across Duck Lake again, and the
new General sent his resignation to Washington. It was refused, as
unnecessary; and the General then devised a plan for startling the
whole country, by organizing the Anatomical Cavalry upon an
equestrian basis, and making a raid upon some Confederate oats
known to be somewhere in the daily journals. The secret of this
movement was confided to but three parties,--the Honest Abe, the
Southern Confederacy, and the public; but before the move could
take place it was divulged and frustrated. The General then sent in
his resignation, which was refused as unnecessary. It was
subsequent to this that a third great movement was arranged, when a
shower came up suddenly, and it had to be abandoned. It was upon
this occasion that the General sent in his resignation, when it was
refused as unnecessary. Simultaneously, as it were, the officer
popularly known as the Grim Old Fighting Cox, was appointed to the
command, and here our exciting tale ends for the present.

"If the above record of a year of the war presents some
discouraging features, it also offers many seeds of hope for the
future, inasmuch as it would appear utterly impossible for the
future to be less fruitful of national triumphs than the past has
been. The greatness of our nation is sufficiently evidenced by the
fact that we are spending two millions of dollars per day; and as
soon as the present rebellion shall have been crushed, the final
defeat of the celebrated Southern Confederacy will become a mere
question of time, and we shall be prepared to commit immediate
assault upon combined Europe.

"V. GAMMON."

Alas! my boy, what can we say to such a revelation of national
strategy? I was thinking over its developments as I wandered listlessly
amongst the deserted Mackerel fortifications this side of Manassas on
Thursday,--I was thinking about it, I say, when my attention was
attracted by a soldier's grave located in the very midst of the
dismantled earthworks. It bore a rude monument of pine-board, on which
the companions of the strategic deceased had written the following
inscription with chalk.

As I read this simple inscription, I could not help thinking how many
Mackerels, like this poor fifer, had rushed from their homes to the
war, panting for victory or honorable death, only to be slowly consumed
by national strategy, and d