"'Dear Sir,—The safety of this Army depends entirely upon its immediate reënforcement by all the troops at Washington, as my plan is entirely different from your plan, and your plan differs somewhat from my plan. The importance of saving Washington by your plan, is as nothing when compared with the opposite tenor of my plan; which might, after all, be the saving of Washington by my plan, though my plan does not agree with your plan. I will stay with this army, and die with it, if need be, by my plan.
"'The General of the Mackerel Brigade.'
"Both plans were put in force, and during the period elapsing between this date and the middle of November, the troops were busily occupied in fortifying themselves—against the inclemency of the weather. Arrangements being made and completed for the decent interment of such troops as should die of old age before the next great movement took place, the General of the Mackerel Brigade had just opened a correspondence with his family on the subject of the Presidency of the United States in 1865, when he received the appended note:
"'General,—You will feel immediately relieved upon receiving this, and will report immediately to your wife at Hoboken. Colonel Wobert Wobinson is hereby ordered to take command of the Mackerel Brigade.
"'Adjutant.'
"Upon the assumption of command by General Wobinson, it was immediately observed that he possessed a great deal of Shape. He crossed Duck Lake on his Shape, and in pursuance of the plan of his predecessor, opened an instant attack upon Paris. Shortly after the attack, the whole Brigade was back across Duck Lake again, and the new General sent his resignation to Washington. It was refused, as unnecessary; and the General then devised a plan for startling the whole country, by organizing the Anatomical Cavalry upon an equestrian basis, and making a raid upon some Confederate oats known to be somewhere in the daily journals. The secret of this movement was confided to but three parties,—the Honest Abe, the Southern Confederacy, and the public; but before the move could take place it was divulged and frustrated. The General then sent in his resignation, which was refused as unnecessary. It was subsequent to this that a third great movement was arranged, when a shower came up suddenly, and it had to be abandoned. It was upon this occasion that the General sent in his resignation, when it was refused as unnecessary. Simultaneously, as it were, the officer popularly known as the Grim Old Fighting Cox, was appointed to the command, and here our exciting tale ends for the present.
"If the above record of a year of the war presents some discouraging features, it also offers many seeds of hope for the future, inasmuch as it would appear utterly impossible for the future to be less fruitful of national triumphs than the past has been. The greatness of our nation is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that we are spending two millions of dollars per day; and as soon as the present rebellion shall have been crushed, the final defeat of the celebrated Southern Confederacy will become a mere question of time, and we shall be prepared to commit immediate assault upon combined Europe.
"V. Gammon."
Alas! my boy, what can we say to such a revelation of national strategy? I was thinking over its developments as I wandered listlessly amongst the deserted Mackerel fortifications this side of Manassas on Thursday,—I was thinking about it, I say, when my attention was attracted by a soldier's grave located in the very midst of the dismantled earthworks. It bore a rude monument of pine-board, on which the companions of the strategic deceased had written the following inscription with chalk.
As I read this simple inscription, I could not help thinking how many Mackerels, like this poor fifer, had rushed from their homes to the war, panting for victory or honorable death, only to be slowly consumed by national strategy, and die of inglorious fortification and indigestion.