I

CHAPTER III.

IN CAMP, MORRIS ISLAND, S. C., Aug. 20, 1868.

REGRET to have to inform you that the publi

cation in your columns of the song written by Private Miles O'Reilly of the 47th regiment New York Volunteers, has only led to the still severer treatment of that imprisoned bard. Had I foreseen, when sending you the song for your private amuse

ment, that it could by any possibility have occurred to you to put it on record in the N. Y. Herald, my sincere sympathy for the prisoner would have led me to caution you against the adoption of such a course. Now that the thing has become matter of public notoriety, General A. H. Terry, commanding the Post, has nothing for it but to let O'Reilly suffer the penalty of his offence; nor could General Gillmore, with propriety or delicacy interpose the prerogative of his clemency in regard to a crime of which the particulars have been so widely bruited. The balls, therefore, must remain on poor Miles for some time, and all the rigors of his confinement have been, if anything, increased. He is now attended by Chaplain Hudson, of the New York Volunteer Engineers, formerly well known in your city as a minister of the Gospel, and lecturer on the beauties of Shakspeare. Between Miles and the chaplain a very tender sentiment of esteem is said to have been developed; and it was upon Mr. Hudson's intercession that General Gillmore finally consented to forward O'Reilly's petition (of which I spoke in my last) to the Secretary of War. The first song having been unfortunately published, it can do no further injury to let the petitioner's defence of himself, see the light.

What disposition will be made of it by Mr. Stanton, all down here are at a loss to imagine. Some think that, if the President's attention could be called to the case, his own proclivity to a joke might make him look with leniency on the luckless rhymer of Morris Island. The petition reads as follows, but to appreciate its true pathos and humor one should hear O'Reilly sing it himself. His recitative of the parts in parenthesis has never been surpassed :

MEMORIAL OF PRIVATE MILES O'REILLY, NOW AN ONLUOKY PRISONER

IN THE GUARDHOUSE.

To His Excellency the Right Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Esq., and all others whom it may concern:

AIR-" The Fine Ould English Gentleman."

I'll sing to you a navy song

Made by a soldier's pate,

Of a galliant, grim ould Admiral,

Whom iron jobbers hate

Because he couldn't, or didn't, or wouldn't

Some fibs in their favor state:

For which he has several big black marks

(Wid no end of notes of disadmiration, an' great big, ugly criss crasses forninst his name),

On Uncle Gideon's slate

This galliant, grim ould Admiral,

Wan of the oulden time!

'Twas he who, whin our skies wor dark,

Nigh twinty months ago,

Let rifts of daylight through the clouds

In glorious lusthre flow;

"The fight is done! Port Royal won !"

Och, didn't the counthry crow,

An' didn't ould Uncle Gideon

(Aye, and all the administhration organs, big and little, from Colonel Forney's "Philadelphia Fibber" down to Horace Greeley's very weakly "Thribune")

Of the mighty vic'thry blow,
An' praise the grim ould Admiral,

As "wan of the rale ould time ?"

An' 'twas him that tuk the iron-clads
Last spring aginst Fort Sumther;

And 'twas him that, at seven or eight hundhred yards,

Wid his fifteen-inchers bumped her;

And 'twas Rhind, wid his two big rifled guns

That at half the distance thumped her

While the present Admiral stands off

(At the convaynient perspective distance of two thousand yards or thereabouts, until even the poor forsook ruin of a place seems to grow weary of waitin' for him),

An' don't, by a long shot, come t' her

So near as the grim ould Admiral,

Who is wan of the oulden time!

But now this great ould Admiral

Is laid upon the shelf,
Like a broken chaney taypot

Or a useless piece of delf,

Because he couldn't, or didn't, or wouldn't,

(An' for this, more power to himself!)

Chime in wid them iron-clad jobbers

(Who are down on their bare knees, every mother's son of them, night, noon and mornin', prayin' Heaven or the other place for long life and success to Du Pont's inimies)

In their schaimes for acquirin' pelf

This honest an' thrue ould Admiral,

This type of the bygone time!

An' because on the side of this Admiral,
I used both me tongue an' me pen,
I am now chained up like a un-u-i-corn
In the Provost-Marshal's den,

Wid nothin' but hard tack an' wather-
If it worn't for the Provost's men

Who shmuggle me in, God bless the boys!

(On the sly, do you see, an' just by way of keepin' me sperrits up, an' purventin' me leg-ornamints from takin' the skin off my ankles too much),

Which I dhrink to the great ould Admiral,

Whom I knew in the bygone time.