"Two brigades were excavated this morning, and are at present building a raft to go down to Washington after some soap. Let us not utter complaints against the mud," continued Captain Bob Shorty, reflectively, "for it has served to develop the genius of New England. We dug out a Yankee regiment from Boston first, and the moment those wooden-nutmeg chaps got their breath, they went to work at the mud that had almost suffocated them, mixed up some spoiled flour with it, and are now making their eternal fortunes by peddling it out for patent cement."
This remark of the captain's, my boy, shows that the spirit of New England still retains its natural elasticity, and is capable of greater efforts than lignum vitæ hams and clocks made of barrel hoops and old coffee-pots. I have heard my ancient grandfather relate an example of this spirit during the war of 1812. He was with a select assortment of Pequog chaps at Bladensburg, just before the attack on Washington, and word came secretly to them that the Britishers down in the Chesapeake were out of flour, and would pay something handsome for a supply. Now, these Pequog chaps had no flour, my boy; but that didn't keep them out of the speculation. They went into the nearest graveyard, dug up all the tombstones, and put them into an old quartz-crushing machine, pounded them to powder, sent the powder to the coast, and sold it to the Britishers for the very best flour, at twelve dollars and a half a barrel!
And can such a people as this be conquered by a horde of godless rebels? Never! I repeat it, sir—never! Should the Jeff. Davis mob ever get possession of Washington, the Yankees would build a wall around the place, and invite the public to come and see the menagerie, at two shillings a head.
On Wednesday, some of our dryest pickets caught a shabby, long-haired chap loafing around the camps with a big block and sheet of paper under his arm, and brought him before the general of the Mackerel Brigade.
"Well, Samyule," says the general to one of the pickets, "what is your charge against the prisonier?"
"He is a young man which is a spy," replied Samyule, holding up the sheet of paper; "and I take this here picture of his to be the Great Seal of the Southern Confederacy."
"Why thinkest thou so, my cherub? and what does the work of art represent?" inquired the general.
"The drawing is not of the best," responded Samyule, closing one eye, and viewing the picture critically; "but I should say that it represented a ham, with a fiddle laid across it, and beefsteaks in the corners."
"Miserable vandal!" shouted the long-haired chap, excitedly, "you know not what you say. I am a Federal artist; and that picture is a map of the coast of North Carolina, for a New York daily paper."
"Thunder!" says the general—"if that's a map, a patent gridiron must be a whole atlas."