le to the sight of our strategic
great men.

(I turn a pretty sharp corner in that last sentence, my boy; but that
is only safe strategy when you find your argument getting ahead of
you.)

It was high noon when I reached the Mackerel camp, and I found the
spectacled veterans hastily preparing to cross Duck Lake after the
manner of aquatic warriors. By some strange fatality, all the pontoons
were at hand in time, greatly to the distress of our more venerable
troops, who seemed to fear that such unheard-of punctuality must be an
evil omen. As there were a great many pontoons, and it was not deemed
best to waste any of them, two bridges were built instead of one,--it
being considered that, inasmuch as it was purposed to surprise the
unseemly Confederacies on the other side, two bridges would be just
twice as surprising to them as one would be. There was logic in this
idea, my boy--much logic and consummate strategy.

Gazing across the expanse of waters, I beheld a couple of regiments of
Confederacies playing poker on the bank, and says I to Villiam Brown,
who was at that moment returning a small black bottle to his holster:

"Tell me, my fearless blue-back, how this can possibly be a surprise,
when yonder gray-backs are looking on all the time?"

"Ah!" says Villiam, with much loftiness of demeanor; "you are but an
ignorant civilian inseck, and know nothing about war. The movement,"
says Villiam, placidly, "is intended as a surprise to the enemy, upon
the principle that any movement whatever of this Army must surprise
everybody."

I was reflecting seriously upon this unanswerable explanation of
profound strategy, my boy, when Captain Bob Shorty came rattling up
with a paper in his hand, and says he: "Attention, Company! while I
read a document calculated to restrain the licentiousness of a corrupt
and vicious press:

"GENERAL ORDER.

"For the purpose of preventing the transmission of all news not
previously published in the morning journals of the so-called
Southern Confederacy, it has been determined by the General
Commanding to require all correspondents of the press to affix
their full names, ages, and addresses to whatever matter they
transmit for publication, thus giving to the journals of our time
the double character of newspaper and business-directory. Reporters
having vulgar names, like Jones, Smith, or Stiggins, will be at
liberty to assume the names borne by the