On the night previous to my arrival, my boy, while all the Mackerels were watching the stars with a view to prevent any surprise from that quarter, the Southern Confederacy on the other side of Duck Lake trained four large fowling-pieces upon their peaceful camp from behind a wood-pile, and commenced a ferocious and ear-splitting bombardment. It was some hours before our men could be got into position to return the
fire, as Captain Bob Shorty had forgotten where they had put the Orange County Howitzers when last using them. The fleet, too, was somewhat delayed in getting into action, as Commodore Head experienced some difficulty in unlocking the box into which he always puts his spectacles and slow-match before retiring at night.
Finally, however, the howitzers were discovered behind some boards, and the spectacles and slow-match were forthcoming, and our troops were pouring a hot fire across Duck Lake before the Confederacy had got two-thirds of the way back to Richmond. Next morning, my boy, the Conic Section crossed the Lake, and cleared away everything on the opposite shore except the before-mentioned wood-pile. The latter contains the same kind of wood that was burned in the time of Washington, my boy, and twenty men were appointed to guard it from the profanation of our troops. We must protect such property at all hazards, my boy, or the Constitution becomes a nullity.
Having crossed the treacherous element to view the immediate scene of these proceedings, and learned from Captain Villiam Brown that our pickets were within ten miles of the Confederacy's capital, I was about to make some short remark, when a messenger came riding forward in a great perspiration, and says he;
"Our pickets have been driven in."
"Ha!" says Villiam, "is the Confederacy again advancing upon the United States of America?"
"Our pickets," says the messenger, impressively
"have been driven in; they have been driven into Richmond."
"Ah!" says Villiam, pleasantly, "then send out some more pickets."
I strolled away from the pair, my boy, reflecting upon the possibility of enough Mackerel pickets reaching Richmond in this way to make the Union sentiment there stronger than ever, and was looking listlessly to my footing, when I chanced to espy a paper on the ground. Picking it up, I found it to be a note from the wife of the Southern Confederacy to her cousin, dropped, probably by one of the Confederacies of the wood-pile. It bore the date of April the First, and read as follows: