credit of it, and win the card in the next Nominating Convention."
So McDowell's votes didn't re-enforce Banks in the skirmish, my boy, and Banks lost much popularity by being worsted, by the Confederacy.
As soon as the firing had ceased, I went out to meet some of the returning Wards, and came plump upon the swallow-tail chap, who was agitating the negro question in a corner of the late battle-field, surrounded by fugitive contrabands.
"Friend of the human race," says I, "how now?"
"Young man," says he, hastily tying a red silk pocket-handkerchief about his head, "I am teaching these oppressed beings to spell, having extemporized a college on the very scene of their recent emancipation."
"How far have the collegians progressed?" says I.
"They have got," says he, "to their a-b, abs. Thus; a-b, ab; o-abo; l-i li, aboli; t-i-o-n shun—abolition."
Shameful to relate, my boy, the swallow-tailed chap had no sooner said this, than a cavalry ward came charging helter-skelter, right through the college, tumbling the faculty into the mud, and bruising several sophomore graduates. Simultaneously, the patriotic democratic chap appeared on the scene, and insisted upon it that the contrabands should be immediately returned to the Southern Confederacy, as this is a white man's war. "Otherwise," says he, cholerically, "future reconciliation and reconstruction will be impossible."
Fearful that I should become confused a little if I remained there any longer, my boy, I at once retired
from the place, in company with two sick votes, who were going home on furlough, and reached this city again in good order.