Believing that the public funds are being judiciously expended, my boy, I remain,
Fondly thine own,
Orpheus C. Kerr.
LETTER XXX.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GORGEOUS FÊTE AT THE WHITE HOUSE, INCLUDING THE OBSERVATIONS OF CAPTAIN VILLIAM BROWN: WITH SOME NOTE OF THE TOILETTES, CONFECTIONS, AND PUNCH.
Washington, D.C., February 7th, 1862.
Notwithstanding your general ignorance of Natural History, my boy, you may be aware that when the eagle is wounded by the huntsman, instead of seeking some thick-set tree or dismal swamp, there to die like a common bird, he soars straight upward in the full eye of the sun, and bathes in all the glories of noonday, while his eyes grow dull with agony, and his talons are stiffening in death; nor does he fall from the dazzling empyrean until the last stroke of fate hurls him downward like a thunderbolt.
Our Union, my boy—our Land of the Eagle—is stricken sorely, and perhaps to death; but like the proud bird of Jove, it disdains to grow morbid in its agonies; and the occasional sighs of its patient struggling millions, are lost in sounds of death-defying revelry at the dauntless capital.
All the best-looking uniforms in the army were invited to Mrs. Lincoln's ball at the White House on Wednesday, and of course I was favored, together with the general of the Mackerel Brigade, and Captain Villiam Brown, of Accomac. My ticket, my boy, was as aristocractic as a rooster's tail at sunrise: