Chapter III: Part 3

And passed from mouth to mouth the tale of what grim day just done,
The fight by Round Top’s craggy spur--of all the deadliest one;
It saved the left: but on the right they pressed us back too well,
And like a field in spring the ground was ploughed with shot and
shell.
There was the ancient graveyard, its hummocks crushed and red.
And there, between them, side by side, the wounded and the dead:
The mangled corpses fallen above--the peaceful dead below,
Laid in their graves, to slumber here, a score of years ago;
It seemed their waking, wandering shades were asking of our slain,
What brought such hideous tumult now where they so still had lain!

Bright rose the sun of Gettysburg that morrow morningtide,
And call of trump and roll of drum from height to height replied.
Hark! from the east already goes up the rattling din;
The Twelfth Corps, winning back their ground, right well the day
begin!
They whirl fierce Ewell from their front! Now we of the Second pray,
As right and left the brunt have borne, the centre might to-day.
But all was still from hill to hill for many a breathless hour,
While for the coming battle-shock Lee gathered in his power;
And back and forth our leaders rode, who knew not rest or fear,
And along the lines, where’er they came, went up the ringing cheer.

’Twas past the hour of nooning; the summer skies were blue;
Behind the covering timber the foe was hid from view;
So fair and sweet with waving wheat the pleasant valley lay,
It brought to mind our Northern homes and meadows far away;
When the whole western ridge at once was fringed with fire
and smoke,
Against our lines from seven-score guns the dreadful tempest broke!
Then loud our batteries answer, and far along the crest,
And to and fro the roaring bolts are driven east and west;
Heavy and dark around us glooms the stifling sulphur-cloud,
And the cries of mangled men and horse go up beneath its shroud.

The guns are still: the end is nigh: we grasp our arms anew;
Oh, now let every heart be stanch and every aim be true!
For look! from yonder wood that skirts the valley’s further marge,
The flower of all the Southern host move to the final charge.
By heaven! it is a fearful sight to see their double rank
Come with a hundred battle-flags--a mile from flank to flank!
Tramping the grain to earth, they come, ten thousand men abreast;
Their standards wave--their hearts are brave--they hasten not, nor
rest,
But close the gaps our cannon make, and onward press, and nigher,
And, yelling at our very front, again pour in their fire.

Now burst our sheeted lightnings forth, now all our wrath has vent!
They die, they wither; through and through their wavering lines are
rent.
But these are gallant, desperate men, of our own race and land,
Who charge anew, and welcome death, and fight us hand to hand:
Vain, vain! give way, as well ye may--the crimson die is cast!
Their bravest leaders bite the dust, their strength is failing fast;
They yield, they turn, they fly the field: we smite them as
they run;
Their arms, their colors, are our spoil; the furious fight is done!
Across the plain we follow far and backward push the fray:
Cheer! cheer! the grand old Army at last has won the day!

Hurrah! the day has won the cause! No gray-clad host henceforth
Shall come with fire and sword to tread the highways of the North!
’Twas such a flood as when ye see, along the Atlantic shore,
The great spring-tide roll grandly in with swelling surge and roar:
It seems no wall can stay its leap or balk its wild desire
Beyond the bound that Heaven hath fixed to higher mount, and higher;
But now, when whitest lifts its crest, most loud its billows call,
Touched by the Power that led them on, they fall, and fall,
and fall.
Even thus, unstayed upon his course, to Gettysburg the foe
His legions led, and fought, and fled, and might no further go.

Full many a dark-eyed Southern girl shall weep her lover dead;
But with a price the fight was ours--we too have tears to shed!
The bells that peal our triumph forth anon shall toll the brave,
Above whose heads the cross must stand, the hill-side grasses wave!
Alas! alas! the trampled grass shall thrive another year,
The blossoms on the apple-boughs with each new spring appear,
But when our patriot-soldiers fall, Earth gives them up to God;
Though their souls rise in clearer skies, their forms are as
the sod;
Only their names and deeds are ours--but, for a century yet,
The dead who fell at Gettysburg the land shall not forget.

God send us peace! and where for aye the loved and lost recline
Let fall, O South, your leaves of palm--O North, your sprigs
of pine!
But when, with every ripened year, we keep the harvest-home,
And to the dear Thanksgiving-feast our sons and daughters come--
When children’s children throng the board in the old homestead
spread,
And the bent soldier of these wars is seated at the head,
Long, long the lads shall listen to hear the gray-beard tell
Of those who fought at Gettysburg and stood their ground so well:
“’Twas for the Union and the Flag,” the veteran shall say,
“Our grand old Army held the ridge, and won that glorious day!”

AT GETTYSBURG.

Like a furnace of fire blazed the midsummer sun,
When to saddle we leaped at the order,
Spurred on by the boom of the deep-throated gun
That told of the foe on our border.
A mist in our rear lay Antietam’s dark plain,
And thoughts of its carnage came o’er us;
But smiling beyond surged the fields of ripe grain,
And we swore none should reap it before us.

That night, with the ensign who rode by my side,
On the camp’s dreary edge I stood picket,
Our ears intent lest every wind-rustle hide
A foe’s stealthy tread in the thicket;
And there, while we watched the first arrows of dawn
Through the veil of the rising mists quiver,
He told how the foeman had closed in upon
His home by the Tennessee River.

He spoke of a sire in his weakness cut down,
With his last breath the traitor-flag scorning;
And his brow with the memory grew dark with a frown
That paled the red light of the morning.
For days he had followed the cowardly band;
And, when one lagged to forage or trifle,
Had seared in his forehead the deep Minié brand,
And scored a fresh notch in his rifle.

But one of the rangers had cheated his fate--
For him he would search the world over:
Such cool-plotting passion, such keenness of hate,
Ne’er saw I in woman-scorned lover.
Oh, who would have thought that beneath those dark curls
Lurked vengeance as sure as death-rattle;
Or fancied those dreamy eyes, soft as a girl’s,
Could light with the fury of battle?

To horse! pealed the bugle, while grape-shot and shell
Overhead through the forest were crashing;
A cheer for the flag--and the summer light fell
On the blades from a thousand sheaths flashing.
As mad ocean-waves to the storm-revel flock,
So on we dashed, heedless of dangers;
A moment our long line surged back at the shock,
Then swept through the ranks of the Rangers.

I looked for the ensign. Ahead of his troop,
Pressing on through the conflict infernal,
His torn flag furled round him in festoon and loop,
He spurred to the side of his colonel.
And his clear voice rang out, as I saw his bright sword
Through shako and gaudy plume shiver,
With, “This for the last of the murderous horde!”
And, “This for the home by the river!”

At evening, returned from pursuit of the foe,
By a shell-shattered caisson we found him;
And we buried him there in the sunset’s red glow,
With the dear old flag knotted around him.
Yet how could we mourn, when each drum’s muffled strain
Told of foemen hurled back in disorder,--
When we knew the North reaped her rich harvest of grain,
Unharmed by a foe on her border!

JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG.

BY BRET HARTE.

[A Union officer who was with the Eleventh Corps in
the battle of Gettysburg says: “During the first day’s
fight, an old man, in a swallow-tailed coat and battered
cylinder hat, came stalking across the fields from the
town, and made his appearance at Colonel Stone’s position.
With a musket in his hand and ammunition in his pocket,
this venerable citizen asked Colonel Wister’s permission
to fight. Wister directed him to go over to the Iron
Brigade, where he would be sheltered by the woods; but the
old man insisted on going forward to the skirmish line.
He was allowed to do so, and continued firing until the
skirmishers retired, when he was the last man to leave.
He afterwards fought with the Iron Brigade, where he was
three times wounded. This patriotic and heroic citizen
was Constable John Burns of Gettysburg.”--AUTHOR’S
NOTE.]

Have you heard the story that gossips tell
Of Burns of Gettysburg? No? Ah, well:
Brief is the glory that hero earns,
Briefer the story of poor John Burns;
He was the fellow who won renown--
The only man who didn’t back down
When the rebels rode through his native town;
But held his own in the fight next day,
When all his townsfolk ran away.
That was in July, sixty-three,--
The very day that General Lee,
Flower of Southern chivalry,
Baffled and beaten, backward reeled
From a stubborn Meade and a barren field.

I might tell how, but the day before,
John Burns stood at his cottage-door,
Looking down the village street,
Where, in the shade of his peaceful vine,
He heard the low of his gathered kine,
And felt their breath with incense sweet;
Or, I might say, when the sunset burned
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk that fell like a babbling flood
Into the milk-pail, red as blood;
Or, how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing among the trees.
But all such fanciful thoughts as these
Were strange to a practical man like Burns,
Who minded only his own concerns,
Troubled no more by fancies fine
Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kine,--
Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact,
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
That was the reason, as some folk say,
He fought so well on that terrible day.

And it was terrible. On the right
Raged for hours the heady fight,
Thundered the battery’s double bass--
Difficult music for men to face;
While on the left--where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves
That all the day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the rebels kept--
Round-shot ploughed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there,
Tossed their splinters in the air;
The very trees were stripped and bare;
The barns that once held yellow grain
Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
The cattle bellowed on the plain,
The turkeys screamed with might and main,
And brooding barn-fowl left their rest
With strange shells bursting in each nest.

Just where the tide of battle turns,
Erect and lonely, stood old John Burns.
How do you think the man was dressed?
He wore an ancient, long buff vest,
Yellow as saffron--but his best;
And buttoned over his manly breast
Was a bright-blue coat with a rolling collar,
And large gilt buttons--size of a dollar,--
With tails that the country-folk called “swaller.”
He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.
Never had such a sight been seen
For forty years on the village green,
Since old John Burns was a country beau,
And went to the “quiltings” long ago.

Close at his elbows all that day,
Veterans of the Peninsula,
Sunburnt and bearded, charged away;
And striplings, downy of lip and chin,--
Clerks that the Home-Guard mustered in,--
Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he wore,
Then at the rifle his right hand bore;
And hailed him, from out their youthful lore,
With scraps of a slangy repertoire:
“How are you, White Hat?” “Put her through!”
“Your head’s level!” and “Bully for you!”
Called him “Daddy,”--begged he’d disclose
The name of the tailor who made his clothes,
And what was the value he set on those;
While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff,
Stood there picking the rebels off--
With his long brown rifle, and bell-crowned hat,
And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.

’Twas but a moment, for that respect
Which clothes all courage their voices checked;
And something the wildest could understand
Spake in the old man’s strong right hand,
And his corded throat, and the lurking frown
Of his eyebrows under his old bell-crown;
Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe
Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw,
In the antique vestments and long white hair,
The Past of the Nation in battle there;
And some of the soldiers since declare
That the gleam of his old white hat afar,
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,
That day was their oriflamme of war.

Thus raged the battle. You know the rest;
How the rebels, beaten, and backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge and ran.
At which John Burns-a practical man--
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows.

That is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns:
In fighting the battle, the question’s whether
You’ll show a hat that’s white, or a feather.

WOMAN’S WAR MISSION.

Fold away all your bright-tinted dresses,
Turn the key on your jewels to-day,
And the wealth of your tendril-like tresses
Braid back, in a serious way:
No more delicate gloves, no more laces,
No more trifling in boudoir and bower;
But come with your souls in your faces--
To meet the stern needs of the hour!

Look around! By the torchlight unsteady,
The dead and the dying seem one.
What! paling and trembling already,
Before your dear mission’s begun?
These wounds are more precious than ghastly;
Fame presses her lips to each scar,
As she chants of a glory which vastly
Transcends all the horrors of war.

Pause here by this bedside--how mellow
The light showers down on that brow!
Such a brave, brawny visage!--Poor fellow!
Some homestead is missing him now.
Some wife shades her eyes in the clearing,
Some mother sits moaning, distressed,--
While the loved one lies faint, but unfearing,
With the enemy’s ball in his breast.

Here’s another: a lad--a mere stripling--
Picked up from the field, almost dead;
With the blood through his sunny hair rippling
From a horrible gash in the head.
They say he was first in the action,
Gay-hearted, quick-handed, and witty;
He fought till he fell with exhaustion,
At the gates of our fair Southern city.

Fought and fell ’neath the guns of that city,
With a spirit transcending his years;
Lift him up in your large-hearted pity,
And touch his pale lips with your tears.
Touch him gently--most sacred the duty
Of dressing that poor shattered hand!
God spare him to rise in his beauty,
And battle once more for the land!

Who groaned? What a passionate murmur--
“_In thy mercy, O God, let me die!_”
Ha! surgeon, your hand must be firmer,
That grape-shot has shattered his thigh.
Fling the light on those poor furrowed features,
Gray-haired and unknown--bless the brother!
O God! that one of _thy_ creatures
Should e’er work such woe on another!

Wipe the sweat from his brow with your kerchief;
Let the stain tattered collar go wide,
See! he stretches out blindly to search if
The surgeon still stands at his side.
“_My son’s over yonder! he’s wounded--_
_Oh! this ball that has broken my thigh!_”
And again he burst out, all a-tremble,--
“_In thy mercy, O God! let me die!_”

Pass on! It is useless to linger
While others are claiming your care;
There is need of your delicate finger,
For your womanly sympathy, there!
There are sick ones athirst for caressing--
There are dying ones raving for home--
There are wounds to be bound with a blessing--
And shrouds to make ready for some.

They have gathered about you the harvest
Of death, in its ghastliest view;
The nearest as well as the farthest
Is here with the traitor and true!
And crowned with your beautiful patience,
Made sunny with love at the heart,
You must balsam the wounds of a nation,
Nor falter, nor shrink from your part!

Up and down through the wards, where the fever
Stalks noisome, and gaunt and impure,
You must go with your steadfast endeavor
To comfort, to counsel, to cure!
I grant that the task’s superhuman,
But strength will be given to you
To do for these dear ones what woman
Alone in her pity can do.

And the lips of the mothers will bless you
As angels sweet visaged and pale!
And the little ones run to caress you,
While the wives and the sisters cry “Hail!”
But e’en if you drop down unheeded,
What matter? God’s ways are the best;
You’ve poured out your life where ’twas needed,
And He will take care of the rest.

[Southern.]

THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE.

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more,
From Mississippi’s winding stream and from New England’s shore;
We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and children dear,
With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear;
We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before:
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

If you look across the hill-tops that meet the northern sky,
Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry;
And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,
And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride,
And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour:
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

If you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests shine,
You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line;
And children from their mother’s knees are pulling at the weeds,
And learning how to reap and sow against their country’s needs;
And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door:
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

You have called us, and we’re coming, by Richmond’s bloody tide
To lay us down, for Freedom’s sake, our brothers’ bones beside,
Or from foul treason’s savage grasp to wrench the murderous blade,
And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.
Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before:
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

LEE TO THE REAR.

BY JOHN R. THOMPSON.

[During the battles in the Wilderness at the beginning of
the campaign of 1864, General Robert E. Lee, impressed with
the desperate necessity of carrying a certain peculiarly
difficult position, seized the colors of a Texas regiment
and undertook to lead the perilous assault in person. The
troops and their colonel remonstrated with vehemence, the
colonel, in his men’s behalf, pledging the regiment to
carry the position if General Lee would retire. The troops
advanced to the charge shouting “Lee to the Rear!” as a
sort of battle cry.--EDITOR.]

Dawn of a pleasant morning in May
Broke through the Wilderness cool and gray;
While perched in the tallest tree-tops, the birds
Were carolling Mendelssohn’s “Songs without Words.”

Far from the haunts of men remote,
The brook brawled on with a liquid note;
And Nature, all tranquil and lovely, wore
The smile of the spring, as in Eden of yore.

Little by little, as daylight increased,
And deepened the roseate flush in the East--
Little by little did morning reveal
Two long glittering lines of steel;

Where two hundred thousand bayonets gleam,
Tipped with the light of the earliest beam,
And the faces are sullen and grim to see
In the hostile armies of Grant and Lee.

All of a sudden, ere rose the sun,
Pealed on the silence the opening gun--
A little white puff of smoke there came,
And anon the valley was wreathed in flame.

Down on the left of the Rebel lines,
Where a breastwork stands in a copse of pines,
Before the Rebels their ranks can form,
The Yankees have carried the place by storm.

Stars and Stripes on the salient wave,
Where many a hero has found a grave,
And the gallant Confederates strive in vain
The ground they have drenched with their blood, to regain.

Yet louder the thunder of battle roared--
Yet a deadlier fire on the columns poured;
Slaughter infernal rode with Despair,
Furies twain, through the murky air.

Not far off, in the saddle there sat
A gray-bearded man in a black slouched hat;
Not much moved by the fire was he,
Calm and resolute Robert Lee.

Quick and watchful he kept his eye
On the bold Rebel brigades close by,--
Reserves that were standing (and dying) at ease,
While the tempest of wrath toppled over the trees.

For still with their loud, deep, bull-dog bay,
The Yankee batteries blazed away,
And with every murderous second that sped
A dozen brave fellows, alas! fell dead.

The grand old gray-beard rode to the space
Where Death and his victims stood face to face,
And silently waved his old slouched hat--
A world of meaning there was in that!

“Follow me! Steady! We’ll save the day!”
This was what he seemed to say;
And to the light of his glorious eye
The bold brigades thus made reply:

“We’ll go forward, but you must go back”--
And they moved not an inch in the perilous track:
“Go to the rear, and we’ll send them to hell!”
And the sound of the battle was lost in their yell.

Turning his bridle, Robert Lee
Rode to the rear. Like waves of the sea,
Bursting the dikes in their overflow,
Madly his veterans dashed on the foe.

And backward in terror that foe was driven,
Their banners rent and their columns riven,
Wherever the tide of battle rolled
Over the Wilderness, wood and wold.

Sunset out of a crimson sky
Streamed o’er a field of ruddier dye,
And the brook ran on with a purple stain,
From the blood of ten thousand foemen slain.

Seasons have passed since that day and year--
Again o’er its pebbles the brook runs clear,
And the field in a richer green is drest
Where the dead of a terrible conflict rest.

Hushed is the roll of the Rebel drum,
The sabres are sheathed, and the cannon are dumb;
And Fate, with his pitiless hand, has furled
The flag that once challenged the gaze of the world;

But the fame of the Wilderness fight abides;
And down into history grandly rides,
Calm and unmoved as in battle he sat,
The gray-bearded man in the black slouched hat.

[Southern.]

Kearsarge and Alabama

(Action of 19 June, 1864.)

It was early Sunday morning, in the year of sixty-four,
The _Alabama_ she steam’d out along the Frenchman’s shore.
Long time she cruised about,
Long time she held her sway,
But now beneath the Frenchman’s shore she lies off Cherbourg Bay.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave
Over the Union, the home of the brave.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave,
God bless America, the home of the brave!

The Yankee cruiser hove in view, the _Kearsarge_ was her name,
It ought to be engraved in full upon the scroll of fame;
Her timbers made of Yankee oak,
And her crew of Yankee tars,
And o’er her mizzen peak she floats the glorious stripes and stars.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave
Over the Union, the home of the brave.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave,
God bless America, the home of the brave!

A challenge unto Captain Semmes, bold Winslow he did send!
“Bring on your _Alabama_, and to her we will attend,
For we think your boasting privateer
Is not so hard to whip;
And we’ll show you that the _Kearsarge_ is not a merchant ship.”
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave
Over the Union, the home of the brave.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave,
God bless America, the home of the brave!

It was early Sunday morning, in the year of sixty-four,
The _Alabama_ she stood out and cannons loud did roar;
The _Kearsarge_ stood undaunted, and quickly she replied
And let a Yankee ’leven-inch shell go tearing through her side.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave
Over the Union, the home of the brave.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave,
God bless America, the home of the brave!

The _Kearsarge_ then she wore around and broadside on did bear,
With shot and shell and right good-will, her timbers she did tear;
When they found that they were sinking, down came the stars
and bars,
For the rebel gunners could not stand the glorious stripes
and stars.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave
Over the Union, the home of the brave!
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave,
God bless America, the home of the brave!

The _Alabama_ she is gone, she’ll cruise the seas no more,
She met the fate she well deserved along the Frenchman’s shore;
Then here is luck to the _Kearsarge_ we know what she can do,
Likewise to Captain Winslow and his brave and gallant crew.
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave
Over the Union, the home of the brave!
Hoist up the flag, and long may it wave,
God bless America, the home of the brave!

THE BAY FIGHT

(Mobile Harbor, August 8, 1864.)

BY HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL.

Three days through sapphire seas we sailed,
The steady Trade blew strong and free,
The Northern Light his banners paled,
The Ocean Stream our channels wet,
We rounded low Canaveral’s lee,
And passed the isles of emerald set
In blue Bahama’s turquoise sea.

By reef and shoal obscurely mapped,
And hauntings of the gray sea-wolf,
The palmy Western Key lay lapped
In the warm washing of the Gulf.

But weary to the hearts of all
The burning glare, the barren reach
Of Santa Rosa’s withered beach,
And Pensacola’s ruined wall.

And weary was the long patrol,
The thousand miles of shapeless strand,
From Brazos to San Blas that roll
Their drifting dunes of desert sand.

Yet coastwise as we cruised or lay,
The land-breeze still at nightfall bore,
By beach and fortress-guarded bay,
Sweet odors from the enemy’s shore,

Fresh from the forest solitudes,
Unchallenged of his sentry lines,--
The bursting of his cypress buds,
And the warm fragrance of his pines.

Ah, never braver bark and crew,
Nor bolder Flag a foe to dare,
Had left a wake on ocean blue
Since Lion-Heart sailed Trenc-le-mer!

But little gain by that dark ground
Was ours, save, sometime, freer breath
For friend or brother strangely found,
’Scaped from the drear domain of death.

And little venture for the bold,
Or laurel for our valiant Chief,
Save some blockaded British thief,
Full fraught with murder in his hold,

Caught unawares at ebb or flood,
Or dull bombardment, day by day,
With fort and earthwork, far away,
Low couched in sullen leagues of mud.

A weary time,--but to the strong
The day at last, as ever, came;
And the volcano, laid so long,
Leaped forth in thunder and in flame!

“_Man your starboard battery!_”
Kimberly shouted;--
The ship, with her hearts of oak,
Was going, ’mid roar and smoke,
On to victory;
None of us doubted,
No, not our dying--
Farragut’s Flag was flying!

Gaines growled low on our left,
Morgan roared on our right;
Before us, gloomy and fell,
With breath like the fume of hell,
Lay the dragon of iron shell,
Driven at last to the fight!

Ha, old ship! do they thrill,
The brave two hundred scars
You got in the River-Wars?
That were leeched with clamorous skill,
(Surgery savage and hard,)
Splinted with bolt and beam,
Probed in scarfing and seam,
Rudely linted and tarred
With oakum and boiling pitch,
And sutured with splice and hitch,
At the Brooklyn Navy-Yard!

Our lofty spars were down,
To bide the battle’s frown
(Wont of old renown)--
But every ship was drest
In her bravest and her best,
As if for a July day;
Sixty flags and three,
As we floated up the bay--
At every peak and mast-head flew
The brave Red, White, and Blue,--
We were eighteen ships that day.

With hawsers strong and taut,
The weaker lashed to port,
On we sailed two by two--
That if either a bolt should feel
Crash through caldron or wheel,
Fin of bronze, or sinew of steel,
Her mate might bear her through.

Forging boldly ahead,
The great Flag-Ship led,
Grandest of sights!
On her lofty mizzen flew
Our leader’s dauntless Blue,
That had waved o’er twenty fights
So we went with the first of the tide,
Slowly, ’mid the roar
Of the rebel guns ashore
And the thunder of each full broadside.

Ah, how poor the prate
Of statute and state
We once held these fellows!
Here on the flood’s pale-green,
Hark how he bellows,
Each bluff old Sea-Lawyer!
Talk to them, Dahlgren,
Parrott, and Sawyer!

On, in the whirling shade
Of the cannon’s sulphury breath,
We drew to the Line of Death
That our devilish Foe had laid,--
Meshed in a horrible net,
And baited villainous well,
Right in our path were set
Three hundred traps of hell!

And there, O sight forlorn!
There, while the cannon
Hurtled and thundered,--
(Ah, what ill raven
Flapped o’er the ship that morn!)--
Caught by the under-death,
In the drawing of a breath
Down went dauntless Craven,
He and his hundred!

A moment we saw her turret,
A little heel she gave,
And a thin white spray went o’er her,
Like the crest of a breaking wave;--
In that great iron coffin,
The channel for their grave,
The fort their monument,
(Seen afar in the offing),
Ten fathom deep lie Craven
And the bravest of our brave.

Then in that deadly track
A little the ships held back,
Closing up in their stations;--
There are minutes that fix the fate
Of battles and of nations,
(Christening the generations,)
When valor were all too late,
If a moment’s doubt be harbored;--
From the main-top, bold and brief,
Came the word of our grand old chief:
“_Go on!_”--’twas all he said,--
Oar helm was put to starboard,
And the _Hartford_ passed ahead.

Ahead lay the _Tennessee_,
On our starboard bow he lay,
With his mail-clad consorts three
(The rest had run up the bay);
There he was, belching flame from his bow,
And the steam from his throat’s abyss
Was a Dragon’s maddened hiss;
In sooth a most cursed craft!--
In a sullen ring, at bay,
By the Middle-Ground they lay,
Raking us fore and aft.

Trust me, our berth was hot,
Ah, wickedly well they shot--
How their death-bolts howled and stung!
And the water-batteries played
With their deadly cannonade
Till the air around us rung;
So the battle raged and roared;--
Ah, had you been aboard
To have seen the fight we made!
How they leapt, the tongues of flame,
From the cannon’s fiery lip!
How the broadsides, deck and frame,
Shook the great ship!

And how the enemy’s shell
Came crashing, heavy and oft,
Clouds of splinters flying aloft
And falling in oaken showers;--
But ah, the pluck of the crew!
Had you stood on that deck of ours,
You had seen what men may do.

Still, as the fray grew louder,
Boldly they worked and well--
Steadily came the powder,
Steadily came the shell.
And if tackle or truck found hurt,
Quickly they cleared the wreck--
And the dead were laid to port,
All a-row, on our deck.

Never a nerve that failed,
Never a cheek that paled,
Not a tinge of gloom or pallor;--
There was bold Kentucky’s grit,
And the old Virginian valor,
And the daring Yankee wit.

There were blue eyes from turfy Shannon,
There were black orbs from palmy Niger,--
But there alongside the cannon,
Each man fought like a tiger!

A little, once, it looked ill,
Our consort began to burn--
They quenched the flames with a will,
But our men were falling still,
And still the fleet were astern.

Right abreast of the Fort
In an awful shroud they lay,
Broadsides thundering away,
And lightning from every port;
Scene of glory and dread!
A storm-cloud all aglow
With flashes of fiery red,
The thunder raging below,
And the forest of flags o’erhead!

So grand the hurly and roar,
So fiercely their broadsides blazed,
The regiments fighting ashore
Forgot to fire as they gazed.

There, to silence the foe,
Moving grimly and slow,
They loomed in that deadly wreath,
Where the darkest batteries frowned,--
Death in the air all round,
And the black torpedoes beneath!

And now, as we looked ahead,
All for’ard, the long white deck
Was growing a strange dull red,--
But soon, as once and again
Fore and aft we sped,
(The firing to guide or check,)
You could hardly choose but tread
On the ghastly human wreck,
(Dreadful gobbet and shred
That a minute ago were men!)
Red, from mainmast to bitts!
Red, on bulwark and wale,
Red, by combing and hatch,
Red, o’er netting and vail!

And ever, with steady con,
The ship forged slowly by,--
And ever the crew fought on,
And their cheers rang loud and high.

Grand was the sight to see
How by their guns they stood,
Right in front of our dead,
Fighting square abreast--
Each brawny arm and chest
All spotted with black and red,
Chrism of fire and blood!

Worth our watch, dull and sterile,
Worth all the weary time,
Worth the woe and the peril,
To stand in that strait sublime!

Fear? A forgotten form!
Death? A dream of the eyes!
We were atoms in God’s great storm
That roared through the angry skies.

One only doubt was ours,
One only dread we knew,--
Could the day that dawned so well
Go down for the Darker Powers?
_Would_ the fleet get through?
And ever the shot and shell
Came with the howl of hell,
The splinter-clouds rose and fell,
And the long line of corpses grew,--
_Would_ the fleet win through?

They are men that never will fail,
(How aforetime they’ve fought!)
But Murder may yet prevail,--
They may sink as Craven sank.

Therewith one hard fierce thought,
Burning on heart and lip,
Ran like fire through the ship;
_Fight_ her, to the last plank!

A dimmer renown might strike
If Death lay square alongside,--
But the old Flag has no like,
She must fight, whatever betide;--
When the War is a tale of old,
And this day’s story is told,
They shall hear how the _Hartford_ died!

But as we ranged ahead,
And the leading ships worked in,
Losing their hope to win,
The enemy turned and fled--
And one seeks a shallow reach!
And another, winged in her flight,
Our mate, brave Jouett, brings in;--
And one, all torn in the fight,
Runs for a wreck on the beach,
Where her flames soon fire the night.

And the Ram, when well up the Bay,
And we looked that our stems should meet,
(He had us fair for a prey,)
Shifting his helm midway,
Sheered off, and ran for the fleet;
There, without skulking or sham,
He fought them gun for gun;
And ever he sought to ram,
But could finish never a one.

From the first of the iron shower
Till we sent our parting shell,
’Twas just one savage hour
Of the roar and the rage of hell.

With the lessening smoke and thunder,
Our glasses around we aim,--
What is that burning yonder?
Our _Philippi_--aground and in flame!

Below, ’twas still all a-roar,
As the ships went by the shore,
But the fire of the Fort had slacked,
(So fierce their volleys had been,)--
And now with a mighty din,
The whole fleet came grandly in,
Though sorely battered and wracked.

So, up the Bay we ran,
The Flag to port and ahead,--
And a pitying rain began
To wash the lips of our dead.

A league from the Fort we lay,
And deemed that the end must lag,--
When lo! looking down the Bay,
There flaunted the Rebel Rag:--
The Ram is again under way
And heading dead for the Flag!

Steering up with the stream,
Boldly his course he lay,
Though the fleet all answered his fire,
And, as he still drew nigher,
Ever on bow and beam
Our Monitors pounded away;
How the _Chickasaw_ hammered away!

Quickly breasting the wave,
Eager the prize to win,
First of us all the brave
_Monongahela_ went in
Under full head of steam;--
Twice she struck him abeam,
Till her stem was a sorry work,
(She might have run on a crag!)
The _Lackawanna_ hit fair,
He flung her aside like cork,
And still he held for the Flag.

High in the mizzen shroud,
(Lest the smoke his sight o’erwhelm,)
Our Admiral’s voice rang loud;
“Hard-a-starboard your helm!
_Starboard, and run him down!_”
Starboard it was,--and so,
Like a black squall’s lifting frown,
Our mighty bow bore down
On the iron beak of the Foe.

We stood on the deck together,
Men that had looked on death
In battle and stormy weather;
Yet a little we held our breath,
When, with the hush of death,
The great ships drew together.

Our Captain strode to the bow,
Drayton, courtly and wise,
Kindly cynic, and wise,
(You hardly had known him now,
The flame of fight in his eyes!)--
His brave heart eager to feel
How the oak would tell on the steel!

But, as the space grew short,
A little he seemed to shun us;
Out peered a form grim and lanky,
And a voice yelled, “_Hard-a-port!_
_Hard-a-port!--here’s the damned Yankee_
_Coming right down on us!_”

He sheered, but the ships ran foul
With a gnarring shudder and growl:
He gave us a deadly gun;
But as he passed in his pride,
(Rasping right alongside!)
The old Flag, in thunder-tones
Poured in her port broadside,
Rattling his iron hide
And cracking his timber-bones!

Just then, at speed on the Foe,
With her bow all weathered and brown,
The great _Lackawanna_ came down
Full tilt, for another blow;--
We were forging ahead,
She reversed--but, for all our pains,
Rammed the old _Hartford_, instead,
Just for’ard the mizzen chains!

Ah! how the masts did buckle and bend,
And the stout hull ring and reel,
As she took us right on end!
(Vain were engine and wheel,
She was under full steam,)--
With the roar of a thunder-stroke
Her two thousand tons of oak
Brought up on us, right abeam!

A wreck, as it looked, we lay,--
(Rib and plank shear gave way
To the stroke of that giant wedge!)
Here, after all, we go--
The old ship is gone!--ah, no,
But cut to the water’s edge.

Never mind then,--at him again!
His flurry now can’t last long;
He’ll never again see land,--
Try that on _him_, Marchand!
On him again, brave Strong!

Heading square at the hulk,
Full on his beam we bore;
But the spine of the huge Sea-Hog
Lay on the tide like a log,
He vomited flame no more.

By this, he had found it hot;--
Half the fleet, in an angry ring,
Closed round the hideous thing,
Hammering with solid shot,
And bearing down, bow on bow;
He has but a minute to choose,--
Life or renown?--which now
Will the Rebel Admiral lose?

Cruel, haughty, and cold,
He ever was strong and bold;
Shall he shrink from a wooden stem?
He will think of that brave band
He sank in the _Cumberland_;
Ay, he will sink like them.

Nothing left but to fight
Boldly his last sea-fight!
Can he strike? By Heaven, ’tis true!
Down comes the traitor Blue,
And up goes the captive White!

Up went the White! Ah, then
The hurrahs that once and again
Rang from three thousand men
All flushed and savage with fight!
Our dead lay cold and stark;
But our dying, down in the dark,
Answered as best they might,
Lifting their poor lost arms,
And cheering for God and Right!

Ended the mighty noise,
Thunder of forts and ships.
Down we went to the hold,
Oh, our dear dying boys!
How we pressed their poor brave lips
(Ah, so pallid and cold!)
And held their hands to the last,
(Those who had hands to hold).

Still thee, O woman heart!
(So strong an hour ago;)
If the idle tears must start,
’Tis not in vain they flow.

They died, our children dear.
On the drear berth-deck they died,--
Do not think of them here--
Even now their footsteps near
The immortal, tender sphere--
(Land of love and cheer!
Home of the Crucified!).

And the glorious deed survives;
Our threescore, quiet and cold,
Lie thus, for a myriad lives
And treasure--millions untold,--
(Labor of poor men’s lives,
Hunger of weans and wives,
Such is war-wasted gold).

Our ship and her fame to-day
Shall float on the storied Stream
When mast and shroud have crumbled away,
And her long white deck is a dream.

One daring leap in the dark,
Three mortal hours, at the most,--
And hell lies stiff and stark
On a hundred leagues of coast.

For the mighty Gulf is ours,--
The bay is lost and won,
An Empire is lost and won!
Land, if thou yet hast flowers,
Twine them in one more wreath
Of tenderest white and red,
(Twin buds of glory and death!)
For the brows of our brave dead,
For thy Navy’s noblest son.

Joy, O Land, for thy sons,
Victors by flood and field!
The traitor walls and guns
Have nothing left but to yield;
(Even now they surrender!)

And the ships shall sail once more,
And the cloud of war sweep on
To break on the cruel shore;--
But Craven is gone,
He and his hundred are gone.

The flags flutter up and down
At sunrise and twilight dim,
The cannons menace and frown,--
But never again for him,
Him and the hundred.

The Dahlgrens are dumb,
Dumb are the mortars;
Never more shall the drum
Beat to colors and quarters,--
The great guns are silent.

O brave heart and loyal!
Let all your colors dip;--
Mourn him proud ship!
From main deck to royal.
God rest our Captain,
Rest our lost hundred!

Droop, flag and pennant!
What is your pride for?
Heaven, that he died for,
Rest our Lieutenant,
Rest our brave threescore!

* * * * *

O Mother Land! this weary life
We led, we lead, is ’long of thee;
Thine the strong agony of strife,
And thine the lonely sea.

Thine the long decks all slaughter-sprent,
The weary rows of cots that lie
With wrecks of strong men, marred and rent,
’Neath Pensacola’s sky.

And thine the iron caves and dens
Wherein the flame our war-fleet drives;
The fiery vaults, whose breath is men’s
Most dear and precious lives!

Ah, ever when with storm sublime
Dread Nature clears our murky air,
Thus in the crash of falling crime
Some lesser guilt must share.

Full red the furnace fires must glow
That melt the ore of mortal kind;
The mills of God are grinding slow,
But ah, how close they grind!

To-day the Dahlgren and the drum
Are dread Apostles of His Name;
His kingdom here can only come
By chrism of blood and flame.

Be strong: already slants the gold
Athwart these wild and stormy skies;
From out this blackened waste, behold
What happy homes shall rise!

But see thou well no traitor gloze,
No striking hands with Death and Shame,
Betray the sacred blood that flows
So freely for thy name.

And never fear a victor foe--
Thy children’s hearts are strong and high;
Nor mourn too fondly; well they know
On deck or field to die.

Nor shalt thou want one willing breath,
Though, ever smiling round the brave,
The blue sea bear us on to death,
The green were one wide grave.

THE LOYAL FISHER.

The wife in the cot is lonely
Since the fisher went away,
And the sun-burnt child it hath not smil’d
This many and many a day.
And the schools of mack’rel come unscared
To the shoals of the inner bay.

For the fisherman said one spring-time:
“Dear wife, I have set my sail
These twenty years to the northern meres,
The icebergs, the mist and gale,
And my country hath paid the shot, good wife,
However I chanced to fail.”

“Yes, paid for my sailor’s knowledge,
And the skill of my ready hand;
And the blue on my arm, as a sacred charm,
Is the flag that guards the land.
The time has come to pay that debt,
Tho’ my life it should demand.”

So bravely the loyal fisher
Sailed for the southern sea,
Never a hook nor a bait he took
For the deadly fishery;
But the staunchest man at the straining rope
In the northerner was he.

On the bloody deck of the _Hartford_
At last the fisher lay,
The azure charm pricked on his arm
Was striped with red that day;
And his debt of twenty years was paid
With a life in Mobile Bay.

SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA.

BY SAMUEL H. M. BYERS.

[General Sherman, in a recent conversation with the
editor of this collection, declared that it was this poem
with its phrase, “march to the sea,” that threw a glamour
of romance over the campaign which it celebrates. Said
General Sherman: “The thing was nothing more or less
than a change of base, an operation perfectly familiar
to every military man, but a poet got hold of it, gave
it the captivating label, ‘The March to the Sea,’ and
the unmilitary public made a romance out of it.” It may
be remarked that the General’s modesty overlooks the
important fact that the romance lay really in his own deed
of derring-do; the poet merely recorded it, or at most
interpreted it to the popular intelligence. The glory of
the great campaign was Sherman’s and his army’s; the joy of
celebrating it was the poet’s; the admiring memory of it is
the people’s.--EDITOR.]

SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA.

Our camp-fires shone bright on the mountain
That frowned on the river below,
As we stood by our guns in the morning,
And eagerly watched for the foe;
When a rider came out of the darkness
That hung over mountain and tree,
And shouted: “Boys, up and be ready!
For Sherman will march to the sea.”

Then cheer upon cheer for bold Sherman
Went up from each valley and glen,
And the bugles re-echoed the music
That came from the lips of the men;
For we knew that the stars in our banner
More bright in their splendor would be,
And that blessings from Northland would greet us
When Sherman marched down to the sea.

Then forward, boys! forward to battle!
We marched on our wearisome way,
We stormed the wild hills of Resaca,
God bless those who fell on that day!
Then Kenesaw, dark in its glory,
Frowned down on the flag of the free,
But the East and the West bore our standard
And Sherman marched on to the sea.

Still onward we pressed till our banners
Swept out from Atlanta’s grim walls,
And the blood of the patriot dampened
The soil where the traitor flag falls.
We paused not to weep for the fallen,
Who slept by each river and tree.
Yet we twined them a wreath of the laurel
As Sherman marched down to the sea.

Oh, proud was our army that morning,
That stood where the pine darkly towers,
When Sherman said: “Boys, you are weary,
But to-day fair Savannah is ours!”
Then sang we the song of our chieftain,
That echoed o’er river and lea,
And the stars in our banner shone brighter
When Sherman marched down to the sea.

SHERMAN’S MARCH

BY A SOLDIER.

Their lips are still as the lips of the dead,
The gaze of their eyes is straight ahead;
The tramp, tramp, tramp of ten thousand feet
Keep time to that muffled, monotonous beat,--
Rub a dub dub! rub a dub dub!

Ten thousand more! and still they come
To fight a battle for Christendom!
With cannon and caissons, and flags unfurled,
The foremost men in all the world!
Rub a dub dub! rub a dub dub!

The foe is entrenched on the frowning hill,--
A natural fortress, strengthened by skill;
But vain are the walls to those who face
The champions of the human race!
Rub a dub dub; rub a dub dub!

“By regiment! Forward into line!”
Then sabres and guns and bayonets shine.
Oh ye, who feel your fate at last,
Repeat the old prayer as your hearts beat fast!
Rub a dub dub! rub a dub dub!

Oh, ye who waited and prayed so long
That Right might have a fair fight with Wrong,
No more in fruitless marches shall plod,
But smite the foe with the wrath of God!
Rub a dub dub! rub a dub dub!

O Death! what a charge that carried the hill!
That carried, and kept, and holds it still!
The foe is broken and flying with fear,
While far on their route our drummers I hear,--
Rub a dub dub! rub a dub dub!

THE YEAR OF JUBILEE.

[A body of negro troops entered Richmond singing
this song when the Union forces took possession of
the Confederate capital. It is an interesting fact,
illustrative of the elasticity of spirit shown by the
losers in the great contest, that the song, which might
have been supposed to be peculiarly offensive to their
wounded pride and completely out of harmony with their deep
depression and chagrin, became at once a favorite among
them, and was sung, with applause, by young men and maidens
in wellnigh every house in Virginia.--EDITOR.]

Say, darkeys, hab you seen de massa,
Wid de muffstash on he face,
Go long de road some time dis mornin’,
Like he gwine leabe de place?
He see de smoke way up de ribber
Whar de Lincum gunboats lay;
He took he hat an’ leff berry sudden,
And I spose he’s runned away.
De massa run, ha, ha!
De darkey stay, ho, ho!
It mus’ be now de kingdum comin’,
An’ de yar ob jubilo.

He six foot one way an’ two foot todder,
An’ he weigh six hundred poun’;
His coat so big he couldn’t pay de tailor,
An’ it won’t reach half way roun’;
He drill so much dey calls him cap’n,
An he git so mighty tanned,
I spec he’ll try to fool dem Yankees,
For to tink he contraband.
De massa run, ha, ha!
De darkey stay, ho, ho!
It mus’ be now de kingdum comin’,
An’ de yar ob jubilo.

De darkeys got so lonesome libb’n
In de log hut on de lawn,
Dey moved dere tings into massa’s parlor
For to keep it while he gone.
Dar’s wine an’ cider in de kitchin,
An’ de darkeys dey hab some,
I spec it will be all fiscated,
When de Lincum sojers come.
De massa run, ha, ha!
De darkey stay, ho, ho!
It mus’ be now de kingdum comin’,
An’ de yar ob jubilo.

De oberseer he makes us trubble,
An’ he dribe us roun’ a spell,
We lock him up in de smoke-house cellar,
Wid de key flung in de well.
De whip am lost, de han’-cuff broke,
But de massy hab his pay;
He big an’ ole enough for to know better
Dan to went an’ run away.
De massa run, ha, ha!
De darkey stay, ho, ho!
It mus’ be now de kingdum comin’,
An’ de yar ob jubilo.

THE CONQUERED BANNER.

BY ABRAM J. RYAN.

[This poem appeared very soon after the surrender of
the Confederate armies, and was probably the first, as it
is the finest, poetical expression of reverent regret for
the Lost Cause, without any touch of bitterness in its
loss. The author was a Catholic priest, who wrote a number
of poems of merit, though none that appealed so strongly
as this one does to the generous sympathy of the victor
with the sorrow of the vanquished. The author was born in
Norfolk, Va., August 15, 1839, and died in Louisville, Ky.,
April 22, 1886.--EDITOR.]

THE CONQUERED BANNER.

Furl that Banner, for ’tis weary,
Round its staff ’tis drooping dreary:
Furl it, fold it,--it is best;
For there’s not a man to wave it,
And there’s not a sword to save it,
And there’s not one left to lave it
In the blood which heroes gave it,
And its foes now scorn and brave it:
Furl it, hide it,--let it rest!

Take the Banner down! ’tis tattered;
Broken is its staff and shattered,
And the valiant hosts are scattered
Over whom it floated high.
Oh, ’tis hard for us to fold it,
Hard to think there’s none to hold it,
Hard that those who once unrolled it
Now must furl it with a sigh!