 Letters 1 of Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Showing how our correspondent came into the world with some particulars concerning his early childhood. Washington, D.C. March 20th, 1861. Judge not by appearances, my boy, for appearances are very deceptive, as the old lady calorically remarked when one, who was really a virgin onto forty, blushingly informed her that she was just twenty-five this month. Though you find me in Washington now, I was born of respectable parents and gave every indication in my satchel and apron days of coming to something better than this much better, my boy. Slightly northward of the Connecticut River, where a pleasant little conservative village mediates between two opposition hills, you may behold the landscape on which my infantile, New England eyes, first traced the courses of future railroads. Near the center of this village in the valley, my boy, and a little back from its principal road, stood the residence of my worthy sire and a very pretty residence it was. From the frequent addition of a new upper room here, a new dormer window there, and an innovating skylight elsewhere, the roof of the mansion had gradually assumed an alpine variety of juts and peaks somewhat confusing to behold. Local tradition related that, on a certain showery occasion, a streak of lightning was seen to descend upon that roof, skip vaguely about from one peak to another, and finally slink ignominiously down the water pipe, as though utterly disgusted with its own inability to determine where there are so many which peak it should particularly perforate. Years afterwards, my boy, this strange tale was told me by a venerable chap of the village, and I might have believed it had he not outraged the probability of the meteorological narrative with the sequel. And when that streak came down the pipe, says the aged chap thoughtfully, it struck a man who was leaning against the house, ran down to his feet, and went into the ground without hurting him a mite. With the natural ingenuousness of childhood I closed one eye, my boy, and says, I, do you mean to tell me, old man, that he was struck by lightning and yet wasn't hurt? Yes, says the venerable chap, abstractedly cutting a small log from the door frame of the grocery store with his jackknife, the streak passed off from him because he was a conductor. A conductor, says I, picking up another stone to throw at the same dog. Yes, says the chap, confidentially, he was a conductor on a railroad. The human mind, my boy, when long affected by country air, tends naturally to the marvellous and affiliates with the German in normal transcendentalism. Such was the house in which I came to life a certain number of years ago, entering the world like a human exclamation point between two of the angriest sentences of a September storm, and adding materially to the uproar prevailing at the time. Next to my parents, of whom I shall say little at present, the person I can best remember, as I look back, was our family physician. A very obese man was he, my boy, with certain sweet oiliness of manner and never out of patience. I think I can see him still as he arose from his chair after a profound study of the case before him, and wrote a prescription so circumlocutory in its effect that it sent a servant half a mile to his friend, the druggist, for articles she might have found in her own kitchen, aqua pumpagenis and sugar being the sole ingredients required. The doctor had started business in our village as a veterinary surgeon, my boy, but as the entire extent of his practice for six months in that line was a call to mend one of Colt's revolvers, he finally turned his attention to the aliens of his fellows, and wrought many cures with sugar and water, Latinized. At first my father did not patronize the new doctor, having very little faith in the efficacy of sugar and water without the addition of certain other composite often seen in bottles, but the doctor's neat speech at a Sunday school festival won his heart at last. The festival was held near a series of small waterfalls just out of the village, my boy, and the doctor, who was an invited guest, was called upon for a few appropriate remarks. In compliance with the demand he made a speech of some compass, ending with a pareration that is still quoted in my native place. He pointed impressively to the waterfalls and says he, All the works of nature is somewhat beautiful with a good moral. Even them cataracts, says he, sagely, have a moral, and seem eternally whispering to the young that those what air falls. The effect of this happy illustration was very pleasing, my boy, especially with those who prefer morality to grammar, and after that the physician had the run of all the pious families, our own included. It was a handsome compliment this worthy man paid me when I was about six months old. Having just received from my father the amount of his last bill, he was complacent to the last degree, and felt inclined to do the handsome thing. He patted my head as I sat upon my mother's lap and says he, How beautiful is Babes, so small, and yet so much like human beings, only not so large. This boy, says he, fatly, looking down at me, will make a noise in the world yet. He has a long head, a very long head. Do you think so, says my father? Indeed I do, says the doctor. The little fellow says he, in a sudden fit of abstraction, has a long head, a very long head, and it's as thick as it is long. There was some coolness between my doctor and my father after that, my boy, and on the following Sunday my mother refused to look at his wife's new bonnet in church. I might cover many pages with further account of childhood sunny hours, but enough has been given already to establish the respectability of my birth, despite my present location, and there I let the matter rest my boy for the time being. Yours, retrospectively, Orpheus C. Kerr. End of letter one. Washington, D.C., March 25, 1861 To continue from where I left off my boy, between the interesting ages of 10 and 18, I went to school at the Village Academy, working through the English branches and the accidents, with a lively sense of a preponderance of birch in the former and occasional class sickness in the latter. Those were my happiest days, my boy, and as I look back to them now, for a moment all my flippancy leaves me, and I forget that I am an American and a politician. Those dear old days, those short, unreal days, only long in being long past. It was just after the eternal bonus, bonabonam of the Master had ceased to ring in my ears that I commenced to be a young man. I knew that I was becoming a young man, my boy, for it was then that I began to regard the unmarried women of America with sheepish bashfulness, and stumbled awkwardly as I entered my father's pew in church. Then it was that the sound of a young female giggle threw me into a cold perspiration, and a looking glass diluted me into gesticulating in solitude before it, and extemporizing the speeches I was to make when called upon to justify the report of fame by admiring populaces. Do you remember the asinine time in your own life, my boy? Do you remember it? I know that you do, my boy, for I can feel your blush on my own cheeks. Of the few women of America who looked upon me with favor, there was one Ellen whom I really loved, I think, for of all the girls the mention of her name alone gave me that peculiar feeling in which instinctive impulse blends undefinably and perpetually with a sense of reverent respect, or rather with a sense of some unworthiness of self. Ellen died before I had known her a year. I thought afterwards, like any other youngster, that I loved half a dozen different girls, but even in mature years Second Love is a poor imitation. Say what you will about Second Love, my boy, in the breast of him truly a man, it is but an Imperium in Imperio, a flower on the grave of the first. There was one young woman of America in our village, my boy, about whom the chaps teased me not a little, and I might perhaps have been teased into matrimony like many another unfortunate, but for the example of a Salisbury chap I met one night in one of the village stores. He was a Yankee chap with much southwestern experience, my boy, and when he heard the lads teasing me about a woman he hoisted his heels upon the counter and says he— Anybody'd think that creation was born with a frock on, to hear the way you Yankers talk woman. Darn the she-critters, says he, shutting his jackknife with a clash. I'd rather be as lonesome as a bored pup than see a piece of calico as big as a pancake. What's women but a tarnation bundle of gammon and petticoats? Powerful. Be you married, folks, stranger? Not yet, says I. Don't never be, then, says he. My name's Smith, one of the Smiths's down to Salisbury that's guaranteed to put away as much provinder and carry as big a turkey as ever said on critters down that district. And whilst my name's Smith, there'll never be a Yanker to call me daddy if a gal was to have Jerusalem tantrums after me. You're in a stranger, and I ain't married, folks, but I don't mind telling you about a golf-fired rumpus I got into down in Salisbury when I took to a gal that stuck out all around like a haystack and was a screamer at choir-meeting and such like. Her name was Sal Green, one of the Greens' down in Pagetown, and the first time I took a notion to her was down to the old shingle-meeting-house when Sam Spooner had a berry in. When the parson gets out of him, she straightened up like a rooster at six o'clock of daybreak and let out a string of screams that set all the babies to yelpin' as though big pins was goin' clean through their insides. Gee, willikens, how the critter did squawk and squeal and turn up her eyes like a sick duck in a shower. I was just fool enough to think it, Poo-ty, and when my old man says, says he, Jed, you're took all of a heap with that Poo-ty critter. I felt as if Chills and Fever was givin' me particular agony. Says I, she's an armful for the Prince of Wales, and if that Bob Tompkins don't stop makin' eyes at her over there, I'll give him such a lacing that he won't comb his hair for six weeks. The old man put a chaw into his meat-safe and shut one eye and says he, Jed, you're a fool if you don't hook that gal's dress for her before next harvesting. She's a mighty scrumptious critter, and just about ripe for the altar. Just tell her there's more smiths as wanted, and she'll leave the greens as thou to snicker. I rather like the ID, but I told the old man that his punkin' pie was all squash, because it wouldn't do to let on too soon. When the folks was startin' from the church, I went up to Sal, and says I, Miss, I suppose you wouldn't mind lettin' me see it to hum. She blushed like a biled lobster, and says she, I don't know your folks. I felt sorta strict, but I gave my collar a hitch, and says I, I'm Mr. Smith, one of the smiths of this district, and always willin' for a female in distress. Then she made a curtsy, and was goin' to say somethin', when Bob Tompkins steps up, and says he, There's a goin' to be another bearing in this settlement if some folks don't mind their own chores, and quit foolin' with other folks as company. This riled me right up, and says I, There's a feller in this district that ain't had a spell a-layin' on his back for some time, but he's in immediate danger of catchin' the disease bad. Bob took a squint at the wit of my chist, and then he turned to Sal, who was shakin' like a cabbage leaf in a summer gale, and says he, Sal, let's marvel out a bad company before it spiles our morals. With that he crooked one of his smashing machines, and Sal was just hookin' on when I put the weight of about one hundred pounds under his ear, and says I, Just lay there, Bob Tompkins, until your parents comes out to look for your body. He went down as if he'd been took with a sudden desire to examine the roots of the grass, and Sal screamed out that I had murdered the rantankerous critter. Says I, the tombstone that's fur his head ain't cut yet, but I calculate it'll be took out of the quarry if he comes smellin' around my heels again. Just as I made this feelin' remark, the varment began to scratch earth, as if he had a mind to see how it would feel to be on his pins again, and I crooked my elbow to Sal, and thought it was about time to marvel. She laid up to me like a pig to a rough post, and we peregrinated along for some distance until we were pretty nigh-hum. I was askin' her if it hurt her much when she sung, and she was sayin' not particular, when all of a sudden something knocked forth a July fireworks out of my eyes, and I went to grass with my heels up. It was Bob Tompkins, and says he, lay there, Mr. Smith, and let us hear from you by the next mail. For a minute I thought I was bound for glory, but pretty soon I come to my oats, and then I rolled over and seen Bob a-squeezin' Sal's hand. I'll write my crucian blue, thinks I. There'll be a Pothicaries bill for some family in this here district, but I won't say who's to pay it at present. I just waited to see the feller try to put his nose into Sal's face, and then I stretched to my feet and says I, this here pasture wants a little mashin' down to make it fruitful, and it's my impression that I can do it. Sal see that I was bound to make somebody smell agony, so she just ripped away from Bob and marveled for the house, screamin' fire like a scrumptious fire-department. Bob looked after her for a minute, and then he turned to me and says he, I hope your folks have got some crepe to hum, because there's going to be a job for our wordchirless sexton. I kinder smiled out her one eye and says I, when Sal and I is married, we'll drop a tear for the early decease of an individual who would never have been born if it hadn't been for your parents. This riled Bob up awful, and he came right at me like a mad bull at a red shawl. I felt something drop on the bridge of my nose, and I see a whole nest of skyrockets all at once, but I only keeled for the shake of a tail, and then I piled in like a mad buffalo with the colic. It was give and take for about five minutes, and I tell you, Bob played away on my nose like a trojan. The blood flew some, and I was sorry I hadn't said good-bye to the folks before I left them, but I gave Bob some happy evidences of youthful Christianity around his goggles, and pretty soon he looked as if he'd been brought up to the charcoal business. We was making pretty good time round the lot when all of a sudden Sal come running up with her father and mother and says the old feller, if you two members of the church don't stop your religious exercises, there'll be some preaching from the Book of John. With that Bob took his pie out of my hair and says he, Smith the son hit me the first whack. I just prominated up to the old man and says I, if you'll just show me a good barium place I'll take the pleasure in making a funeral for the Tompkins's. The old man looked kinder querious at Sally, and she commenced to snicker, and says she, what are you two fellers rumpus in about? I looked lovin' at her and says I, it's to see who shall have the pootiest gal of all the greens's. When I said this, the old man bussed to a larf like a wild high yinner, and the old woman she put her hands across her stomach and began to larflack mad, and Sal she snickered right out in my countenance and says she, why, I'm engaged to Sam's lochem. Stranger, there's no use of talking. My hair is right up like a blackened brush, and Bob's eyes came out like peas out of a yaller pod. There was speechless silence for two minutes, and then says Bob, there's a couple of golf-fired fools somewhere in this country, and it's a pity their dads ever seen their mothers. I see he felt powerful means, so I walked up to him and says I, suppose we go and look for the new Jerusalem. He just hooked on to my elbow, and without saying another word, we marveled for home. Since that, I ain't held no communion with petticoats, and if I ever get married, you shall have an invite to the funeral. As I went home that night, my boy, after hearing the story of that rude, unlettered man, I made up my mind to have nothing more to do with the uncertain women of America until my position should be such that they would not dare to fool me. The women of America, my boy, are equally apt at making a fool of a man in his own estimation, and a man of a fool in their own. Yours for celibacy, Orpheus C. Kerr. End of letter two. Letter three of Orpheus C. Kerr papers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr papers by Robert Henry Newell. Letter three. Our correspondent becomes literary and fathoms certain mysteries of journalism. He produces a distinctive American poem and gains the usual reward of youthful genius. Washington, D.C. March 31st, 1861. As far as I can trace back, my boy, we never had a literary character in our family save a venerable ant of mine on my mother's side who commenced her writing career by refusing to contribute to the Sunday papers and subsequently won much fame as the authoress of a set of copy books. When this gifted relative found herself acquiring a reputation, she came in state to visit us, and so disgusted by very practical father by wearing slip-shod gators inking her right-hand thumbnail every morning, calling all things by European names, and insisting upon giving our oldest plow-horse the romantic and literary title of Lord Byron, that my exasperated parent incurred a most tremendous prejudice against authorship, my boy, and vowed, when she went away, that he never would invite her presence again. I was only twenty years old at that time, and the novelty of my aunt's conduct had rather an infatuating effect upon me. With that perversity often observable in youngsters before they have seen much of the world, I became deeply interested in my literary relative as soon as my father commenced to speak contemptuously of her pursuits, and it took very little time to invest me with a longing and determination to be a writer. Thenceforth I wore negligent linen, frequently rested my hand upon the forefinger of my right hand, with a lofty and abstracted air, assumed an expression of settled and mysterious gloom when at church, and suffered my hair to grow long and uncombed. Speaking of the masculine literary habit of wearing the hair in this way, my boy, I find myself impressed with a profound metaphysical idea. You've probably noticed that writers following this fashion will frequently scratch their heads when inspiration plays the laggard. It is also true that wearers of long and uncombed hair who are not writers will scratch their heads in the same way occasionally. The action being the same in both cases, can it be that physiological inspection would develop an affinity between the natural causes thereof? I have often thought of this, my boy. I've often thought of this. My bearing during this period of infatuation could hardly fail to attract considerable attention in our village, and there were two opinions about me. One was that I had been jilted, the other that I was about to become a vagabond and an actor. My father inclined to the former and left me, as he thought, to get over my disappointment in the natural way. My peripatetic spell had lasted about six weeks, my boy, when I formed the acquaintance of the editor of the Lily of the Valley, who permitted me to mope in his office now and then, and soothed my literary inflammation by permitting me to write puffs for the village milliner. Oh, the fierce and tremendous ecstasy of that moment when I first saw my own words in print with not more than six typographical errors in each line. Queen Victoria, it is said, is coming to this country for the express purpose of obtoining one of these beautiful spring bunnets at Madame Smith's. I noticed as I went home on the day of publication that all whom I passed paused to look after me. I was already famous. The discovery on reaching our house that one of my temples was somewhat fingered with printer's ink did not shake me in this belief, my boy. I was too far gone for that. The editor of the Lily treated me considerably and even asked me at times to accompany him to the place where he daily sipped inspiration, gaining thereby a fresh flow of ideas and the qualified immortality of certain additional chalk marks on the back of a door. I referred to a spiritual establishment. Finding that the editorial treasury did not redeem its verbal promissory notes, my boy, the proprietor of this establishment suddenly put forth a new sign, conspicuously reading, Timothy Trott, licensed liquor dealer and associate editor of the Lily of the Valley. The editor went to him and says he, What do you mean by this impertinence, Timothy? The liquor chap stuck his hands into his pocket, my boy, and says he, If I furnish inspiration for nothing I may as well have some literary credit. The village swallows what you furnish, says the chap reasoningly, and you swallow what I furnish, and so I'm the head editor after all. But he took down the sign, my boy, when the editor dissolved the partnership by paying his score. What are called spirited editorials in the New York papers, my boy, very often involve two swallows as well as a spread eagle. While looking over some old magazines in the Lily office one day, I found in an ancient British periodical a raking article upon American literature wherein the critic affirmed that all our writers were but weak imitators of English authors, and that such a thing even as a distinctively American poem, sweet generous, had not yet been produced. This radical sneer at the United States of America fired my Yankee blood, my boy, and I vowed within myself to write a poem, not only distinctively American, but of such a character that only America could have produced it. In the solitude of my room that night I wooed the Aboriginal muse, and two days thereafter the lily of the valley contained my distinctive American poem of The American Traveler. To Lake Agmug and Negamuk, all in the state of Maine, a man from Witte Quarigagam came one evening in the rain. I am a traveler, said he, just started on a tour, and go to Namjam skilla-cook to-morrow morn at four. He took a tavern bed that night, and with the morrow's sun, by way of secular dobskus went with carpet bag and gun. A week passed on, and next we find our native tourist come to that sequestered village called Genassa Gardna Gum. From thence he went to Absoquoit, and there quite tired of Maine. He sought the mountains of Vermont upon a railroad train. Dog Hollow, in the Green Mount State, was his first stopping place, and then Skunk's Misery displayed its sweetness and its grace. By easy stages then he went to visit Devil's Den, and Scrabble Hollow, by the way, did come within his ken. Then via nine holes and goose-green he traveled through the state, and to Virginia finally was guided by his fate. Within the old dominion's bounds he wandered up and down, to-day at buzzard Roostenskonst, to-morrow at Helltown. At Polecat too he spent a week, till friends from Bullring came, and made him spend a day with them in hunting forest game. Then with his carpet bag in hand to Dogtown next he went, though stopping at Free Negro Town where half a day he spent. From thence into Negationburg his route of travel lay, which having gained he left the state and took a southward way. North Carolina's friendly soil he trod at fall of night, and on a bed of softest down he slept at Hell's Delight. Morn found him on the road again, to lousy level bound, at Bull's Tale and Lick Lizard too, good provender he found. The country all about pinch-gut so beautiful did seem, that the beholder thought it like a picture in a dream. But the plantations near burnt coat were even finer still, and made the wandering tourist feel a soft, delicious thrill. At Tehr Shirt too the scenery most charming did appear, with snatch it in the distance far and purgatory near. In spite of all these pleasant scenes the tourist stoutly swore that home is brightest after all, and travel is a bore. So back he went to Main Straightway, a little wife he took, and now is making nutmegs at Moose Hick McGuntacook. In his note, introductory of this poem, my boy, the editor of the lily affirmed, which is strictly true, that I had named none but veritable localities, and ventured the belief that the composition would remind his readers of Goldsmith, upon which his scorpion contemporary in the next village observed, that there was rather more smith than gold about the poem. Genius, my boy, is never appreciated until its possessor is dead, and even the useless praise it then obtains is chiefly due to the pleasure that is experienced in burying the poor wretch. Up to the time when this poem appeared in print I had succeeded in concealing from my father the nature of my incidental occupation, but now he must know all. He did know all my boy, and the result was that he gave me ten dollars and sent me to New York to look out for myself. It's the only thing that will save him, says he to my mother, and I must either send him off, or expect to see him sink by degrees to editorship and commence to wear disgraceful clothes. I went to New York, I became a private secretary, and speech scribe to an unscrupulous and therefore rising politician, and now I am in Washington. Thus, my boy, I have answered your desire for an outline of my personal history, and henceforth let me devote my attention to other and more important inhabitants of our distracted country. I had a certain post-mastership in my eye when I first came hither, but war's alarms indicate that I may do better as an amateur hero. Yours iconoclastically Orpheus C. Kerr. End of letter three. Letter four of Orpheus C. Kerr papers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr papers by Robert Henry Newell. Letter four. Describing the south in 12 lines, defining the citizen's first duty, and reciting a parody. Washington D.C. April 1861. The chivalrous south my boy has taken Fort Sumter, and only wants to be let alone. Some things of a southern sort I like, my boy. South-down mutton is fit for the gods, and south-side particular is liquid sunshine for the heart. But the whole country was growing tired of New South Wales before this, and my present comprehensive estimate of all there is of Dixie may be summed up in twelve straight lines under the general heading of Repudiation. Neitha ragged Palmetto a Southerner sat, a twisting the band of his Panama hat, and trying to lighten his mind of a load by humming the words of the following ode. O for a nigger, and O for a whip, O for a cocktail, and O for a nip, O for a shot at old Greeley and Beecher, O for a crack at a Yankee school-teacher, O for a captain, and O for a ship, O for a cargo of niggers each trip, and so he kept owing for all he had not, not contented with owing for all that he'd got. In view of the impending conflict it is the duty of every American citizen, who has nothing else to do, to take up his abode in the capital of this agonized republic, and give the cabinet the sanction of his presence. Some base child of treason may intimate that Washington is not quite large enough to hold every American citizen, but I'm satisfied that, if all the Democrats could have one good washing, they would shrink so that you might put the whole blessed party into an ordinary custom house. Some of the Republicans are pretty large chaps for their size, but Jeff Davis thinks they can be taken in easily enough, and I know that the new tariff will be enough to make them contract like sponges out of water. The city is full of Western chaps at present who look as if they had just walked out of a charity hospital and had not got beyond gruel diet yet. Every soul of them knew old Abe when he was a child, and one boy can even remember going for a doctor when his mother was born. I met one of them the other day, he is after the moose-hick McGuntacook post-office, and his anecdotes of the President's boyhood brought tears to my eyes and several tumblers to my lips. He says that when Abe was an infant of sixteen, he split so many rails that his whole country looked like a wholesale lumberyard for a week, and that when he took to flatboating, he was so tall and straight that a fellow once took him for a smokestack on a steamboat, and didn't find out his mistake until he tried to kindle a fire under him. Once, while Abe was practicing as a lawyer, he defended a man for stealing a horse, and was so eloquent in proving that his client was an honest victim of false suspicion that the deeply affected victim made him a present of the horse as soon as he was acquitted. I tell you what, my boy, if Abe pays a post-office for every story of his childhood that's told, the male department of this glorious nation, will be so large that a letter smaller than a two-story house would get lost in it. Of all the vile and damning deeds that ever rendered a city eternally infamous, my boy, of all the infernal sins of dark-browed treachery that ever made open-faced treason seem holy, the crime of Baltimore is the blackest and worst. All that April day we were waiting with bated breath and beating hearts for the devoted men who had pledged their lives to their country at the first call of the President, and were known to be marching to the defense of the nation's capital. That night was one of terror. At any moment the hosts of the rebels might pour upon the city from the mountains of Guilty Virginia, and grasp the very throat of the Republic. And with the first dim light of morning came the news that our soldiers had been basely beset in the streets of Baltimore, and ruthlessly shot down by a treacherous mob, those whom they had trusted as brothers, my boy, whose country they were marching to defend with their lives, assassinating them in cold blood. I was sitting in my room at Willards when a serious chap from New Haven, who had just paused long enough at the door to send a waiter for the same that he had yesterday, came rushing into the apartment with a long, fluttering paper in his hand. Listen to this, he says, in wild agitation and red. Baltimore. Midnight shadows, dark appalling, round the capital were falling, and its dome and pillars glimmered, spectral from Potomac's shore. All the great had gone to slumber, and of all the busy number that had moved the state by day within its walls as erced before, none there were but dreamed of heroes thither sent ere day was o'er, thither sent through Baltimore. But within a chamber solemn barred aloft with many a column, and with windows toward Mount Vernon, windows toward Potomac's shore, sat a figure stern and awful, chief but not the chieftain lawful of the land whose grateful millions, Washington's great name adore, sat the form a shade majestic of a chieftain gone before, thine to honor Baltimore. There he sat in silence gazing, by a single planet's blazing, at a map outspread before him wide upon the marble floor, and it twirred for mortal proving that those reverent lips were moving, while the eyes were closely scanning one mapped city ore and ore, while he saw but one great city on that map upon the floor, they were whispering Baltimore. Thus he sat, nor word did utter, till there came a sudden flutter, and the sound of beating wings was heard upon the carved door. In a trice the bolts were broken, by those lips no word was spoken, as an eagle torn and bloody dim of eye and wounded sore fluttered down upon the map and trailed a wing all wet with gore, or the name of Baltimore. Then that noble form uprising with a gesture of surprising bent with look of keenest sorrow toward the bird that drooped before. Emblem of my country, said he, are thy opinions stained already in a tide whose blending waters never ran so red before? Is it with the blood of kinsmen? Tell me quickly, I implore, croaked the eagle, Baltimore. Eagle, said the shade advancing, tell me by what dread mischancing, thou the symbol of my people, burst thy plumes erect no more? Why does thou desert mine army, sent against the foes that harm me, through my country, with the trees and worlds to come, shall air deplore? And the eagle on the map, with bleeding wing as just before, blurred the name of Baltimore? Can it be, the specter muttered, can it be, those pale lips uttered, is the blood Columbia treasures spilt upon its native shore? Is there in the land so cherished, land for whom the great have perished, men to shed a brother's blood as tyrant's blood was shed before? Where are they who murder peace before the breaking out of war? Croaked the eagle, Baltimore. At the word of sound so mournful came a frown, half sad, half scornful, or the grand majestic face where frown had never been before, and the hands to heaven uplifted, with an awful power seemed gifted, to plant curses on a head, and hold them there for evermore, to rain curses on a land, and bid them grow for evermore, woe art thou, Baltimore! Then the sacred spirit fading, left upon the floor a shading, as of one with arms uplifted, from a distance bending oar, and the veil of night grew thicker, and the death watch beat the quicker, for a death within a death, and sadder than the death before, and a whispering of woe was heard upon Potomac's shore. Hear it not, Baltimore? And the eagle, never dying, still is trying, still is trying, with its wings upon the map to hide a city with its gore, but the name is there for ever, and it shall be hidden never, while the awful brand of murder points the Avenger to its shore, while the blood of peaceful brothers, God's dread vengeance, doth implore, thou art doomed, Baltimore! There, says the serious New Haven chap, as he finished reading, stirring something softly with a spoon, what do you suppose Poe would think if he were alive now and could read that? I think, says I, striving to appear calm, that he would be raven mad about it. Oh, I, yes, says the serious chap vaguely. What will you take? Doubtless I shall become hardened to the horrors of war and time, my boy, but at present these things unhinge me. Yours, unforgivingly, Orpheus C. Kerr. 5. Concerning the great crowd at the Capitol owing to the vast influx of troops and touching upon Fierswawef peculiarities and other matters, Washington D.C. May 24th, 1861. I am living luxuriously at present on the top of a very respectable fence, and fair sumptuously, on three granite biscuit a day, and a glass of water weakened with brandy. A high private in the twenty-second regiment has promised to let me have one of his spare pocket handkerchiefs for a sheet on the first rainy night, and I never go to bed on my comfortable window brush without thinking how many poor creatures there are in this world who have to sleep on hare mattresses and feather beds all their lives. Before the great rush of the Fierswawefs and the rest of the menagerie commenced, I boarded exclusively on a front stoop on Pennsylvania Avenue, and used to slumber, regardless of expense, in a well-conducted ash-box. But the military monopolize all such accommodation now, and I give way for the sake of my country. I tell you, my boy, we're having high old times just here now, and if they get any higher I shan't be able to afford to stay. The city is in danger every other hour, and as a veteran in the Fierswawefs remarked, there seems to be enough danger laying around loose on Arlington Heights to make a very good blood and thunder fiction in numerous pages. If the vigilant and well-educated sentinels happen to see an old nigger on the other side of the Potomac, they sing out, Here they come! And the whole blessed army is snapping caps in less than a minute. Then all the cheap reporters telegraphed to their papers in New York and Philadelphia that Jeff Davis is within two minutes walk of the capital with a few millions of men and all the free states send six more regiments apiece to crowd us a little more. I shan't stand much more crowding, for my fence is full now, and there were six applications yesterday to rent an improved knot-hole. My landlord says that if more than three chaps set up housekeeping on one post, he'll be obliged to raise the rent. Those Fierswawefs are fellows of awful suction, I tell you. Just for grains I asked one of them yesterday what he came here for. Ha! says he, shutting one eye. We came here to strike for your altars and your fires, especially your fires. General Scott said that if he wanted to make these chaps break through the army of a foe, he'd have wrung a fire-bell for some district on the other side of the rubbles. He says that half a million of the traders couldn't keep the Fierswawefs out of that district five minutes. I believe him, my boy. The weather here is highly favorable to the free development of perspiration and mint-julips, and I have enjoyed the melancholy satisfaction of losing ten pounds of flesh in three days. One of the lieutenants of the eighth has a gutter about half an inch deep, worn above the bridge of his nose, by the stream of perspiration since Wednesday, and a chap from Vermont melted so awfully the other day that they had to put him in a refrigerator to keep enough of him to send home to his rich but pious family. In fact, this weather makes the northern boys fall away awfully. One of the Fierswawefs fell away tremendously yesterday. He fell away from Washington to Annapolis, and then somebody had to put him in a guardhouse to keep him from perspiring all the way back to New York. The chap that boards on the next front stoop to me now was so fat when he came here that his captain refused to use him as a sentinel, because he could not see far enough over his stomach to detect anyone approaching him. Well, my boy, that chap has fallen away to such an extent that it took me half an hour last night to find out what part of his uniform he lived in. He blew down three or four times while we were walking up Pennsylvania Avenue, and while I was helping him up the last time, a passerby asked me, what would I take for that air flagstaff? By the by, you ought to have heard Honest Old Abe's speech on Wednesday when we raised the star-spangled particular on the post office. Says he, On this present occasion I feel that it will not be out of place to make a few remarks which were not applicable at a former period. Yesterday the flag hung on the staff throughout the Union, and in consequence of the scarcity of a breeze there was not much wind blowing at the time. On the present happy occasion, however, the presence of numerous zeffers causes the atmosphere to agitate for our glorious Union, and this flag, which now unfolds itself to the site, is observed upon closer inspection to present a star-spangled appearance. Mr. Seward's speech, which was also received with frantic enthusiasm, sounded equally well. He said, I trust that this glorious spectacle will make a deep impression upon all present, notwithstanding the fact that I am still convinced that peace may yet put an end to this unhappy conflict by means of a convention of all the states on the 4th of July, 2776, which I have always advocated. As the President has remarked, the breeze which has just arisen in the Bay of Naples, causes the star-spangled banner to arouse a far prouder feeling in every American breast, than if a vessel should come in with a palmetto-flag at her peak, and upon being asked where it came from, should reply, oh, from one of the petty republics of America. I have nothing more to say. I know this report is correct, for I copied both the speeches from a phonographic reporter's copy, and the phonographic reporter had only taken six glasses of old Peach and Honey before he went to work. Yours hastily, Orpheus C. Kerr. End of letter five. Letter six of Orpheus C. Kerr papers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr papers by Robert Henry Newell. Letter six. Introducing the mackerel brigade, dilating on havelox as first made by the women of America, illustrating the strength of habit and weakness of shoddy, and showing how our correspondent indulged in a huge canard after the manner of an enlightened daily press. Washington, DC, June 15, 1861. The members of the mackerel brigade now stationed on Arlington Heights to watch the movements of the Potomac, which is expected to rise shortly, desire me to thank the women of America for supplies of havelox and other delicacies of the season just received. The havelox, my boy, are rather roomy, and we took them for shirts at first, and the shirts are so narrow-minded that we took them for havelox. If the women of America could manage to get a little less linen in the collars of the latter article, and a little more into the other departments of the graceful garment, there would be fewer colds in this division of the grand army. The havelox, as I have said before, are roomy. Very roomy, my boy. William Brown of Company Three, Regiment Five, put one on last night when he went on century duty, and looked like a broomstick in a pillowcase for all the world. When the officer of the night came round and caught sight of William in his havelox, he was struck dumb with admiration for a moment. Then he ejaculated, What a splendid moon-beam! William made a movement, and the sergeant came up. What's that white object, says the officer to the sergeant? The young man, which is William Brown, says the sergeant. Thunder, roars the officer, tell him to go to his tent and take off that nightgown. Your mistaken, says the sergeant, the century is William Brown in his havelox which was made by the women of America. The officer was so justly exasperated at his mistake that he went immediately to his headquarters and took the oath three times running with a little sugar. The oath is very popular, my boy, and comes in bottles. I take it medicinally myself. The shirts made by the women of America are noble articles as far down as the collar, but would not do to use as an only garment. Captain Mortimer de Montague, one of the skirmish squad, put one on when he went to the President's reception, and the collar stood up so high that he couldn't put his cap on, while the other departments didn't quite reach to his waist. His appearance at the White House was picturesque and interesting, and as he entered the drawing-room, General Scott remarked very feelingly, ah, here comes one of our wounded heroes. He's not wounded, General, remarked an officer standing by. Then why is his head bandaged up so? asked the venerable veteran. Oh, says the officer, that's only one of the shirts made by the patriotic women of America. In about five minutes after this conversation I saw the venerable veteran, the wounded hero and the officer taking the oath together. The 79th Highlanders came to town early last week, and are the finest body of scotchmen that were ever half-killed by uniform alone. My heart warmed to them when I first saw them, and with arms outspread I greeted the gallant fellow nearest to me. With a tear of gratified pride in his eye he exclaimed, odd lang sign and scot-zu-hey, but gang away we healen laddie, together o' John Anderson Mejo, and, moreover, we'll take a right good wheelie-wacht for muckle-tois and brah-cheele. I told him I thought so myself. I'm sorry to say, my boy, that some members of this splendid regiment are badly off for trousers, and shock my modesty tremendously. They probably forgot them in their hurry to get to the war, and the Union pretense committee ought to send them out an assortment of peg-tops at once. Not that I object to the innocent amusements of the Highlanders, but that decency and propriety must be preserved within the limits of the army, as the British showmen observed. I took a trip down to Alexandria the other night to see how the fire-zuaves were getting along, and came pretty near getting into trouble with one of five's screamers. He was on guard, and when he challenged me the password slipped my memory. Drop that air-butt, says he, bringing his musket to a charge, or I'll give you a taste of the old machine. Who—what are you coughing at? Say! I was frightened, my boy, and had just commenced the appropriate prayer of now I lay me down to sleep, when suddenly an idea struck me and I acted on it immediately. Hello, says I. John Eat, didn't you hear the old-haul kettle strike for the fourth district? Come along with me and help to get the old dog-card on a jump, or Nine's roosters will get the railroad track and have the old butt in Christie Street before we can swing the old machine over a pig's whisker. Bully for you, says he, dropping his musket all in a quiver, and commencing to roll up his pantaloons. I've got a bed on that ear fire, and if I don't take the starch out of that ear Nine's feller what wears good clothes and don't do nothing, you may just take my boots. It was all the force of habit, you see, and if I hadn't stopped that suave, I really believe he'd had run clean into the bosom of all the first families looking for the fourth district in Nine's feller. The mackerel brigade have got their new uniforms, and they are not the marshal garments it would do to get fat in. High private Sammelville Green put his on partially yesterday, but it's a positive fact, my boy, that by the time he got his coat buttoned his pantaloons were all worn out. I managed to get on one of the uniforms myself, and the first time I went into the open air all the buttons blew off. I've just returned from visiting the most mournful sight that ever made a man feel as though he'd been peeling onions all the week and grating horse radish on Sunday. It was the first dying scene of one of the pet lammers down at Alexandria, and as one of Five's chaps remarks, it was enough to make the eye of a darning needle weep and bring tears to the cheek of the Greek slave. Jim was the only name of the sufferer, and if he had any other it had slipped his memory, though his affectionate relatives sometimes called him shorty by way of endearment. He was out on picket guard the night before when the Southern Confederacy attempted to pass him. He challenged the intruder and called to his comrades for help, but before the latter could arrive the Southern Confederacy drew a masked battery from his pocket and fired six heavy balls through the head of the unfortunate suave, nearly fracturing his skull and breaking several panes of glass. The cowardly miscreant then fled to an adjacent fence closely followed by Sherman's artillery. Upon discovering that he was wounded, Mr. Shorty examined the cap on his musket and stood it carefully against a tree, buttoned his jacket to his neck, and asked a comrade for a chew of tobacco. Too full of emotion to speak, the comrade handed a gentlemanly plug to the dying man, who cut about half an ounce from it, placed it thoughtfully in his mouth, and then stuffed his handkerchief carefully in the hole in his forehead made by the balls. Is any of my brains hanging out? he asked of another of his comrades. No shorty answered the other, bursting into tears. You never had any to hang out. After this response the dying man paused for a moment to spit in the eyes of a dog that was smelling around his heels and then proceeded with his comrades in the direction of the hospital or the house used for that purpose. As they were passing the quarters of the officer with whom I was spending the night, the expiring suave stopped to twist the tail of an old darky's cat which made such a noise that the officer's attention was attracted and he called the whole party into his room. I at once noticed that the top of Mr. Shorty's head was completely gone and that one of his eyes was half way down the back of his neck. Upon entering the room he took a pipe from the mantle and commenced to smoke it, giving us at the same time a history of nine's engine and the first must he was ever engaged in. After finishing the pipe and requesting me to wrap him up in the American flag he spit on one of my boots and then died. I append a short biographical sketch. THE LATE PRIVATE SHORTY Mr. James Shorty, the gallant suave who was shot last night by the Southern Confederacy, was born some years ago in a place I am not aware of and graduated with high honors in the New York Fire Department. He was universally beloved for his genial manner of taking the butt and never hit a feller bigger than himself. In the year 1861 he entered the United States Army as a private suave and was in it when the fate of war deprived the country of his beloved presence. His remains will be taken to the first fire that occurs. Poor Shorty. I knew him well, my boy, and shall never forget how ready he always was to take a cigar from yours mournfully Orpheus Seeker. PS. Since riding the above I have heard that no such occurrence took place at Alexandria. The alarm was occasioned by the fall of a bag of hay in one of the officer's quarters, the noise being mistaken for the firing of a battery. Mr. Shorty, it seems, does not belong to the Zwoves at all and is still in New York. O. C. K. End of Letter Six. Letter Seven of Orpheus Seeker Papers by Robert Henry Newell. Letter Seven. I have just returned, my boy, with my fellow mercenaries and several mud-zills from a carnival of gore. I am wounded. My sensibilities are wounded and my irrepressibles reek with the blood of the slain. These hands that once opened the oysters of peace and toyed with the bivalves of tranquility are now sanguinary with the red juice of battle, gushing idea, and linger in horrid ecstasy about the gloomy neck of a bottle holding about a quart. Eagle of my country, proud bird of the menagerie, thou art avenged. At a late hour last evening the brigadier general of the mackerel brigade, formerly a practitioner in the Asylum for Idiots, received intelligence from a messenger that a strong force of chickens were entrenched near Fairfax Courthouse under the command of a rabid secessionist named Binks. The brigade was at once ordered over the bridge at a double-quick, the general throwing a strong force of skirmishers into the Potomac and waving his sword repeatedly to show that he was a stranger to fear. Shortly after touching Virginia soil, the orderly sergeant reported an engagement on the left flank between Private William Brown and the man that puts his hair in papers. A consultation of officers was immediately called and the order about face was given. So excited was our general by the event that when the order to march was given he forgot all about the about face business, and we didn't know that we were going the wrong way until we suddenly found ourselves at the bridge again. A consultation of officers was immediately called and it was determined that, in consequence of the well-known revolution of the world on its axis, the part with the bridge on it had taken a turn while we were halting, and we were ordered to counterbalance the singular phenomena by marching the other way immediately. We had proceeded about one mile when a scout reported that a shower was coming up. A consultation of officers was immediately called and it was determined that a squad should search a neighboring farmhouse for an umbrella for the Brigadier General. The umbrella being obtained without loss of life we pushed on toward Fairfax and soon found ourselves before the works of the enemy. A consultation of officers was immediately called and it was decided that the Brigadier General should climb a tree in order to be able to direct the assault effectively and prevent the appearance of a widow in his family at home. The first regiment, watch-guards, were ordered to reconnoiter the works and Private William Brown had almost succeeded in surrounding a very fat bullet when Colonel Binks put his head out of the window of his fortress and discharged a ten-inch boot-jack at our center. The man that puts his hair in papers was wounded severely on one of his corns and the Brigadier General slid hastily down from the tree and retired to the rear of an adjacent barn. A consultation of officers was immediately called and it was determined to form our brigade into a square and receive the charge of the enemy, who speedily appeared before the breastworks with a pair of tongs in his hands. Reaching forward with the horrid weapon he pulled the nose of our returned Brigadier General with it. A consultation of officers was immediately called and it was determined that death was preferable to defeat. Accordingly the brigade was ordered to advance cautiously upon the enemy, while the orderly sergeant was sent to harass his rear and turn his flank if possible. Our Brigadier General attempted to lead the charge but made a mistake about the direction again and had galloped half a mile toward where we came from before he could be convinced of his mistake. Seeing us descending upon him at last like an avalanche, the enemy deployed to the right and poured in a volley of cusses, throwing our right column into confusion and wounding the delicacy of our chaplain. A consultation of officers was immediately called and it was determined to make one more dash. We were formed into the shape of a bunch of radishes. The Brigadier General retired a distance of two miles to encourage us and we poured down upon the foe with irresistible force. His ranks were broken by the impetuosity of our charge and he scattered and fled in dismay. The engagement then became general and in a little while we were on our victorious way to Washington again with a hundred and fifty rebel prisoners. Our captives were chickens in excellent condition for dressing and their appearance so delighted our Brigadier General whom we found sharpening his sword on the bottom of his boot some miles away that a consultation of officers was immediately called and it was determined to cook and eat them immediately lest the President should administer the oath of allegiance to them and discharge them in the morning. Yours victoriously, Orpheus C. Kerr. End of letter seven. Letter eight of Orpheus C. Kerr papers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr papers by Robert Henry Newell. Letter eight. The rejected national hymns. Washington DC June 30 1861. Immediately after mailing my last to you, I secured a short furlough and proceeded to New York to examine into the affairs of that venerable committee which had offered a prize of $500 for the best national hymn. Upon going into literary circles, my boy, no less than 50 acknowledged poets confidentially informed me that the idea of bribing the muse to be solemnly patriotic was altogether too vulgar to be tolerated for a moment by writers of reputation. And a whole swarm of poets never acknowledged by anybody were human enough to say that $500 was not a small sum in these times, but they hadn't come to that yet, you know. One very poor Bohemian, my boy, whose scathing sarcasm at the expense of those degraded creatures who prefer wealth to intellect has often delighted and improved the public mind was so rash as to intimate that the importunities of his laundress might drive him to the desperate resource of competing for the prize, but he was quickly made to blush for the unworthy thought by the undisguised contempt for his damned lowness, displayed by a decayed young gentleman in a dirty collar and a very new necktie who lives in a two-pair back in Worcester Street, fish-balls and a roll twice a day, and writes graphic sketches of fashionable life for the wholesale market. And yet, notwithstanding all this high-mindedness, my boy, there is an immense amount of some sort of genius insidiously pitted against the contemptible $500. Astounding and distracting to relate, the committee announces the reception of no less than 1150 anthems. The magnitude of 1150 anthems is almost more than one human mind can grasp. Allowing that each anthem is a quarter of a yard long, we have a grand total of 287.5 yards of anthem. Allowing that each anthem weighs half a pound, intellectually and materially, I find a gross weight of 575 pounds of anthem. Let the reflective mind consider these figures for a moment, and it will be stricken with a sense of the singular resemblance between genius and other marketable commodities. 1150 anthems are enough to prove that genius has its private mercenary weaknesses as well as trade, my boy, and that brains can be bought by the yard as well as calico. Genius may carry with it a seeming contempt for the yellow dross of common humanity, but it has to pay its occasional washerwoman. And all these anthems are rejected by the venerable committee. But must they all therefore be lost to the world? I hope not, my boy. I hope not. Having some acquaintance with the discriminating rag merchant to whom they were turned over as rejected, I have procured some of the best, from which to quote for your special edification. Imprimise, my boy, observe this national anthem by H. W. L. of Cambridge. Back in the years when Flagstaff the Dane was monarch, over the sea-ribbed land of the fleet-footed Norsemen, once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens, Ursa, the noblest of all the Vikings and horsemen. Musing, he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon, where the aurora lapped stars in a north polar manner. Wildly he started, for there in the heavens before him fluttered and flew the original star-spangled banner. The committee have two objections to this. In the first place, it is not an anthem at all. Secondly, it is a gross plagiarism from an old Scandinavian whoresong of the primeval ages. Next I present a national anthem by the Honourable Edward E. of Boston. Ponderous projectiles hurled by heavy hands fell on our liberty's poor infant head ere she a stadium had well advanced. On the great path that to her greatness led, her temple's propellant was shattered yet thanks to saving grace and Washington her incubus was from her bosom hurled and rising like a cloud-dispelling sun she took the oil with which her hair was curled to grease the hub round which revolves the world. This fine production is rather heavy for an anthem and contains too much of Boston to be considered strictly national. To set such an anthem to music would require a Wagner and even were it really accommodated to a tune it could only be whistled by the populace. We now come to a national anthem by John Greenleaf W. My native land, thy puritanic stock, still finds its roots firm bound in Plymouth Rock and all thy sons unite in one grand wish to keep the virtues of preserved fish. Preserved fish, the deacons stern and true, told our New England what her sons should do and should they swerve from loyalty and right then the whole land were lost indeed in night. The sectional bias of this anthem renders it unsuitable for use in that small margin of the world situated outside of New England. Hence the above must be rejected. Here we have a very curious national anthem by Dr. Oliver Wendell H. A diagnosis of our history proves our native land a land its native loves, its birth a deed obstetric without peer, its growth a source of wonder far and near. To love it more behold how foreign shores sink into nothingness beside its stores, hide park at best, though counted ultra-grand, the Boston common of Victoria's land. The committee must not be blamed for rejecting the above after reading thus far, for such an anthem could only be sung by a college of surgeons or a Beacon Street Tea Party. Can we now to a national anthem by Ralph Waldo E. Source immaterial of material not, focus of light infinitesimal, some of all things by sleepless nature wrought, of which abnormal man is decimal. Refract in prism immortal from thy stars, to the stars blunt incipient on our flag, the beam translucent, nutrifying death, and raised to immortality the rag. This anthem was greatly praised by a celebrated German scholar, but the committee felt obliged to reject it on account of its two childish simplicity. Here we have a national anthem by William Cullen B. The sun sinks softly to his evening post, the sun swells grandly to his morning crown, yet not a star our flag of heaven has lost, and not a sunset stripe with him goes down. So thrones may fall, and from the dust of those new thrones may rise, to totter like the last, but still our country's nobler planet glows, while the eternal stars of heaven are fast. Upon finding that this did not go well to the air of Yankee Doodle, the committee felt justified in declining it, being further more prejudiced against it by suspicion that the poet has crowded an advertisement of a paper which he edits into the first line. Next we quote from a national anthem by General George P. M. In the days that tried our fathers many years ago, our fair land achieved her freedom, blood-bought, you know. Shall we not defend her ever as we defend, that fair maiden kind and tender calling us friend? Yes, let all the echoes answer from hill and veil. Yes, let other nations hearing joy in the tale. Our Columbia is a lady, high-born and fair. We have sworn allegiance to her. Touch her who dare. The tone of this anthem not being devotional enough to suit the committee, it should be printed on an edition of Lenin-Cambrick handkerchiefs for ladies especially. Observe this national anthem by N. P. W. In hue of our flag is taken from the cheeks of my blushing pet, and its stars beat time and sparkle like the studs on her chemisette. Its blue is the ocean shadow that hides in her dreamy eyes, it conquers all men like her, and still for a union flies. While members of the committee being pious, it is not strange that this anthem has too much of the Anacrian spice to suit them. We next peruse a national anthem by Thomas Bailey A. The little brown squirrel hops in the corn, the cricket quaintly sings. The emerald pigeon nods his head, and the shad in the river springs. The dainty sunflower hangs its head on the shore of the summer sea, and better far that I were dead if Maud did not love me. I love the squirrel that hops in the corn and the cricket that quaintly sings, and the emerald pigeon that nods his head and the shad that gaily springs. I love the dainty sunflower too and Maud with her snowy breast. I love them all, but I love, I love, I love my country best. This is certainly very beautiful and sounds somewhat like Tennyson. Though it was rejected by the committee, it can never lose its value as a piece of excellent reading for children. It is calculated to fill the youthful mind with patriotism and natural history, besides touching the youthful heart with an emotion palpitating for all. Notice the following national anthem by R. H. Stod. The hold the flag, is it not a flag? Deny it, man, if you dare, and midway spread, twixt earth and sky, it hangs like a written prayer. Would impious hand of foe disturb its memory's holy spell, and blight it with a dew of blood? Ha, traitor, it is well. And this is the last of the rejected anthems I can quote from at present, my boy, though several hundred pounds yet remain untouched. Yours, questioningly, Orpheus C. Kerr. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr Papers by Robert Henry Newell, Letter 9. In which our correspondent temporarily digresses for more matters to romantic literature and introduces a woman's novel. Washington, D.C., July 1861. While the Grand Army is making its preparations for an advance upon the Southern Confederacy, my boy, and the celebrated fowl of our distracted country is getting ready his spurs, let me distract your attention for a moment to the subject of harrowing romance as inflicted by the intellectual women of America. To soothe and instruct me in my leisure and more ebrious moments, one of the ink comparable women of America has sent me her new novel to read, and before I allow you to enjoy its green leaves, my boy, you must permit me to make a few remarks concerning the generality of such works. Long and patient study of womanly works teaches me that woman's genius, as displayed in gushing fiction, is a power of creating an unnatural and unmitigated ruffian for a hero, my boy, at whose shrine all created crinoline and immense delegations of inferior broadcloth are impelled to bow. Such a one was that old humbug Rochester, the beloved of Jane Eyre. The character has been done over scores of times since poor Charlotte Bronte gave her famous novel to the world, and is still much used in respectable families. The great difficulty with the intellectual women of America is that they will persist in attempting to delineate a phase of manly character which attracts them above all others, but which they do not comprehend. Woman entertains a natural fondness for that which she cannot understand, and hence it is that we very seldom find her without a wildly vague admiration of Emerson. There is in this world, my boy, a noble type of manhood which unites dignified reserve with the most loyal integrity, relentless pride of manner with the kindest humility of heart, rigid indifference to the applause of the world with the finest regard for its honest respect, and carelessness of woman's mere frivolous liking with the most profound and chivalrous reverence for her virtues and her love. This is the type which, without comprehending it, the intellectual women of America are continually striving to depict in their novels, and a pretty mess they make of it, my boy, a pretty mess they make of it. Their Rochester hero is harder to understand than Hamlet when he falls into the hands of our schoolgirl authorises. He looms rakeishly upon us, my boy, a horridly misanthropic wretch despising the world with all the dreadful malignity of chronic dyspepsia and displaying a degree of moral biliousness truly horrifying to members of the church. His behaviour to the poor little heroine is a perpetual outrage. Alternately he caresses and snubs her. He never fails to make her read to him when he traps her in the library, and when she says good night to him he is too deep in a fit of gloomy abstraction to answer her civilly. If he calls her a little fool, her fondness for him becomes ecstatic, and that the first tent of his having murdered a noble brother and two beautiful sisters in early life she has led to fear that her adoration of him will exceed the love she owes to her maker. This unprincipled ruffian may be separated from the virtuous little heroine for years, and be flirting consumedly with half a dozen crinolines when next she sees him. Yet he is loved dearly by the virtuous little heroine all the time, and when last we hear of him she is resting peacefully upon his vest pattern. What makes the inconsistency of the whole story still more apparent is the intense and double-refined piety of the heroine as contrasted with an utter stagnation of all morality in the breast of the ruffian. How the two can assimilate I do not understand, and my misunderstanding is woefully augmented by the heroine's frequent expressions of churchliness and the ruffian's equally frequent outbursts of waggish infidelity. And now, my boy, let me transcribe for you the new novel sent to me with such kind intent by one of the young and intellectual women of America. You will find much lusciousness of sentiment, my boy, in Higgins, an autobiography by Gushalina Cruschett. Preface In writing the ensuing pages I have been guided by no motives other than those which lead the mind in its leisure hours to scatter the germs of the beautiful. It may be urged that the character of my hero is unnatural, but I am sure there are many of my sex who will discover in Mr. Higgins a counterpart of the ideal of days when life still knew the odors of its first spring, and the soul of man seemed to the eye of innocence an elysium of virtue into which no gangrene of mere worldliness intruded. CHAPTER I It was on the eve of a day in the happy month of June that my great grandfather's carriage, drawn by six hundred and twenty-two white horses, drew up under the tall palms before the gates of the venerable Higgins Lodge, and I was lifted almost fainting from the wearied vehicle. As my grandfather supported my trembling steps into the spacious hall of the lodge, I noticed that another figure had been added to our party. It was that of a man six feet high, and broad in proportion, whose majestic and spacious brow betokened realms of Elysian thought and exquisite ideality. His pallid tresses hung and curls down his back, and an American flag floated from his Herculian shoulders. Fixed by a fascination only to be realized by those who have felt so, I cast my piercing glance at him, and my inmost soul knew all his sublimity. It was as though an angel's wing had swept my temples and left a glittering pinion there. Mr. Higgins, said my grandfather, here is your ward, Galashiana. For an instant silence prevailed. Then Mr. Higgins said, in tones of exquisitely modulated thunder, What did you bring the damn girl here for, you old cuss-you? It was as when one sees a strain of music. I remembered the prayers of my dear departed mother when she sought to enlighten my speechless infancy with divine grace, and I felt that I loved this Higgins, such as life. We wander through the bowers of love without a thought of the morrow, while the dread vulture of predestination eats into our souls and cries, Woe, woe! Truly earthly happiness is a mockery. CHAPTER II Scarcely had I taken my seat in the library after my grandfather had left us when Mr. Higgins ordered me to black his boots. This I proceeded to do with a haughty air, scarcely daring to hope, but wishing that he would conquer his freezing reserve and speak to me again. For I was but a child, and my young heart yearned for sympathy. Presently Mr. Higgins turned his large gray eyes on me and said, Ha! After this he remained in a thoughtful reverie for two hours, and then turning to me asked, Galashiana, what do you think of me? I think, replied I, carefully putting the blacking brush in its place, that your nature is naturally a noble one, but has been warped and shadowed by a misconceived impression of the great arcana of the universe. You permit the genuflections of human sin to bias your mind in its estimate of the true economy of creation, thus spliting as it were the fructifying evidences of your own abstract being. I blushed and feared I had gone too far. Very true, responded Mr. Higgins after a moment's pause. Shiller says nearly the same thing. It was a sense of man's utter nothingness that led me to kill my grandmother, and poison the helpless offspring of my elder brother. Here Mr. Higgins held down his head and quivered with emotions, as the ocean quakes under the shrieking howl of the blast. I felt my whole being convulsed, and could not endure the spectacle. I stole softly to the door, and stammered through my tears. Good night, Mr. Higgins. I will pray for you. He did not turn his noble head, but said in firm tones, Poor little beast, good night. I went to my room, but could not sleep. Shortly after half-past two o'clock, I crawled noiselessly down to the library door and looked in. Mr. Higgins still sat before the fire in the same thoughtful position. Poor little beast, I heard him murmur softly to himself. Poor little beast. CHAPTER III Let the reader transport himself to a small stone cottage on the Hudson, and he will behold me as I was at the age of twenty-one. I had reached that acme of woman's career when common senses to her as nothing, and the world with all its follies burst upon her ravished ears with tenfold succulents. My grandfather had been dead some fifty years, and I was even thinking of him when the door opened and Mr. Higgins entered. I felt my heart palpitate, and was about to quit the room, when he cast a searching glance at me and said, Well, girl, are you as big a fool as ever? I hung my head for the tell-tale blush wood-bloom. Come, said Mr. Higgins, don't speak like a donkey. I'm no priestly confessor. Curse the priests. Curse the world. Curse everybody. Curse everything. And he placed his feet upon the mantelpiece and gazed meditatively into the fire. I could hear the beatings of my own heart, and all the warmth of my nature went forth to meet this sublime embodiment of human majesty, yet I dared not speak. After a short silence Mr. Higgins took a chew of tobacco, and placing his hand on my shoulder exclaimed, Why should I deceive you, girl? Last night I poisoned my only remaining sister, because she would have wed a circus-keeper. And scarcely an hour ago I lost two millions at Farrow. Your priests would say this was wrong, hey? I stifled my sobs and said as calmly as I could. Our church looks at the motive, not the deed. If a high sense of honour compelled you to poison all your relatives and play Farrow, the sin was rather the effect of vice in others than in your own noble heart, and I doubt not you may be called innocent. He glanced into the fire a few hours and then said, Go, Galashiana! I would be alone. Go, innocent young scorpion! Oh, Higgins! Higgins! If I could have died for thee then I don't know, but I should have done it. CHAPTER IV Seventy-five years have rolled by since last I met the reader, but I am still a thoughtless girl. But oh, how changed! The raven of despair has flapped his hideous brood over the halls of my ancestors and has taken from them all that once made them beautiful. When I look back I can see nothing before me, and when I look forward I can see nothing behind me. Thus it is with life. We fancy that each hour is a butterfly made to play with, and all is gall and bitterness. I was chastened by misfortune and occupied a secluded cavern in the city of New Orleans, when my faithful old nurse entered my dressing-room and burst into a fit of hysterical laughter. Sassafrina! I exclaimed half angrily. Please don't be angry, miss! responded the tried old creature. But I knew it would come all right at last. I told you Sir Claude Higgins hadn't married his youngest sister, but you wouldn't believe me. Now he's downstairs in the parlor waiting for you. And the attached domestic fell dead at my feet. After hastily putting on a pair of clean stockings and reading a chapter in my mother's family Bible, I left the room, murmuring to myself, be still, my throbbing heart, be still. CHAPTER V When I entered the parlor, Mr. Higgins sat gazing into the fire in an attitude of deep reflection, and did not note my entrance until I had touched him. His disheveled hair hung from his massive temples in majestic discomposure, and an extinguished torch lace mouldering at his glorious feet. Oh, my soul's idle! I can see thee now as I saw thee then, with the firelight glowing over thee like a smile from the cerulean skies. As I touched him he awoke. Miserable girl, he exclaimed, in those old familiar tones, drawing me towards him, while a delicious tremor shook my every nerve. Wretched little serpent! And is it thus we meet? Poor idiot! You are but a woman, and I, alas, what am I? Two hours ago I set fire to three churches, and crushed a sexton beneath my iron heel. Do you not shrink, Tiswell? Then hear me, Viper, I lovest thee. Was it the music of a higher sphere that I smelt, or was I still in this world of folly and sin? And were all my toils, my cares, my heart-breathings, my hopesabines, my soul writhings to end thus gloriously at last in the adoration of a being on whom I lavished all the spirit's purest gloatings? My bliss was more than I could endure. Tearing all the hairpins from my hair, and tying my pocket-hankerchief about my heaving neck, I flung myself upon his steaming chest. My higgins, your higgins, our higgins, the blissful finny. The intellectual women of America draw it rather tempestuously when they try to reproduce gorgeous manhood. But they mean well, my boy, they mean well. Yours in a brown study, Orpheus C. Kerr. End of Letter 9. Letter 10 of Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr Papers by Robert Henry Newell, Letter 10. Making conservative mention of the Battle of Bull Run and its events, the Fire Zouave's version of the affair and so on. Washington, DC, July 28, 1861. We have met the enemy at last, my boy, but I don't see that he's ours. We went after him with flying banners, and I noticed when we came back that they were flying still. Honor to the brave who fell on that bloody field. And may we kill enough secessionists to give each of them a monument of southern skulls. I was present at the great battle, my boy, and appointed myself a special guard of one of the baggage wagons in the extreme rare. The driver saw me coming and says he, you can't cut behind this here, weakle, my fine little boy. I looked at him for a moment after the manner of the late great actor Mr. Kirby, and says I, Soldier hast thou a wife? says he, I reckon. And sixteen small children? says he. There was only fifteen when last heard from. Soldier says I, were you to die before to-morrow? What would be your last request? Here I shed two tears. It would be, says he, that some kind friend would take the job of walloping my offspring for a year on contract and finding my beloved wife in subjects to jaw about. Soldier says I, I'm your friend and brother, let me occupy a seat by your side. And he didn't let me do it. Just at this moment something burst, and I found myself going up at the rate of two steeples and a shot-tower a second. I met a fire-swav on the way down, and says he, Toehead, if you see any of our boys up where you're going to just tell them to hurry down, for there's going to be a row, and nine fellers will take that ear four gun-hydrant from the secessures in less time than you can reel two yards of hose. As I was very tired I did not go all the way up, but turned back at the first cloud and returned hastily to the scene of strife. I happened to light on a very fat secessure, who was doing a little running for exercise. Down he went with me on top of him. He was dreadfully scared, but says he to me, I've seen you before by the gods. I winked at him and commenced to sharpen my sword on a stone. Tell me, says he, had you a female mother? I had, says I. And a masculine father? He wore britches. Then you are my long-lost grandfather, says the secessure, endeavoring to embrace me. It won't do, says I. I've been to the Bowery Theater myself, and with that I took off his necktie and wiped my nose with it. This action was so repugnant to the feelings of a southern gentleman that he immediately died on my hands, and there I left him. It was my first personal victory in this unnatural war, my boy, and as I walked away I thought sadly of the domestic circle in the southern Confederacy that might be waiting anxiously, tearfully, for the husband and father, him who I had morally assassinated. And there he sprawled, denied even the simple privilege of extending a parting blessing to his children. Under ordinary circumstances, my boy, there's something deeply affecting in the dying Southerners farewell to his son. My boy, my lion-hearted boy, your father's end draws near. Already is your loss begun, and curse it, there's a tear. I've sought to bring you up my son a credit to the south, and all your poker games have been an honor to us both. Though scarcely sixteen years of age your bowies tickled more than many Southerners I know at fifty and three score. You've whipped your nigger handsomely and chewed your plug a day, and when I hear you swear, my son, what pride my eyes betray. And now that I must leave the world my dying words attend, but first a chew of nigger head, and cut it near the end. To you the old plantation goes, with mortgage tax and all, though compound interest on that first will make the profits small. The niggers to your mother go, and if she wants to sail, you might contrive to buy her out should all the crops grow well. I leave you all my debts, my son, to Yankees chiefly do, but curse the black Republicans that needn't trouble you. A true-born southern gentleman disdains the vulgar thought of paying like a Yankee clerk for what is sold and bought. Leave that to storekeepers and fools who never banked a card. We pay our debts of honor, boy, though pressed, however hard. Last summer at the north I bought some nigger hats and shoes, and gave my note for ninety days. Forget it if you choose. The Yankee mudsills would not have such articles to sell if southern liberality had fattened them less well. The northern dun we hung last week had twenty dollars clear, and that, my son, is all the cash I have to give you here. But that's enough to make a start, and if you pick your boat, a Mississippi trip or two will set you all afloat. You play a screaming hand, my son, and push an ugly cue. Oh, these are the thoughts that make me feel as dying Christians do. Keep cool, my lying-hearted boy, till second ace is played, and then call out for brandy-sour as though your pile was made. The other chaps will think you've got the tiger by the tail, and when you see them looking glum, just call for brandy-pale. I never knew it failed to make some green one go it blind, and when the first slip-up is made, it's all your own you'll find. My breath comes hard, I'm yukered, boy. First families must die. I leave you in your innocence, and here's the last goodbye. Shortly after the event I have recorded, I was examining the back of a house near the battlefield to see if it corresponded with the front when another fire-zuwaf came along and says he, It's my opine that you're sticking rather too thick to the rear of that house to be much pumpkins in a moth. Why don't you go to the front like a man? My boy, says I, this is the house of a predominant rebel, and I'm detailed to watch the back door. With that the zuwaf was taken with such a dreadful fit of coughing that he had to move on to get his breath, and I was left alone once more. These fire-zuwaves, my boy, have a perversity about them not to be repressed. They were neck and neck with the rest of us in our stampede back to this city, and yet, my boy, they refused to consider the United States of America worsted. Here is the version of Bull Run by a fire-zuwaf. Oh, it's all very well for you fellers that don't know a fire from the sun to curl your moustaches and tell us just how the thing ought to be done. But when twenty wake up ninety thousand, there's nothing can follow but rout. We didn't give in till we had to, and what are you coughing about? The crowd that was with them here rebels had ten to our every man. But a fireman's a fireman, me-covey, and he'll put out a fire if he can. So we run the machine at a gallop, as easy as open and shut, and as fast as one feller went under another kept taken to butt. You ought to seen Farnham that morning, in spite of the shot in the shell, his orders kept ringing around us, as clear as the city hall bell. He said all he could to encourage and lighten the hearts of the men until he was bleeding and wounded, and nary dried up on it then. While two rifle regiments fought us, and batteries tumbled us down, them cursed black horse-fellers charged us like all the dead rabbits in town. And that's just the way with them rebels. It's ten upon one or no fair. But we emptied a few of their saddles. You may bet all your soap on that air. Double-ups is our Colonel quite coolly, when he saw them come riding like mad, and we did double up in a hurry, and let them have all that we had. They came at us counting a hundred, and scarcely two dozen went back. So you see if they bluffed us on aces, we made a big thing with the jack. We fought till red shirts were as plenty as blackberries strewing the grass, and then we fell back for a breathing to let sixty- nines-fellers pass. Perhaps sixty- nine didn't peg them and give them uncommon sheroots. Well, I've just got to say, if they didn't, you fellers can smell of my boots. The Brooklyn Fourteenth was another, and those Minnesota chaps, too, but the odds were too heavy against us, and but one thing was left us to do. We had to make tracks for our quarters, and finished it up pretty rough. But if any chap says that they licked us, I'd just like to polish him off. With the remembrance of the many heroic souls who sacrificed themselves for their country that day, I have not the heart, my boy, to continue the subject. I was routed at about five o'clock in the afternoon and fell back on Washington, where I am now receiving my rations. I don't take the oath with any spirit since then, and a skeleton with nothing on but a havlock is all that is left of, yours emaciatedly, Orpheus C. Kerr. End of Letter 10. Letter 11 of Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Orpheus C. Kerr Papers by Robert Henry Newell, Letter 11. Giving an effect of the new bugle drill in the mackerel brigade, and making some note of the latest improvements in artillery, etc. End in D.C. August 1861. The mackerel brigade, of which I have the honor to be a member, was about the worst demoralized of all the brigades that covered themselves with glory and perspiration at the scrimmage of bull run. In the first place it never had much morals, and when it came to be demoralized it hadn't any, so that ever since the disaster the peasantry in the neighborhood of the camp have been in constant mourning for departed bullets, and one venerable rustic complains that the mackerel pickets milk all his cows every night and come to borrow his churn in the morning. When one of the colonels heard the venerable rustic make this accusation, he says to him, Would you like to be revenged on the men who milk your animals? The venerable rustic took a chew of tobacco and says he, I wouldn't like anything better. The colonel looked at him sadly for a moment and then remarked, Aged stranger, you are already revenged. The men who milked your animals are all from New York, where they had been accustomed to drink milk composed principally of croton water. Upon drinking the pure article furnished by your gentle beastesses they were all taken violently sick and are now lying at the point of illness expecting every moment to be their first. The venerable rustic was so affected by this intelligence that he immediately went home in tears. The new bugle drill is a very good idea, my boy, and our lads will probably become accustomed to it by the time they get used to it. The colonel of Regiment Five likes it so much that he has substituted the bugle for the drum even. The other morning, when he tried it on for the first time, I was just entering the tent of one of the captains to take the oath with him when the bugle sounded the order to turn out. Ah! says the captain when he heard it. We're going to have fish for breakfast at last. I hope it's poor geese, says he, for I'm uncommon fond of poor geese. Why, what are you talking about, says I. You innocent lamb, says he. Didn't you hear that ear, fishhorn? It said, poor geese, as plain as could be. Why, that's the bugle, says I, and it sounded the order to turn out. He took his disappointment very severely, my boy, for he was really very fond of poor geese. By invitation of a well-known official I visited the Navy Yard yesterday and witnessed the trial of some newly invented rifled cannon. The trial was of short duration, and the jury brought in a verdict of innocent of any intent to kill. The first gun tried was similar to those used in the Revolution, except that it had a larger touch-hole, and the carriage was painted green instead of blue. This novel and ingenious weapon was pointed at a target about sixty yards distant. It didn't hit it, and as nobody saw any ball, there was much perplexity expressed. A mid-shipman did say that he thought the ball must have run out of the touch-hole when they loaded up, for which he was instantly expelled from the service. After a long search without finding the ball, there was some thought of summoning the naval retiring board to decide on the matter when somebody happened to look into the mouth of the cannon and discovered that the ball hadn't gone out at all. The inventor said this would happen sometimes, especially if you didn't put a brick over the touch-hole when you fired the gun. The government was so pleased with this explanation that it ordered forty of the guns on the spot at two hundred thousand dollars apiece, the guns to be furnished as soon as the war is over. The next weapon tried was Jink's double back-action revolving cannon for ferry-boats. It consists of a heavy bronze tube revolving on a pivot with both ends open and a touch-hole in the middle. While one gunner puts a load in at one end, another puts in a load at the other end, and one touch-hole serves for both. Upon applying the match, the gun is whirled swiftly around on a pivot and both balls fly out in circles, causing great slaughter on both sides. This terrible engine was aimed at the target with great accuracy, but as the gunner has a large family dependent on him for support he refused to apply the match. The government was satisfied with outfiring and ordered six of the guns at a million of dollars apiece, the guns to be furnished in time for our next war. The last weapon subjected to trial was a mountain howitzer of a new pattern. The inventor explained that its great advantage was that it required no powder. In battle it is placed on the top of a high mountain and a ball slipped loosely into it. As the enemy passes the foot of the mountain, the gunner in charge tips over the howitzer and the ball rolls down the side of the mountain into the midst of the doomed foe. The range of this terrible weapon depends greatly on the height of the mountain and the distance to its base. The government ordered forty of these mountain howitzers at a hundred thousand dollars apiece to be planted on the first mountains discovered in the enemy's country. These are great times for gunsmith, my boy, and if you find any old cannon around the junk shops, just send them along. There is much sensation in nautical circles arising from the immoral conduct of the rebel privateers, but public feeling has been somewhat easier since the invention of a craft for capturing the pirates by an ingenious Connecticut chap. Yesterday he exhibited a small model of it at a cabinet meeting and explained it thus. "'You will perceive,' says he to the President, that the machine itself will only be four times the size of the Great Eastern, and need not cost over a few millions of dollars. I've only got to discover one thing before I can make it perfect. You will observe that it has a steam engine on board. This engine works a pair of immense iron clamps which are let down into the water from the extreme end of a very lengthy horizontal spar. Upon approaching the pirate the captain orders the engineer to put on steam. Instantly the clamps descend from the end of the spar and clutch the privateer of thwart ships. Then the engine is reversed, the privateer is lifted bodily out of the water, the spar swings around over the deck, and the pirate ship is let down into the hold by the run. Then shut your hatches, and you have ship and pirates safe and sound. The President's gothic features lighted up beautifully at the words of the Great Inventor, but in a moment they assumed an expression of doubt, and says he, but how are you going to manage if the privateer fires upon you while you were doing this? My dear sir, says the Inventor, I told you I had only one thing to discover before I could make the machine perfect, and that's it. So you see, my boy, there's a prospect of our doing something on the ocean next century, and there's only one thing in the way of our taking in pirates by the cargo. Last evening a new Brigadier General, aged ninety-four years, made a speech to Regiment Five, Mackerel Brigade, and then furnished each man with a lead pencil. He said that, as the government was disappointed about receiving some provisions it had ordered for the troops, those pencils were intended to enable them to draw their rations as usual. I got a very big pencil, my boy, and have lived on a sheet of paper ever since. Yours, pensively, or if you see Kerr. End of letter eleven.