"As the unconquerable Southern Confederacy has a great contempt for the Yankee army, it has sent me here to see whether these muskets are worth taking. If they proved to be worth taking, the war was to continue; if not, I was to offer indirect proposals for peace, as the Sunny South does not wish to protect a struggle that does not pay."
Instead of replying to him, I stepped aside to give place to the Conservative Kentucky chap, who had just been denouncing the Message to the Mackerel Chaplain in the tent, and was greatly outraged by the Chaplain's response.
It seems that he had abruptly addressed the Chaplain, and says he: "If that Message wants to make the nigger the equal of the conservative element by implication, I hereby announce that Kentucky considers herself much offended. I fight for that flag," says he, hotly, pointing to the national standard,—"I fight for the stars on that flag, to aid the cause of the white man alone; and with the black man Kentucky will have nothing to do whatever."
The Chaplain looked dreamily at the flag, as it patched the sky above him, and says he:
"For men of your way of thinking, my friend, that banner should bear a sun, rather than the stars."
"Hem!" says the Kentucky chap. "How so?"
"Why," says the Chaplain, gravely, "beneath the stars alone, you cannot tell a black man from a white man. The master and slave of the broad noonday are equals under the stars; for if the sun shines upon the one working that the other may be idle, the gentle planets of the night make master and bondman of one hue and perfect equals in Nature's own Republic,—starry Night. The banner for you, my friend, should bear the sun, to show that it is but for a day."
The conservative Kentucky chap came away swearing, my boy; and hence, it was in no very good humor that he now saluted the Confederate raggedier.
"Hem!" says he, ungraciously, "where did all those rags come from, and what is their name?"
The Confederacy hastily put on a pair of white cotton gloves, and says he: