Now it happened, just after we had formally taken possession of the city, while the band was playing martial airs, and the fleet winding up his chronometer, that the General of the Mackerel Brigade made his appearance on the field, and was received with loud cheers by those who believed that he brought their pay back with him.
"My children," says the general, with a paternal smile, "don't praise me for an achievement in which all have won such imperishable laurels. I have only done my jooty."
This speech, my boy, made a great impression upon me on account of its touching modesty. War, my boy, is calculated to promote an amount of bashful modesty never equaled except in Congress, and I have known brigadiers so self-deprecatory that they lived in a state of perpetual blush—especially at the ends of their noses.
Yours, inadequately,
Orpheus C. Kerr.
LETTER XLV.
EXEMPLIFYING THE INCONSISTENCY OF THE CONSERVATIVE ELEMENT, AND SETTING FORTH THE MEASURES ADOPTED BY CAPTAIN VILLIAM BROWN IN HIS MILITARY GOVERNMENT OF PARIS.
Washington, D.C., May 18th, 1862.
Suffer me, my boy, to direct your attention to the Congress of our once distracted country, which is now shedding a beautiful lustre over the whole nation, and exciting that fond emotion of admiration which inclines the human foot to perform a stern duty. "Congress," says Captain Samyule Sa-mith, nodding to the bar-keeper, and designating a particular bottle with his finger—"Congress," says he, "is a honor and a ornament to our bleeding land. The fortunes of war may fluctuate, the rose may fade; but Congress is ever stable. Yes," says Samyule, in a beautiful burst of enthusiasm, softly stirring the Oath in his tumbler with a toothpick, "Congress is stable—in short, a stable full of mules."