Almost the first fellow-being I met on my return was a seedy and earnest chap from New York, who was worth about a quarter in ready money, and had come to Washington post-haste to pledge the Empire State's last dollar, and last drop of blood for the vigorous prosecution of the war.
"See here, my self-denying Brutus," says I, as we took Richmond together at the bar, "who commissioned you to pledge so much as all that?"
"To tell the truth," says the seedy chap, confidentially, "it's all I've got left to pledge. I pledged my pinchbeck chronometer for three dollars," says he, sadly, "just before I left New York; and I'm trying this pledge on speculation."
I have sometimes feared, my boy, that our Uncle Samuel's concern is turning into a pawnbroking establishment on a large scale, where they make advances on everything tangible and intangible, except Richmond, my boy—except Richmond.
Yours, with a presentiment,
Orpheus C. Kerr.
LETTER LVII.
SUGGESTING MENTAL RELAXATION FOR A TIME, AND INTRODUCING A FAMILIAR SKETCH OF THE WAR-STRICKEN DRAMA IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS.
Washington, D. C., July 23d, 1862.