LETTER LV.
SETTING FORTH A NEW VILLAINY OF THE INSIDIOUS BLACK REPUBLICANS, AND DESCRIBING THE THRILLING CONSTITUTIONAL BATTLE OF DUCK LAKE.
Washington, D. C., July 12th, 1862.
Owing to the persistent stupidity of Congress and the hideously-treasonable machinations of the unscrupulous black republicans, my boy, the weather still continues very hot; and unless the thermometer falls very soon, an exhausted populace will demand an immediate change in the Cabinet. I am very warm, my boy—I am very warm; and when I reflect upon the agency of the abolitionists, who have brought this sort of thing about for the express purpose of injuring my Constitution, I am impelled to ask myself: Did our revolutionary forefathers indeed expire in vain? O my country! my country! it is very warm.
Such weather, my boy, is particularly trying to Sergeant O'Pake's friend,
THE IRISH PICKET.
I'm shtanding in the mud, Biddy,
With not a spalpeen near,
And silence, spaichless as the grave,
Is all the sound I hear.
Me gun is at a showlder arms,
I'm wetted to the bone,
And whin I'm afther shpakin' out,
I find meself alone.
This Southern climate's quare, Biddy,
A quare and bastely thing,
Wid Winter absint all the year,
And Summer in the Spring.
Ye mind the hot place down below?
And may ye niver fear
I'd dhraw comparisons—but then
It's awful warrum here.