We have done with retrograde movements. No more lines of retreat will be kept open, and henceforth the Mackerel Brigade is to make nothing but great captures.
By order of
The General of the Mackerel Brigade.
[Green Seal.]
This able document, my boy, pleased me greatly as an evidence that the war had indeed commenced in earnest; and though at that moment, I beheld some half a dozen Confederacies ransacking the tent where the general kept his mortgages, his bank account, and other Government property, I felt that our foes were about to be summarily dealt with at last.
An orderly having finally given notice to the Confederacies rummaging within our lines to get to their proper places, in order that the battle might begin, the Anatomical Cavalry, under Captain Samyule Sa-mith, made a headlong charge upon a body of foes who were destroying a bridge near the middle of the field, and succeeded in obliging them to remain there. This brilliant movement was the signal for a general engagement, and a regiment of Confederacies at once advanced within our lines and inquired the way to Washington.
Having given them the desired information, and allowed a number of other similar regiments to take a position between the Mackerels and the capital, the
general gave orders for the Conic Section and the Orange County Howitzers to fall cautiously back, in order that the remaining Confederacies might get between us and Richmond.
You will perceive that by this movement, my boy, we cut the enemy's force completely in two, thus compelling him to attack us either in the front or in the rear, and giving him no choice of any other operation save flank movements. Our plans being thus perfected, Captain Villiam Brown, with Company 3, Regiment 5, was ordered to charge into a wood near at hand, with a view to induce some recently-arrived reserve Confederacies to take position in our centre, while still others would be likely to flank us on the right and left.
You may remember, my boy, that it has heretofore been our misfortune to fight on the circumference of a circle, while the Confederacy had the inside, and this great strategic scheme was intended to produce a result vice versa.
It was a great success, my boy—a great success; and our troops presently found themselves inside the most complete circle on record. Villiam Brown not only charged into the wood, but staid there; and when one of the Orange County Howitzers was discharged with great precision at a reporter who was caught sneaking into our lines, the report was heard by the Venerable Gammon at Washington, causing that revered man to telegraph to all the papers, that no one need feel alarmed, as he was perfectly safe, and that our victory was very complete.
What particular danger the Venerable Gammon had