Chapter IV: Part 4

Furl that Banner--furl it sadly;
Once ten thousands hailed it gladly,
And ten thousands wildly, madly
Swore it should forever wave--
Swore that foemen’s sword could never
Hearts like theirs entwined dissever,
And that flag should float forever
O’er their freedom, or their grave!

Furl it!--for the hands that grasped it,
And the hearts that fondly clasped it,
Cold and dead are lying low;
And the Banner--it is trailing,
While around it sounds the wailing,
Of its people in their woe;

For though conquered, they adore it--
Love the cold dead hands that bore it,
Weep for those who fell before it,
Pardon those who trailed and tore it;
And, oh, wildly they deplore it,
Now to furl and fold it so!

Furl that Banner! True, ’tis gory,
Yet ’tis wreathed around with glory,
And ’twill live in song and story
Though its folds are in the dust!
For its fame on brightest pages,
Penned by poets and by sages,
Shall go sounding down the ages--
Furl its folds though now we must!

Furl that Banner, softly, slowly;
Treat it gently--it is holy,
For it droops above the dead;
Touch it not--unfold it never;
Let it droop there, furled forever,--
For its people’s hopes are fled.

[Southern.]

SOMEBODY’S DARLING.

BY MARIA LA CONTE.

Into a ward of the whitewashed halls
Where the dead and the dying lay,
Wounded by bayonets, shells, and balls,
Somebody’s darling was borne one day--
Somebody’s darling, so young and brave;
Wearing yet on his sweet pale face--
Soon to be hid in the dust of the grave--
The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.

Matted and damp are the curls of gold
Kissing the snow of that fair young brow,
Pale are the lips of delicate mould--
Somebody’s darling is dying now.
Back from his beautiful blue-veined brow
Brush his wandering waves of gold;
Cross his hands on his bosom now--
Somebody’s darling is still and cold.

Kiss him once for somebody’s sake,
Murmur a prayer soft and low;
One bright curl from its fair mates take--
They were somebody’s pride, you know.
Somebody’s hand hath rested here--
Was it a mother’s, soft and white?
Or have the lips of a sister fair
Been baptized in their waves of light?

God knows best. He has somebody’s love,
Somebody’s heart enshrined him there,
Somebody wafts his name above,
Night and morn, on the wings of prayer.
Somebody wept when he marched away,
Looking so handsome, brave, and grand;
Somebody’s kiss on his forehead lay,
Somebody clung to his parting hand.

Somebody’s watching and waiting for him,
Yearning to hold him again to her heart;
And there he lies with his blue eyes dim,
And the smiling, childlike lips apart.
Tenderly bury the fair young dead--
Pausing to drop on his grave a tear.
Carve on the wooden slab o’er his head:
“Somebody’s darling slumbers here.”

[Southern.]

LEFT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

BY SARAH T. BOLTON.

What, was it a dream? am I all alone
In the dreary night and the drizzling rain?
Hist!--ah, it was only the river’s moan;
They have left me behind with the mangled slain.

Yes, now I remember it all too well!
We met, from the battling ranks apart;
Together our weapons flashed and fell,
And mine was sheathed in his quivering heart.

In the cypress gloom, where the deed was done,
It was all too dark to see his face;
But I heard his death groans, one by one,
And he holds me still in a cold embrace.

He spoke but once, and I could not hear
The words he said, for the cannon’s roar;
But my heart grew cold with a deadly fear,--
O God! I had heard that voice before!

Had heard it before at our mother’s knee,
When we lisped the words of our evening prayer!
My brother! would I had died for thee,--
This burden is more than my soul can bear!

I pressed my lips to his death-cold cheek,
And begged him to show me by word or sign,
That he knew and forgave me; he could not speak,
But he nestled his poor cold face to mine.

The blood flowed fast from my wounded side,
And then for a while I forgot my pain,
And over the lakelet we seemed to glide
In our little boat, two boys again.

And then, in my dream, we stood alone
On a forest path where the shadows fell;
And I heard again the tremulous tone
And the tender words of his last farewell.

But that parting was years, long years ago,
He wandered away to a foreign land;
And our dear old mother will never know
That he died to-night by his brother’s hand.

* * * * *

The soldiers who buried the dead away
Disturbed not the clasp of that last embrace,
But laid them to sleep till the judgment day,
Heart folded to heart, and face to face.

DRIVING HOME THE COWS.

BY KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.

Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass,
He turned them into the river-lane;
One after another he let them pass,
Then fastened the meadow bars again.

Under the willows, and over the hill,
He patiently followed their sober pace;
The merry whistle for once was still,
And something shadowed the sunny face.

Only a boy! and his father had said
He never could let his youngest go;
Two already were lying dead
Under the feet of the trampling foe.

But after the evening work was done,
And the frogs were loud in the meadow swamp,
Over his shoulder he slung his gun,
And stealthily followed the foot-path damp.

Across the clover and through the wheat,
With resolute heart and purpose grim,
Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet,
And the blind bat’s flitting startled him.

Thrice since then had the lanes been white,
And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom;
And now when the cows came back at night,
The feeble father drove them home.

For news had come to the lonely farm
That three were lying where two had lain;
And the old man’s tremulous, palsied arm
Could never lean on a son’s again.

The summer day grew cold and late,
He went for the cows when the work was done;
But down the lane, as he opened the gate,
He saw them coming, one by one,--

Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess,
Shaking their horns in the evening wind;
Cropping the buttercups out of the grass,--
But who was it following close behind?

Loosely swung in the idle air
The empty sleeve of army blue;
And worn and pale from the crisping hair
Looked out a face that the father knew.

For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn,
And yield their dead unto life again;
And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn
In golden glory at last may wane.

The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes;
For the heart must speak when the lips are dumb;
And under the silent evening skies,
Together they followed the cattle home.

AFTER ALL.

BY WILLIAM WINTER

The apples are ripe in the orchard,
The work of the reaper is done,
And the golden woodlands redden
In the blood of the dying sun.

At the cottage door the grandsire
Sits pale in his easy-chair,
While the gentle wind of twilight
Plays with his silver hair.

A woman is kneeling beside him;
A fair young head is pressed,
In the first wild passion of sorrow,
Against his agéd breast.

And far from over the distance
The faltering echoes come
Of the flying blast of trumpet
And the rattling roll of the drum.

And the grandsire speaks in a whisper:
“The end, no man can see;
But we gave him to his country,
And we give our prayers to thee.”

The violets star the meadows,
The rosebuds fringe the door,
And over the grassy orchard
The pink-white blossoms pour.

But the grandsire’s chair is empty,
The cottage is dark and still;
There’s a nameless grave in the battle-field,
And a new one under the hill.

And a pallid, tearless woman
By the cold hearth sits alone,
And the old clock in the corner
Ticks on with a steady drone.

“HE’LL SEE IT WHEN HE WAKES.”

BY FRANK LEE.

[In “Bugle Echoes” Mr. Francis F. Browne introduces this
poem with the following note: “In one of the battles in
Virginia, a gallant young Mississippian had fallen, and
at night, just before burying him, there came a letter
from his betrothed. One of the burial group took the
letter and laid it upon the breast of the dead soldier,
with the words: ‘Bury it with him. He’ll see it when he
wakes.’”--EDITOR.]

Amid the clouds of battle-smoke
The sun had died away,
And where the storm of battle broke
A thousand warriors lay.
A band of friends upon the field
Stood round a youthful form
Who, when the war-cloud’s thunder pealed,
Had perished in the storm.
Upon his forehead, on his hair,
The coming moonlight breaks,
And each dear brother standing there
A tender farewell takes.

But ere they laid him in his home
There came a comrade near,
And gave a token that had come
From her the dead held dear.
A moment’s doubt upon them pressed,
Then one the letter takes,
And lays it low upon his breast--
“He’ll see it when he wakes.”
O thou who dost in sorrow wait,
Whose heart with anguish breaks,
Though thy dear message came too late,
“He’ll see it when he wakes.”

No more amid the fiery storm
Shall his strong arm be seen;
No more his young and manly form
Tread Mississippi’s green;
And e’en thy tender words of love--
The words affection speaks--
Came all too late; but oh! thy love
“Will see them when he wakes.”
No jars disturb his gentle rest,
No noise his slumber breaks,
But thy words sleep upon his breast--
“He’ll see them when he wakes.”

[Southern.]

THE RÉVEILLE.

BY BRET HARTE.

Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands,
And of arméd men the hum;
Lo! a nation’s hosts have gathered
Round the quick-alarming drum--
Saying: “Come,
Freemen, come!
Ere your heritage be wasted,” said the quick-alarming drum.

“Let me of my heart take counsel:
War is not of life the sum;
Who shall stay and reap the harvest
When the autumn days shall come?”
But the drum
Echoed: “Come!
Death shall reap the braver harvest,” said the solemn-sounding drum.

“But when won the coming battle,
What of profit springs therefrom?
What if conquest, subjugation,
Even greater ills become?”
But the drum
Answered: “Come!
You must do the sum to prove it,” said the Yankee-answering drum.

“What if, ’mid the cannon’s thunder,
Whistling shot and bursting bomb,
When my brothers fall around me,
Should my heart grow cold and numb?”
But the drum
Answered: “Come!
Better there in death united than in life a recreant--Come!”

Thus they answered--hoping, fearing,
Some in faith and doubting some,
Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,
Said: “My chosen people, come!”
Then the drum,
Lo! was dumb;
For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, answered:
“Lord, we come!”

RÉVEILLE.

BY MICHAEL O’CONNOR.

[The author of this poem was a sergeant in the 140th
regiment of New York volunteers, who died at the age
of 25 years, at Potomac Station, Va., December 28,
1862.--EDITOR.]

The morning is cheery, my boys, arouse!
The dew shines bright on the chestnut boughs,
And the sleepy mist on the river lies,
Though the east is flushing with crimson dyes.
Awake! awake! awake!
O’er field and wood and brake,
With glories newly born,
Comes on the blushing morn.
Awake! awake!

You have dreamed of your homes and friends all night;
You have basked in your sweethearts’ smiles so bright;
Come, part with them all for a while again,--
Be lovers in dreams; when awake, be men,
Turn out! turn out! turn out!
You have dreamed full long, I know.
Turn out! turn out! turn out!
The east is all aglow.
Turn out! turn out!

From every valley and hill they come
The clamoring voices of fife and drum;
And out in the fresh, cool morning air
The soldiers are swarming everywhere.
Fall in! fall in! fall in!
Every man in his place
Fall in! fall in! fall in!
Each with a cheerful face.
Fall in! fall in!

THE WHITE ROSE.

BY JOSEPH O’CONNOR.

It is a withered rose,
That like a rose’s corpse, full dry and wan,
Finds here its last repose,
Its lustre dulled, its form and softness crushed,
The tender life with which its petals flushed,
And all its soul of subtle fragrance gone;
A primal rose that bloomed
Among the kindling brands, as white as frost,
Where Zillah stood undoomed,
Or from Mahomet’s forehead fluttered fair
To earth, when Al Borak cleft through the air
In flight to heaven, might leave so frail a ghost.

The poet moralist
Has ever taken sombre joy to sing
Upon a theme so trist,
And write in dust of roses lessons grim--
That pleasures must be snatched ere they grow dim,
For germs of death in folds of beauty cling;

That since the roses die,
No mortal loveliness may long endure;
No joy outlast a sigh;
No passion’s thrill, no labor’s work remain
Beyond a season; that Decay doth reign;--
Though in the tyrant’s very riot, sure,
Some pledge of hope is found
That all the universe is not a grave
And life sits somewhere crowned.
Not Tasso’s soft persuasion unto sin
I find, dear rose, thy withered leaves within,
Nor any precept Epicurus gave;
To me thou dost not breathe
A thought of festivals, or memory
Of woven, wine-dipped wreath,
Or kisses on ripe lips, or fond regret
For bounds by time to fleeting pleasures set,
Or wish to bring thy beauty back to thee.

To kiss thy leaves I bend,
And lo! The crash of cannon fills mine ears;
I see the banners blend
Into the battle smoke; and the long lines
Of marching men where glint of bayonet shines
Through clouds of dust; the hopes, the hates, the fears
Of old thrill through my heart;
Again the myriad ghosts of the great war
From out their cerements start;
Again the nation in the contest strains
Its every nerve; again the deep refrains
Of groan and cheer break on us from afar!

What mystery of power
To fill the mind with visions such as these
Lies in this scentless flower?
’Tis three and twenty years this very June,
Since first it opened to the southern noon
And swung in languor to a southern breeze;
And on the stalwart breast
Of one that wore the blue, while yet in bloom,
’Twas set in gallant jest;
In the long march’s dust it drooped its head
And in the smoke of Gettysburg lay dead,
With many a life more precious finding doom.

Beside a farmer’s home
In shade and shine this rose of battle grew,
What time the rolling drum
Announced the crisis of the war at hand,
As Meade pressed swiftly north through Maryland,
And ever closer to Lee’s columns drew;
On that grim, weary march
Rain seldom fell; the June sun fiercely glowed
And seemed all things to parch;
The winds grew still, nor in their motion swung
The dust that round the lithe battalions clung
For miles, on many a winding country road.

The women stood in groups
And watched with tear-wet eyes and smiling lips
The marching of the troops;
The smiles came at the sight of manhood stern
Moving to sacrifice with unconcern;
The tears were for the battle’s drear eclipse
That was so soon to fall
On many a home where then the sunshine slept--
The shadow of a pall;
And though their hopes went with the stripes and stars,
Or lingered far away with stars and bars,
Yet they were women still--and smiled and wept!

And where this rosebud lush
Had blossomed into innocence and peace
Upon its modest bush,
A column halted for a rest at noon
And the tired soldiers, glad of such a boon,
Flung knapsacks off, stacked arms, and took their ease.

And there to one that quaffed
From the deep farmhouse well, with careless zest,
A luscious draught,
A fair girl said, scorn lurking round her mouth:
“Dare these men meet the veterans of the South?”
Half earnestly she spoke, and half in jest.
The soldier’s serious eyes
An instant flashed, and then grew soft again,
While yet the quick surprise
Was flushing his bronzed cheek; but he was born
To reverence womanhood, and not to scorn;
And so disdained to wound her with disdain.
He spoke with quiet grace
In even tones, a smile both quaint and grave
Upon his firm, strong face:
“To wear in the next battle give to me
A rose,” he said, “and then the rose will see!”
In sobered mood she plucked this flower and gave.

It seems another age
When things like these were done; the rose’s bloom
He took as battle gage,
And with his laughing comrades went his way,
Well knowing that the columns wide astray
Were fast converging for the day of doom!

O streams of rippling steel
That northward flowed with current ever true!
In thought we watched you wheel
Among the hills, a winding to and fro,
The weapons sparkling o’er the men below
Like glancing foam above the waves of blue!
We knew your end and source,
And that your torrents, crowned with portents dire,
Would keep their onward course
Till in the battle’s plunge, with thunder’s roar,
And scorching flames, your cleansing tides should pour
Abroad, and save the nation as by fire!

The first day of July,
Just north of Gettysburg, the fight began
Whose memory will not die.
There lay along the outskirts of a wood
A regiment busy in the work of blood;
And he that wore the rose watched every man,
Alert, unvexed, intense,
And kept the firing cool, and fierce, and fast;
In front in column dense
Stern Southern valor stormed, and would not flinch,
Nor be denied, yet could not win an inch--
Till far outflanked our lines gave way at last.

Behind the frightened town,
On Cemetery Hill the rout was stayed;
And there the men lay down
And slept content among the graves that night;
And there this pallid rose, in soft moonlight,
Upon its wearer’s heaving bosom swayed.
The gathering armies clashed,
And on the circling hills the second day,
Incessant cannon crashed;
And shot and shell tore up each reverent mound,
And flung the tombstones’ shattered fragments round--
Poor rose, that heard the din of such a fray!

On the third day, behold!
It saw the climax of the battle come;
When calm, and stern, and bold
The great Virginians charged and could not win,
Though manhood’s flower, as they have ever been
In field, and hall, and by the hearth of home.
How proud their column moved,
Up the long slope of death with stubborn tread,
Obeying him they loved!
And still against the storm of fire that scourged
Supporting squadrons backward as it surged,
How fierce they held their way unwearièd!
Mayhap with other foes
They might have won; but ever slow to yield
And ever prompt to close
Were Hancock’s men; and the Virginian shaft
That pierced our lines was shattered, head and haft,
Within the wound!--And Lee had lost the field.

Amid the eddied smoke,
The groans of dying men, and the glad cheer
Of victory that broke
From hill to hill, this thing of beauty died;
And he that wore and had forgot it, sighed
And thought of it again as something dear;
So from his breast he took
The rose and sent it home to have it set
Within this simple book,
The favorite of a girl he loved and lost,
And ’mid the leaves it lingers like a ghost--
Though they be gone, the flower abideth yet!

And often when I gaze
Into its folds and see these visions fair,
Mine eyes are filled with haze
Of tears for him that wore it, true and brave;
Almost I turn to fling it on his grave
Beside the little flag that flutters there!--
Then sigh for power to close
Within the amber clear of poetry
This pale and withered rose
That else must pass and crumble into dust
And squander in some wild and windy gust
The essence I would set in melody--
The feelings of the time
When first it bloomed; the deeds of sacrifice,
The thoughts and acts sublime,
The scenes of battle with their woe and scaith,
The courtesy and courage, love and faith--
That I can read within it with mine eyes!

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.

BY FRANCIS MILES FINCH.

[Suggested by the fact that the women of Columbus,
Miss., on their decoration day strewed flowers, with
impartial hands, upon the graves of northern and southern
soldiers.--EDITOR.]

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of the iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue;
Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat:
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours,
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers,
Alike for the friends and the foe;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray.

So, with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue,
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth,
The cooling drip of the rain;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead.
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.

READY.

BY PHOEBE CARY.

Loaded with gallant soldiers,
A boat shot in to the land,
And lay at the right of Rodman’s Point,
With her keel upon the sand.

Lightly, gayly, they came to shore,
And never a man afraid;
When sudden the enemy opened fire
From his deadly ambuscade.

Each man fell flat on the bottom
Of the boat; and the captain said:
“If we lie here, we all are captured’
And the first who moves is dead!”

Then out spoke a negro sailor,
No slavish soul had he:
“Somebody’s got to die, boys,
And it might as well be me!”

Firmly he rose, and fearlessly
Stepped out into the tide;
He pushed the vessel safely off,
Then fell across her side:

Fell, pierced by a dozen bullets,
As the boat swung clear and free;
But there wasn’t a man of them there that day
Who was fitter to die than he!

A GEORGIA VOLUNTEER.

BY MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND.

Far up the lonely mountain-side
My wandering footsteps led;
The moss lay thick beneath my feet,
The pine sighed overhead.
The trace of a dismantled fort
Lay in the forest nave,
And in the shadow near my path
I saw a soldier’s grave.

The bramble wrestled with the weed
Upon the lowly mound,
The simple head-board, rudely writ,
Had rotted to the ground;
I raised it with a reverent hand,
From dust its words to clear;
But time had blotted all but these:
“A Georgia Volunteer.”

I saw the toad and scaly snake
From tangled covert start,
And hide themselves among the weeds
Above the dead man’s heart;
But undisturbed, in sleep profound,
Unheeding, there he lay;
His coffin but the mountain soil,
His shroud, Confederate gray.

I heard the Shenandoah roll
Along the vale below,
I saw the Alleghanies rise
Toward the realms of snow.
The “Valley Campaign” rose to mind--
Its leader’s name--and then
I knew the sleeper had been one
Of Stonewall Jackson’s men.

Yet whence he came, what lip shall say--
Whose tongue will ever tell
What desolated hearths and hearts
Have been because he fell?
What sad-eyed maiden braids her hair--
Her hair which he held dear?
One lock of which, perchance lies with
The Georgia Volunteer!

What mother, with long-watching eyes
And white lips cold and dumb,
Waits with appalling patience for
Her darling boy to come?
Her boy! whose mountain grave swells up
But one of many a scar
Cut on the face of our fair land
By gory-handed war.

What fights he fought, what wounds he wore,
Are all unknown to fame;
Remember, on his lonely grave
There is not even a name!
That he fought well and bravely too,
And held his country dear,
We know, else he had never been
A Georgia Volunteer.

He sleeps--what need to question now
If he were wrong or right?
He knows, e’er this, whose cause was just
In God the Father’s sight.
He wields no warlike weapons now,
Returns no foeman’s thrust;
Who but a coward would revile
An honest soldier’s dust?

Roll, Shenandoah, proudly roll
Adown thy rocky glen;
Above thee lies the grave of one
Of Stonewall Jackson’s men.
Beneath the cedar and the pine,
In solitude austere,
Unknown, unnamed, forgotten, lies
A Georgia Volunteer.

[Southern.]

“HOW ARE YOU, SANITARY?”

BY BRET HARTE.

[There is nothing in the history of the Civil War
worthier of celebration in verse, or more to be honored
in the remembrance, than the organization and work of the
United States Sanitary Commission. When the conditions
created by the stress of the war became apparent, the
compassion of kindly men and women in the North was deeply
stirred by the thought that there was suffering among the
soldiers which the government could not relieve, and that
there were wants which could not be supplied by military
agencies. The generous desire to minister to these wants
and to relieve this suffering was quickly organized into
action with that business-like sagacity which distinguishes
the American character. The Sanitary Commission was formed
as the agent and almoner of the popular generosity. It was
supported entirely by voluntary contributions. It was as
thoroughly organized as the army commissariat itself, and
wherever there was a comfort needed, or a wounded or sick
man to be cared for, its supply wagons, its appliances,
and its trained nurses were found. The affectionate
gratitude of the troops toward the beneficent association
is reflected in this poem.--EDITOR.]

“HOW ARE YOU, SANITARY?”

Down the picket-guarded lane
Rolled the comfort-laden wain,
Cheered by shouts that shook the plain,
Soldier-like and merry:
Phrases such as camps may teach,
Sabre-cuts of Saxon speech,
Such as “Bully!” “Them’s the peach!”
“Wade in, Sanitary!”

Right and left the caissons drew
As the car went lumbering through,
Quick succeeding in review
Squadrons military;
Sunburnt men with beards like frieze,
Smooth-faced boys, and cries like these:
“U. S. San. Com.” “That’s the cheese!”
“Pass in, Sanitary!”

In such cheer it struggled on
Till the battle front was won;
Then the car, its journey done,
Lo! was stationary;
And where bullets whistling fly
Came the sadder, fainter cry:
“Help us, brothers, ere we die!--
Save us, Sanitary!”

Such the work. The phantom flies,
Wrapped in battle-clouds that rise;
But the brave--whose dying eyes,
Veiled and visionary,
See the jasper gates swung wide,
See the parted throng outside--
Hears the voice to those who ride:
“Pass in, Sanitary!”

THE MEN.

BY MAURICE BELL.

In the dusk of the forest shade
A sallow and dusty group reclined;
Gallops a horseman up the glade--
“Where will I your leader find?
Tidings I bring from the morning’s scout--
I’ve borne them o’er mound and moor and fen.”
“Well, sir, stay not hereabout,
Here are only a few of ‘the men.’

“Here no collar has bar or star,
No rich lacing adorns the sleeve;
Further on our officers are,
Let them your report receive.
Higher up on the hill up there,
Overlooking this shady glen,
There are their quarters--don’t stop here,
We are only some of ‘the men.’

“Yet stay, courier, if you bear
Tidings that a fight is near;
Tell them we’re ready, and that where
They wish us to be we’ll soon appear;
Tell them only to let us know
Where to form our ranks and when;
And we’ll teach the vaunting foe
That they’ve met with some of ‘the men.’

“We’re _the men_, though our clothes are worn--
We’re _the men_, though we wear no lace--
We’re _the men_, who the foe have torn,
And scattered their ranks in dire disgrace--
We’re the men who have triumphed before--
We’re the men who will triumph again;
For the dust and the smoke and the cannon’s roar,
And the clashing bayonets--‘we’re the men.’

“Ye who sneer at the battle-scars,
Of garments faded and soiled and bare,
Yet who have for the ‘stars and bars’
Praise and homage and dainty fare;
Mock the wearers and pass them on,
Refuse them kindly word--and then
Know if your freedom is ever won
By human agents--these are the men!”

[Southern.]

THE GUERILLAS.

BY S. TEACKLE WALLIS.

Awake! and to horse my brothers,
For the dawn is glimmering gray,
And hark! in the crackling brushwood,
There are feet that tread this way.

“Who cometh?” “A friend.” “What tidings?“
“O God! I sicken to tell,
For the earth seems earth no longer,
And its sights are the sights of hell.

“There’s rapine and fire and slaughter,
From the mountain down to the shore,
There’s blood on the trampled harvest,
And blood on the homestead floor.

“From the far-off conquered cities,
Comes the voice of a stifled wail,
And the shrieks and moans of the homeless
Ring like the dirge of a gale.

“I have seen from the smoking village,
Our mothers and daughters fly,
I’ve seen where the little children,
Sank down in the furrows to die.

“On the banks of the battle-stained river,
I stood as the moonlight shone,
And it glared on the face of my brother,
As the sad wave swept him on.

“Where my home was glad, are ashes,
And horror and shame had been there,
For I found on the fallen lintel,
This tress of my wife’s torn hair.

“They are turning the slave upon us,
And with more than the fiend’s worst art.
Have uncovered the fires of the savage,
That slept in his untaught heart.

“The ties to our hearts that bound him,
They have rent with curses away,
And madden him in their madness
To be almost as brutal as they.

“With halter and torch and Bible,
And hymns to the sound of the drum,
They preach the gospel of murder,
And pray for lust’s kingdom to come.

“To saddle! my brothers! to saddle!
Look up to the rising sun,
And ask of the God who shines there,
Whether deeds like these shall be done.

“Whither the vandal cometh,
Press home to his heart with your steel,
And where’er at his bosom ye cannot,
Like the serpent, go strike at his heel.

“Through thicket and wood go hunt him,
Creep up to his camp-fire side,
And let ten of his corpses blacken,
Where one of our brothers hath died.

“In his fainting footsore marches,
In his flight from the stricken fray,
In the snare of the lonely ambush,
The debts that we owe him, pay.

“In God’s hands alone is vengeance,
But he strikes with the hands of men,
And his blight would wither our manhood,
If we smote not the smiter again.

“By the graves where our fathers slumber,
By the shrines where our mothers prayed,
By our homes and hopes of freedom,
Let every man swear by his blade.--

“That he will not sheathe nor stay it,
Till from point to hilt it glow,
With the flush of Almighty justice,
In the blood of the cruel foe.”

They swore; and the answering sunlight
Leapt from their lifted swords,
And the hate in their hearts made echo,
To the wrath of their burning words.

[Southern.]

WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER.

[There is nothing in this sentimental song that enables
one to read the riddle of its remarkable popularity during
the Civil War. It has no poetic merit; its rhythm is
commonplace, and the tune to which it was sung was of the
flimsiest musical structure, without even a trick of melody
to commend it. Yet the song was more frequently sung, on
both sides, than any other, the Southern soldiers inserting
“gray” for “blue” in the sixth line of the first stanza,
with cheerful recklessness of the effect upon the rhyme.
The thing was heard in every camp every day and many times
every day. Men chanted it on the march, and women sang
it to piano accompaniment in all houses. A song which so
strongly appealed to two great armies and to an entire
people is worthy of a place in all collections of war
poetry, even though criticism is baffled in the attempt to
discover the reason of its popularity.--EDITOR.]

WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER.

Dearest love, do you remember
When we last did meet,
How you told me that you loved me
Kneeling at my feet?
Oh, how proud you stood before me
In your suit of blue,
When you vowed to me and country
Ever to be true.
_Chorus._--Weeping, sad and lonely,
Hopes and fears, how vain;
Yet praying
When this cruel war is over,
Praying that we meet again.

When the summer breeze is sighing
Mournfully along,
Or when autumn leaves are falling,
Sadly breathes the song.
Oft in dreams I see thee lying
On the battle plain,
Lonely, wounded, even dying,
Calling, but in vain.
_Chorus._--Weeping, sad, etc.

If, amid the din of battle,
Nobly you should fall,
Far away from those who love you,
None to hear you call,
Who would whisper words of comfort?
Who would soothe your pain?
Ah, the many cruel fancies
Ever in my brain!
_Chorus._--Weeping, sad, etc.

But our country called you, darling,
Angels cheer your way!
While our nation’s sons are fighting,
We can only pray.
Nobly strike for God and country,
Let all nations see
How we love the starry banner,
Emblem of the free.
_Chorus._--Weeping, sad, etc.

CAVALRY Song

BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

Our good steeds snuff the evening air,
Our pulses with their purpose tingle;
The foeman’s fires are twinkling there;
He leaps to hear our sabres jingle!
Halt!
Each carbine sends its whizzing ball;
Now, cling! clang! forward all,
Into the fight!

Dash on beneath the smoking dome;
Through level lightnings gallop nearer!
One look to heaven! No thoughts of home:
The guidons that we bear are dearer.
Charge!
Cling! clang! forward all,
Heaven help those whose horses fall!
Cut left and right!

They flee before our fierce attack!
They fall! they spread in broken surges!
Now, comrades, bear our wounded back,
And leave the foeman to his dirges.
Wheel!
The bugles sound the swift recall;
Cling! clang! backward all!
Home, and good-night!

CAVALRY SONG.

BY ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.

Our bugles sound gayly. To horse and away!
And over the mountains breaks the day;
Then ho! brothers, ho! for the ride or the fight,
There are deeds to be done ere we slumber to-night!
And whether we fight or whether we fall
By sabre-stroke or rifle-ball,
The hearts of the free will remember us yet,
And our country, our country will never forget!

Then mount and away! let the coward delight
To be lazy all day and safe all night;
Our joy is a charger, flecked with foam,
And the earth is our bed and the saddle our home;
And whether we fight, etc.

See yonder the ranks of the traitorous foe,
And bright in the sunshine bayonets glow!
Breathe a prayer, but no sigh; think for what you would fight;
Then charge! with a will, boys, and God for the right!
And whether we fight, etc.

We have gathered again the red laurels of war;
We have followed the traitors fast and far;
But some who rose gayly this morn with the sun
Lie bleeding and pale on the field they have won!
But whether we fight, etc.

THE CAVALRY CHARGE.

BY BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.

Hark! the rattling roll of the musketeers,
And the ruffled drums, and the rallying cheers,
And the rifles burn with a keen desire
Like the crackling whips of a hemlock fire,
And the singing shot and the shrieking shell
And the splintered fire on the shattered hell,
And the great white breaths of the cannon smoke
As the growling guns by batteries spoke;
And the ragged gaps in the walls of blue
Where the iron surge rolled heavily through,
That the Colonel builds with a breath again
As he cleaves the din with his “_Close up, men!_”
And the groan torn out from the blackened lips,
And the prayer doled slow with the crimsoned drips,
And the beaming look in the dying eye
As under the cloud the stars go by,
“_But his soul marched on!_” the Captain said,
For the Boy in Blue can never be dead!

And the troopers sit in their saddles all
Like statues carved in an ancient hall,
And they watch the whirl from their breathless ranks,
And their spurs are close to the horses’ flanks,
And the fingers work of the sabre hand--
Oh, to bid them live, and to make them grand!
And the bugle sounds to the charge at last,
And away they plunge, and the front is passed!
And the jackets blue grow red as they ride,
And the scabbards too, that clank by their side,
And the dead soldiers deaden the strokes iron-shod
As they gallop right on o’er the plashy red sod--
Right into the cloud all spectral and dim,
Right up to the guns black-throated and grim,
Right down on the hedges bordered with steel,
Right through the dense columns--then “_Right about wheel!_”
Hurrah! a new swath through the harvest again!
Hurrah for the Flag! To the battle, Amen!

THE CAVALRY CHARGE.

BY FRANCIS A. DURIVAGE.

With bray of the trumpet
And roll of the drum,
And keen ring of bugle,
The cavalry come.
Sharp clank the steel scabbards,
The bridle-chains ring,
And foam from red nostrils
The wild chargers fling.

Tramp! tramp! o’er the greensward
That quivers below,
Scarce held by the curb-bit
The fierce horses go!
And the grim-visaged colonel,
With ear-rending shout,
Peals forth to the squadrons
The order: “_Trot out!_”

One hand on the sabre,
And one on the rein,
The troopers move forward
In line on the plain.
As rings the word “_Gallop!_”
The steel scabbards clank,
And each rowel is pressed
To a horse’s hot flank:
And swift is their rush
As the wild torrent’s flow,
When it pours from the crag
On the valley below.

“_Charge!_” thunders the leader:
Like shaft from the bow
Each mad horse is hurled
On the wavering foe.
A thousand bright sabres
Are gleaming in air:
A thousand dark horses
Are dashed on the square.
Resistless and reckless
Of aught may betide,
Like demons, not mortals,
The wild troopers ride.
Cut right! and cut left!--
For the parry who needs?
The bayonets shiver
Like wind-scattered reeds.

Vain--vain the red volley
That bursts from the square,--
The random-shot bullets
Are wasted in air.
Triumphant, remorseless,
Unerring as death,--
No sabre that’s stainless
Returns to its sheath.

The wounds that are dealt
By that murderous steel
Will never yield case
For the surgeon to heal.
Hurrah! they are broken--
Hurrah! boys, they fly!
None linger save those
Who but linger to die.

Rein up your hot horses
And call in your men,--
The trumpet sounds “_Rally_
_To colors!_” again.
Some saddles are empty,
Some comrades are slain,
And some noble horses
Lie stark on the plain;
But war’s a chance game, boys,
And weeping is vain.

ROLL-CALL.

BY N. G. SHEPHERD.

“Corporal Green!” the Orderly cried;
“Here!” was the answer, loud and clear,
From the lips of the soldier who stood near,--
And “Here!” was the word the next replied.

“Cyrus Drew!”--then a silence fell:
This time no answer followed the call;
Only his rear-man had seen him fall:
Killed or wounded--he could not tell.

There they stood in the failing light,
These men of battle, with grave, dark looks,
As plain to be read as open books,
While slowly gathered the shades of night.

The fern on the hill-sides was splashed with blood,
And down in the corn where the poppies grew
Were redder stains than the poppies knew;
And crimson-dyed was the river’s flood.

For the foe had crossed from the other side
That day, in the face of a murderous fire
That swept them down in its terrible ire,
And their life-blood went to color the tide.

“Herbert Kline!” At the call there came
Two stalwart soldiers into the line,
Bearing between them this Herbert Kline,
Wounded and bleeding, to answer his name.

“Ezra Kerr!”--and a voice answered, “Here!”
“Hiram Kerr!”--but no man replied.
They were brothers, these two; the sad winds sighed,
And a shudder crept through the cornfield near.

“Ephraim Deane!”--then a soldier spoke:
“Deane carried our regiment’s colors,” he said;
“Where our ensign was shot I left him dead,
Just after the enemy wavered and broke.

“Close to the road-side his body lies;
I paused a moment and gave him a drink;
He murmured his mother’s name, I think,
And Death came with it, and closed his eyes.”

’Twas a victory; yes, but it cost us dear,--
For that company’s roll, when called at night,
Of a hundred men who went into the fight,
Numbered but twenty that answered “Here!”

[Southern.]

READING THE LIST.

“Is there any news of the war?” she said.
“Only a list of the wounded and dead,”
Was the man’s reply,
Without lifting his eye
To the face of the woman standing by.
“’Tis the very thing I want,” she said;
“Read me a list of the wounded and dead.”
He read the list--’twas a sad array
Of the wounded and killed in the fatal fray.

In the very midst, was a pause to tell
Of a gallant youth who fought so well
That his comrades asked: “Who is he, pray?”
“The only son of the Widow Gray,”
Was the proud reply
Of his captain nigh--
What ails the woman standing near?
Her face has the ashen hue of fear!

“Well, well, read on; is he wounded? Quick!
O God! but my heart is sorrow-sick!
Is he wounded?” “No; he fell, they say,
Killed outright on that fatal day!”
But see, the woman has swooned away!

Sadly she opened her eyes to the light;
Slowly recalled the events of the fight;
Faintly she murmured: “Killed outright!
It has cost me the life of my only son;
But the battle is fought, and the victory won;
The will of the Lord, let it be done!”

God pity the cheerless Widow Gray,
And send from the halls of eternal day
The light of his peace to illumine her way.

[Southern.]

A WOMAN OF THE WAR.

BY ROSSITER JOHNSON.

[The tenderly pathetic story told in this poem is true.
Its heroine was Margaret Augusta Peterson, a volunteer
nurse in St. Mary’s Hospital at Rochester, New York. She
died in the manner related, on the first of September,
1864, and lies buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, as
does also the young surgeon, her lover.--EDITOR.]

Through the sombre arch of that gateway tower
Where my humblest townsman rides at last,
You may spy the bells of a nodding flower,
On a double mound that is thickly grassed.

And between the spring and the summer time,
Or ever the lilac’s bloom is shed,
When they come with banners and wreaths and rhyme,
To deck the tombs of the nation’s dead,

They find there a little flag in the grass,
And fling a handful of roses down,
And pause a moment before they pass
To the captain’s grave with the gilded crown.

But if perchance they seek to recall
What name, what deeds, these honors declare,
They cannot tell, they are silent all
As the noiseless harebell nodding there.

She was tall, with an almost manly grace,
And young, with strange wisdom for one so young,
And fair with more than a woman’s face;
With dark, deep eyes, and a mirthful tongue.

The poor and the fatherless knew her smile;
The friend in sorrow had seen her tears;
She had studied the ways of the rough world’s guile,
And read the romance of historic years.

What she might have been in these times of ours,
At once it is easy and hard to guess;
For always a riddle are half-used powers,
And always a power is lovingness.

But her fortunes fell upon evil days--
If days are evil when evil dies,--
And she was not one who could stand at gaze
Where the hopes of humanity fall and rise.

Nor could she dance to the viol’s tune,
When the drum was throbbing throughout the land,
Or dream in the light of the summer moon
When Treason was clenching his mailèd hand.

Through the long gray hospital’s corridor
She journeyed many a mournful league,
And her light foot fell on the oaken floor
As if it never could know fatigue.

She stood by the good old surgeon’s side,
And the sufferers smiled as they saw her stand;
She wrote, and the mothers marvelled and cried
At their darling soldiers’ feminine hand.

She was last in the ward when the lights burned low,
And sleep called a truce to his foeman Pain;
At the midnight cry she was first to go,
To bind up the bleeding wound again.

For sometimes the wreck of a man would rise,
Weird and gaunt in the watch-lamp’s gleam,
And tear away bandage and splints and ties,
Fighting the battle all o’er in his dream.

No wonder the youngest surgeon felt
A charm in the presence of that brave soul,
Through weary weeks, as she nightly knelt
With the letter from home or the doctor’s dole.

He heard her called, and he heard her blessed,
With many a patriot’s parting breath;
And ere his soul to itself confessed,
Love leaped to life in those vigils of death.

“Oh, fly to your home!” came a whisper dread,
“For now the pestilence walks by night.”
“The greater the need of me here,” she said,
And bared her arm for the lancet’s bite.

Was there death, green death, in the atmosphere?
Was the bright steel poisoned? Who can tell!
Her weeping friends gathered beside her bier,
And the clergyman told them all was well.

Well--alas that it should be so!
When a nation’s debt reaches reckoning-day--
Well for it to be able, but woe
To the generation that’s called to pay!

Down from the long gray hospital came
Every boy in blue who could walk the floor;
The sick and the wounded, the blind and the lame,
Formed two long files from her father’s door.

There was grief in many a manly breast,
While men’s tears fell as the coffin passed;
And thus she went to the world of rest,
Martial and maidenly up to the last.

And that youngest surgeon, was he to blame?--
He held the lancet--Heaven only knows.
No matter; his heart broke all the same,
And he laid him down, and never arose.

So Death received, in his greedy hand,
Two precious coins of the awful price
That purchased freedom for this dear land--
For master and bondman--yea, bought it twice.

Such fates too often such women are for!
God grant the Republic a large increase,
To match the heroes in time of war,
And mother the children in time of peace.

GLORY HALLELUJAH! OR, JOHN BROWN’S BODY.

[The strong hold which this song and the three which
follow it (“Marching thro’ Georgia,” “The Battle-Cry of
Freedom” and “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp”) had upon the favor
of the Union soldiers during the war entitles them to
insertion here in spite of their lack of poetic merit.
The critics, from the time of Mr. Richard Grant White’s
collection until now, have condemned them as doggerel, but
songs that were sung with enthusiasm by all the soldiers of
the republic during the dark years of the Civil War cannot
be denied the possession of merit, whether criticism is
able to recognize it or not.--EDITOR.]

GLORY HALLELUJAH! OR JOHN BROWN’S BODY.

John Brown’s body lies a-mould’ring in the grave,
John Brown’s body lies a-mould’ring in the grave,
John Brown’s body lies a-mould’ring in the grave,
His soul is marching on!

_Chorus_.--Glory! Glory Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on.

He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord!
He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord!
He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord!
His soul is marching on.--_Chorus._

John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back.
His soul is marching on.--_Chorus._

His pet lambs will meet him on the way,
And they’ll go marching on.--_Chorus._

They’ll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree,
As they go marching on.--_Chorus._

Now for the Union let’s give three rousing cheers,
As we go marching on.
Hip, hip, hip, hip, Hurrah!

MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA.

Bring the good old bugle, boys! we’ll sing another song--
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along--
Sing it as we used to sing it fifty thousand strong,
While we were marching through Georgia.

_Chorus._--“Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!”
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,

How the darkeys shouted when they heard the joyful sound!
How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found!
How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground,
While we were marching through Georgia.--_Chorus_.

Yes, and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honor’d flag they had not seen for years;
Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.--_Chorus._

“Sherman’s dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!”
So the saucy rebels said--and ’twas a handsome boast,
Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon on a host,
While we were marching through Georgia.--_Chorus._

So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude--three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain,
While we were marching through Georgia.--_Chorus._

THE BATTLE-CRY OF FREEDOM.

Yes, we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom,
We will rally from the hill-side, we’ll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.

_Chorus._--The Union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah,
Down with the traitor, up with the star,
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.

We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom,
And we’ll fill the vacant ranks with a million freemen more,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.--_Chorus._

We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true, and brave,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom,
And altho’ they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.--_Chorus._

So we’re springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom,
And we’ll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.--_Chorus._

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP.

In the prison cell I sit,
Thinking, mother dear, of you,
And our bright and happy home so far away,
And the tears they fill my eyes,
Spite of all that I can do,
Tho’ I try to cheer my comrades and be gay.

_Chorus._--Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching,
Oh, cheer up, comrades, they will come,
And beneath the starry flag we shall breathe
the air again,
Of freedom in our own beloved home.

In the battle front we stood
When the fiercest charge they made,
And they swept us off a hundred men or more,
But before we reached their lines
They were beaten back dismayed,
And we heard the cry of vict’ry o’er and o’er.--_Chorus._

So within the prison cell
We are waiting for the day
That shall come to open wide the iron door,
And the hollow eye grows bright,
And the poor heart almost gay.
As we think of seeing friends and home once more.--_Chorus._

END OF VOL. II.

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