presented to me by the Women of America, I espied Great Britain seated by the roadside, contemplating an army biscuit. These biscuit, my boy, as I stated last week, were discovered amid the ruins of Herculaneum, and were at first taken for meteoric stones.
"Good morning, old Neutrality," says I, affably, "You appear to be lost in religious meditation."