ave been recreant to our trust in our pontoons.

"Profoundly loyal, and conscious of its strength, the Mackerel
Brigade will give or decline battle whenever it considers the
weather sufficiently pleasant and the newspapers sufficiently
snubbed.

"It will also be the dictator of its own history and the vindicator
of its own legs.

"By our celerity and secrecy of movement, both in crossing and
re-crossing Duck Lake, we neither pursued, nor were pursued by, a
Rebel.

"The events of the last week may swell with pride the feet of every
officer and soldier in this Brigade.

"We have made long marches and countermarches, crossed and
re-crossed lakes, surprised the enemy by our advance, brought back
seven pieces of our artillery, and given heavier blows than the
wind.

"We have nothing to regret, save the loss of our brave companions,
and in this we may be consoled by the conviction that they fell in
the holiest cause ever left so exclusively to the care of
Providence, that very little human intelligence was deemed
necessary to direct its arbitrament in battle.

"(Blue Seal.)

"THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE."

As we consider the vast world of animated nature, my boy, and mark what
apparent simplicity there is in the structure of beast, bird, and
reptile, does it not seem exceedingly strange, that all of man's
vaunted ingenuity has thus far succeeded in making imitative
approximation only to the insect kingdom,--the apparently least
difficult of all,--and to _that_ only by such a spurious kind of a bug
as Humbug?

Yours, wonderingly,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER XCV.

NOTING THE CONTINUED ANGUISH OF THE CONSERVATIVE KENTUCKY CHAP, AND
THE DEATH OF NEMO; AND DESCRIBING AN IMMENSE POPULAR DEMONSTRATION
AGAINST THE OUTRAGES OF FEDERAL OPPRESSION.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 24th, 1863.

The beautiful Spring, my boy, is out in the sunshine once more,--bowing
her pretty face over her lap, as though to breathe the odor of the
fresh violets lying scattered upon her coquettish green apron, but
really to hide the blush mantling the cheeks on which the hot breath of
enamored young Summer is tempting the roses to premature birth. What a
fine old world this is, after all, if we have plenty of money in our
pockets, plenty of health in our systems, and no poor relations! As you
stand on the Arlington side of the Poto