Orpheus C. Kerr.
LETTER XVIII.
DESCRIBING THE TERRIBLE DEATH AND MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A CONFEDERATE PICKET, WITH A TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.
Washington, D.C., October 28th, 1861.
My head swells with patriotic pride when I casually remark that the Mackerel Brigade occupy the post of honor to the left of Bull Run, which they also left on the day we celebrated. The banner which was presented to us by the women of America, and which it took the orator of the day six hours and forty minutes to describe to us, we are using in the shape of blazing neck-ties; and when the hard-up sun of Virginia shines upon the glorious red bands around the sagacious necks of our veterans, they all look as though they had just cut their throats. The effect is gory, my boy—extremely gory and respectable.
At the special request of Secretary Seward, who wrote six letters about it to the Governors of all the States, I have been appointed a picket of the army of the Upper Potomac. In your natural ignorance, my boy, you may not know why a man is called a picket. He is called a picket, my boy, because, if anybody drops a pocket-book or a watch anywhere, his natural gifts would cause him to pick-it up. If he saw a pocket, he would not pick-it—oh, no! But pick-it—picket.
The Picket, my boy, has been an institution ever since wars began, and his perils are spoken of by some of the high old poets in these beautiful lines:
"The chap thy tactics doom to bleed to-day—
Had he thy reasons, would he poker play?