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If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War + +Author: Herman Melville + +Release Date: May 19, 2004 [eBook #12384] +[Most recently updated: June 17, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Maddock + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BATTLE-PIECES AND ASPECTS OF THE WAR *** + + + + +Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War. + +By Herman Melville. + + + +1866. + + + + +The Battle-Pieces in this volume are dedicated to the memory of the +THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND who in the war for the maintenance of the Union +fell devotedly under the flag of their fathers. + + + +[With few exceptions, the Pieces in this volume originated in an impulse +imparted by the fall of Richmond. They were composed without reference +to collective arrangement, but being brought together in review, +naturally fall into the order assumed. + +The events and incidents of the conflict--making up a whole, in varied +amplitude, corresponding with the geographical area covered by the +war--from these but a few themes have been taken, such as for any cause +chanced to imprint themselves upon the mind. + +The aspects which the strife as a memory assumes are as manifold as are +the moods of involuntary meditation--moods variable, and at times widely +at variance. Yielding instinctively, one after another, to feelings not +inspired from any one source exclusively, and unmindful, without +purposing to be, of consistency, I seem, in most of these verses, to +have but placed a harp in a window, and noted the contrasted airs which +wayward wilds have played upon the strings.] + + + +The Portent. +(1859.) + + +Hanging from the beam, + Slowly swaying (such the law), +Gaunt the shadow on your green, + Shenandoah! +The cut is on the crown +(Lo, John Brown), +And the stabs shall heal no more. + +Hidden in the cap + Is the anguish none can draw; +So your future veils its face, + Shenandoah! +But the streaming beard is shown +(Weird John Brown), +The meteor of the the war. + + + +Misgivings. +(1860.) + + + When ocean-clouds over inland hills + Sweep storming in late autumn brown, + And horror the sodden valley fills, + And the spire falls crashing in the town, + I muse upon my country’s ills-- + The tempest bursting from the waste of Time +On the world’s fairest hope linked with man’s foulest crime. + + Nature’s dark side is heeded now-- + (Ah! optimist-cheer disheartened flown)-- + A child may read the moody brow + Of yon black mountain lone. + With shouts the torrents down the gorges go, + And storms are formed behind the storm we feel: +The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel. + + + +The Conflict of Convictions.[1] +(1860-1.) + + +On starry heights + A bugle wails the long recall; +Derision stirs the deep abyss, + Heaven’s ominous silence over all. +Return, return, O eager Hope, + And face man’s latter fall. +Events, they make the dreamers quail; +Satan’s old age is strong and hale, +A disciplined captain, gray in skill, +And Raphael a white enthusiast still; +Dashed aims, at which Christ’s martyrs pale, +Shall Mammon’s slaves fulfill? + + (_Dismantle the fort, + Cut down the fleet-- + Battle no more shall be! + While the fields for fight in æons to come + Congeal beneath the sea._) + +The terrors of truth and dart of death + To faith alike are vain; +Though comets, gone a thousand years, + Return again, +Patient she stands--she can no more-- +And waits, nor heeds she waxes hoar. + + (_At a stony gate, + A statue of stone, + Weed overgrown-- + Long ’twill wait!_) + +But God his former mind retains, + Confirms his old decree; +The generations are inured to pains, + And strong Necessity +Surges, and heaps Time’s strand with wrecks. + The People spread like a weedy grass, + The thing they will they bring to pass, +And prosper to the apoplex. +The rout it herds around the heart, + The ghost is yielded in the gloom; +Kings wag their heads--Now save thyself + Who wouldst rebuild the world in bloom. + + (_Tide-mark + And top of the ages’ strike, + Verge where they called the world to come, + The last advance of life-- + Ha ha, the rust on the Iron Dome!_) + +Nay, but revere the hid event; + In the cloud a sword is girded on, +I mark a twinkling in the tent + Of Michael the warrior one. +Senior wisdom suits not now, +The light is on the youthful brow. + + (_Ay, in caves the miner see: + His forehead bears a blinking light; + Darkness so he feebly braves-- + A meagre wight!_) + +But He who rules is old--is old; +Ah! faith is warm, but heaven with age is cold. + + (_Ho ho, ho ho, + The cloistered doubt + Of olden times + Is blurted out!_) + +The Ancient of Days forever is young, + Forever the scheme of Nature thrives; +I know a wind in purpose strong-- + It spins _against_ the way it drives. +What if the gulfs their slimed foundations bare? +So deep must the stones be hurled +Whereon the throes of ages rear +The final empire and the happier world. + + (_The poor old Past, + The Future’s slave, + She drudged through pain and crime + To bring about the blissful Prime, + Then--perished. There’s a grave!_) + + Power unanointed may come-- +Dominion (unsought by the free) + And the Iron Dome, +Stronger for stress and strain, +Fling her huge shadow athwart the main; +But the Founders’ dream shall flee. +Agee after age shall be +As age after age has been, +(From man’s changeless heart their way they win); + +And death be busy with all who strive-- +Death, with silent negative. + + YEA, AND NAY-- + EACH HATH HIS SAY; + BUT GOD HE KEEPS THE MIDDLE WAY. + NONE WAS BY + WHEN HE SPREAD THE SKY; + WISDOM IS VAIN, AND PROPHESY. + + + +Apathy and Enthusiasm. +(1860-1.) + + +I + +O the clammy cold November, + And the winter white and dead, +And the terror dumb with stupor, + And the sky a sheet of lead; +And events that came resounding + With the cry that _All was lost_, +Like the thunder-cracks of massy ice + In intensity of frost-- +Bursting one upon another + Through the horror of the calm. + The paralysis of arm +In the anguish of the heart; +And the hollowness and dearth. + The appealings of the mother + To brother and to brother +Not in hatred so to part-- +And the fissure in the hearth + Growing momently more wide. +Then the glances ’tween the Fates, + And the doubt on every side, +And the patience under gloom +In the stoniness that waits +The finality of doom. + + +II + +So the winter died despairing, + And the weary weeks of Lent; +And the ice-bound rivers melted, + And the tomb of Faith was rent. +O, the rising of the People + Came with springing of the grass, +They rebounded from dejection + And Easter came to pass. +And the young were all elation + Hearing Sumter’s cannon roar, +And they thought how tame the Nation + In the age that went before. +And Michael seemed gigantical, + The Arch-fiend but a dwarf; +And at the towers of Erebus + Our striplings flung the scoff. +But the elders with foreboding + Mourned the days forever o’er, +And re called the forest proverb, + The Iroquois’ old saw: +_Grief to every graybeard + When young Indians lead the war._ + + + +The March into Virginia, +Ending in the First Manassas. +(July, 1861.) + + +Did all the lets and bars appear + To every just or larger end, +Whence should come the trust and cheer? + Youth must its ignorant impulse lend-- +Age finds place in the rear. + All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, +The champions and enthusiasts of the state: + Turbid ardors and vain joys + Not barrenly abate-- + Stimulants to the power mature, + Preparatives of fate. + +Who here forecasteth the event? +What heart but spurns at precedent +And warnings of the wise, +Contemned foreclosures of surprise? + +The banners play, the bugles call, +The air is blue and prodigal. + No berrying party, pleasure-wooed, +No picnic party in the May, +Ever went less loth than they + Into that leafy neighborhood. +In Bacchic glee they file toward Fate, +Moloch’s uninitiate; +Expectancy, and glad surmise +Of battle’s unknown mysteries. +All they feel is this: ’tis glory, +A rapture sharp, though transitory, +Yet lasting in belaureled story. +So they gayly go to fight, +Chatting left and laughing right. + +But some who this blithe mood present, + As on in lightsome files they fare, +Shall die experienced ere three days are spent-- + Perish, enlightened by the vollied glare; +Or shame survive, and, like to adamant, + The throe of Second Manassas share. + + + +Lyon. +Battle of Springfield, Missouri. +(August, 1861.) + + +Some hearts there are of deeper sort, + Prophetic, sad, +Which yet for cause are trebly clad; + Known death they fly on: +This wizard-heart and heart-of-oak had Lyon. + +“They are more than twenty thousand strong, + We less than five, +Too few with such a host to strive” + “Such counsel, fie on! +’Tis battle, or ’tis shame;” and firm stood Lyon. + +“For help at need in van we wait-- + Retreat or fight: +Retreat the foe would take for flight, + And each proud scion +Feel more elate; the end must come,” said Lyon. + +By candlelight he wrote the will, + And left his all +To Her for whom ’twas not enough to fall; + Loud neighed Orion +Without the tent; drums beat; we marched with Lyon. + +The night-tramp done, we spied the Vale + With guard-fires lit; +Day broke, but trooping clouds made gloom of it: + “A field to die on” +Presaged in his unfaltering heart, brave Lyon. + +We fought on the grass, we bled in the corn-- + Fate seemed malign; +His horse the Leader led along the line-- + Star-browed Orion; +Bitterly fearless, he rallied us there, brave Lyon. + +There came a sound like the slitting of air + By a swift sharp sword-- +A rush of the sound; and the sleek chest broad + Of black Orion +Heaved, and was fixed; the dead mane waved toward Lyon. + +“General, you’re hurt--this sleet of balls!” + He seemed half spent; +With moody and bloody brow, he lowly bent: + “The field to die on; +But not--not yet; the day is long,” breathed Lyon. + +For a time becharmed there fell a lull + In the heart of the fight; +The tree-tops nod, the slain sleep light; + Warm noon-winds sigh on, +And thoughts which he never spake had Lyon. + +Texans and Indians trim for a charge: + “Stand ready, men! +Let them come close, right up, and then + After the lead, the iron; +Fire, and charge back!” So strength returned to Lyon. + +The Iowa men who held the van, + Half drilled, were new +To battle: “Some one lead us, then we’ll do” + Said Corporal Tryon: +“Men! _I_ will lead,” and a light glared in Lyon. + +On they came: they yelped, and fired; + His spirit sped; +We leveled right in, and the half-breeds fled, + Nor stayed the iron, +Nor captured the crimson corse of Lyon. + +This seer foresaw his soldier-doom, + Yet willed the fight. +He never turned; his only flight + Was up to Zion, +Where prophets now and armies greet brave Lyon. + + + +Ball’s Bluff. +A Reverie. +(October, 1861.) + + +One noonday, at my window in the town, + I saw a sight--saddest that eyes can see-- + Young soldiers marching lustily + Unto the wars, +With fifes, and flags in mottoed pageantry; + While all the porches, walks, and doors +Were rich with ladies cheering royally. + +They moved like Juny morning on the wave, + Their hearts were fresh as clover in its prime + (It was the breezy summer time), + Life throbbed so strong, +How should they dream that Death in a rosy clime + Would come to thin their shining throng? +Youth feels immortal, like the gods sublime. + +Weeks passed; and at my window, leaving bed, + By night I mused, of easeful sleep bereft, + On those brave boys (Ah War! thy theft); + Some marching feet +Found pause at last by cliffs Potomac cleft; + Wakeful I mused, while in the street +Far footfalls died away till none were left. + + + +Dupont’s Round Fight. +(November, 1861.) + + +In time and measure perfect moves + All Art whose aim is sure; +Evolving ryhme and stars divine + Have rules, and they endure. + +Nor less the Fleet that warred for Right, + And, warring so, prevailed, +In geometric beauty curved, + And in an orbit sailed. + +The rebel at Port Royal felt + The Unity overawe, +And rued the spell. A type was here, + And victory of Law. + + + +The Stone Fleet.[2] +An Old Sailor’s Lament. +(December, 1861.) + + +I have a feeling for those ships, + Each worn and ancient one, +With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam; + Ay, it was unkindly done. + But so they serve the Obsolete-- + Even so, Stone Fleet! + +You’ll say I’m doting; do but think + I scudded round the Horn in one-- +The Tenedos, a glorious + Good old craft as ever run-- + Sunk (how all unmeet!) + With the Old Stone Fleet. + +An India ship of fame was she, + Spices and shawls and fans she bore; +A whaler when her wrinkles came-- + Turned off! till, spent and poor, + Her bones were sold (escheat)! + Ah! Stone Fleet. + +Four were erst patrician keels + (Names attest what families be), +The Kensington, and Richmond too, + Leonidas, and Lee: + But now they have their seat + With the Old Stone Fleet. + +To scuttle them--a pirate deed-- + Sack them, and dismast; +They sunk so slow, they died so hard, + But gurgling dropped at last. + Their ghosts in gales repeat + _Woe’s us, Stone Fleet!_ + +And all for naught. The waters pass-- + Currents will have their way; +Nature is nobody’s ally; ’tis well; + The harbor is bettered--will stay. + A failure, and complete, + Was your Old Stone Fleet. + + + +Donelson. +(February, 1862.) + + +The bitter cup + Of that hard countermand +Which gave the Envoys up, +Still was wormwood in the mouth, + And clouds involved the land, +When, pelted by sleet in the icy street, + About the bulletin-board a band +Of eager, anxious people met, +And every wakeful heart was set +On latest news from West or South. +“No seeing here,” cries one--“don’t crowd--” +“You tall man, pray you, read aloud.” + +IMPORTANT. + _We learn that General Grant, + Marching from Henry overland, +And joined by a force up the Cumberland sent + (Some thirty thousand the command), +On Wednesday a good position won-- +Began the siege of Donelson. + +The stronghold crowns a river-bluff, + A good broad mile of leveled top; +Inland the ground rolls off + Deep-gorged, and rocky, and broken up-- +A wilderness of trees and brush. + The spaded summit shows the roods +Of fixed intrenchments in their hush; + Breast-works and rifle-pits in woods +Perplex the base.-- + The welcome weather + Is clear and mild; ’tis much like May. +The ancient boughs that lace together +Along the stream, and hang far forth, + Strange with green mistletoe, betray +A dreamy contrast to the North. + +Our troops are full of spirits--say + The siege won’t prove a creeping one. +They purpose not the lingering stay +Of old beleaguerers; not that way; + But, full of _vim_ from Western prairies won, + They’ll make, ere long, a dash at Donelson._ + +Washed by the storm till the paper grew +Every shade of a streaky blue, +That bulletin stood. The next day brought +A second. + + +LATER FROM THE FORT. +_Grant’s investment is complete-- + A semicircular one. +Both wings the Cumberland’s margin meet, +Then, backwkard curving, clasp the rebel seat. + On Wednesday this good work was done; + But of the doers some lie prone. +Each wood, each hill, each glen was fought for; +The bold inclosing line we wrought for +Flamed with sharpshooters. Each cliff cost +A limb or life. But back we forced +Reserves and all; made good our hold; +And so we rest. + + Events unfold. +On Thursday added ground was won, + A long bold steep: we near the Den. +Later the foe came shouting down + In sortie, which was quelled; and then +We stormed them on their left. +A chilly change in the afternoon; +The sky, late clear, is now bereft +Of sun. Last night the ground froze hard-- +Rings to the enemy as they run +Within their works. A ramrod bites +The lip it meets. The cold incites +To swinging of arms with brisk rebound. +Smart blows ’gainst lusty chests resound. + +Along the outer line we ward + A crackle of skirmishing goes on. +Our lads creep round on hand and knee, + They fight from behind each trunk and stone; + And sometimes, flying for refuge, one +Finds ’tis an enemy shares the tree. +Some scores are maimed by boughs shot off + In the glades by the Fort’s big gun. + We mourn the loss of colonel Morrison, + Killed while cheering his regiment on. +Their far sharpshooters try our stuff; +And ours return them puff for puff: +’Tis diamond-cutting-diamond work. + Woe on the rebel cannoneer +Who shows his head. Our fellows lurk + Like Indians that waylay the deer +By the wild salt-spring.--The sky is dun, +Fordooming the fall of Donelson. + +Stern weather is all unwonted here. + The people of the country own +We brought it. Yea, the earnest North +Has elementally issued forth + To storm this Donelson._ + +FURTHER. + A yelling rout +Of ragamuffins broke profuse + To-day from out the Fort. + Sole uniform they wore, a sort +Of patch, or white badge (as you choose) + Upon the arm. But leading these, +Or mingling, were men of face +And bearing of patrician race, +Splendid in courage and gold lace-- + The officers. Before the breeze +Made by their charge, down went our line; +But, rallying, charged back in force, +And broke the sally; yet with loss. +This on the left; upon the right +Meanwhile there was an answering fight; + Assailants and assailed reversed. +The charge too upward, and not down-- +Up a steep ridge-side, toward its crown, + A strong redoubt. But they who first +Gained the fort’s base, and marked the trees +Felled, heaped in horned perplexities, + And shagged with brush; and swarming there +Fierce wasps whose sting was present death-- +They faltered, drawing bated breath, + And felt it was in vain to dare; +Yet still, perforce, returned the ball, +Firing into the tangled wall +Till ordered to come down. They came; +But left some comrades in their fame, +Red on the ridge in icy wreath +And hanging gardens of cold Death. + But not quite unavenged these fell; +Our ranks once out of range, a blast + Of shrapnel and quick shell +Burst on the rebel horde, still massed, + Scattering them pell-mell. + (This fighting--judging what we read-- + Both charge and countercharge, + Would seem but Thursday’s told at large, + Before in brief reported.--Ed.) +Night closed in about the Den + Murky and lowering. Ere long, chill rains. +A night not soon to be forgot, + Reviving old rheumatic pains +And longings for a cot. + + No blankets, overcoats, or tents. +Coats thrown aside on the warm march here-- +We looked not then for changeful cheer; +Tents, coats, and blankets too much care. + No fires; a fire a mark presents; + Near by, the trees show bullet-dents. +Rations were eaten cold and raw. + The men well soaked, come snow; and more-- +A midnight sally. Small sleeping done-- + But such is war; +No matter, we’ll have Fort Donelson._ + + “Ugh! ugh! +’Twill drag along--drag along” +Growled a cross patriot in the throng, +His battered umbrella like an ambulance-cover +Riddled with bullet-holes, spattered all over. +“Hurrah for Grant!” cried a stripling shrill; +Three urchins joined him with a will, +And some of taller stature cheered. +Meantime a Copperhead passed; he sneered. + “Win or lose,” he pausing said, +“Caps fly the same; all boys, mere boys; +Any thing to make a noise. + Like to see the list of the dead; +These ‘_craven Southerners_’ hold out; +Ay, ay, they’ll give you many a bout” + “We’ll beat in the end, sir” +Firmly said one in staid rebuke, +A solid merchant, square and stout. + “And do you think it? that way tend, sir” +Asked the lean Cooperhead, with a look +Of splenetic pity. “Yes, I do” +His yellow death’s head the croaker shook: +“The country’s ruined, that I know” +A shower of broken ice and snow, + In lieu of words, confuted him; +They saw him hustled round the corner go, + And each by-stander said--Well suited him. + +Next day another crowd was seen +In the dark weather’s sleety spleen. +Bald-headed to the storm came out +A man, who, ’mid a joyous shout, +Silently posted this brief sheet: + +GLORIOUS VICTORY OF THE FLEET! + +FRIDAY’S GREAT EVENT! + +THE ENEMY’S WATER-BATTERIES BEAT! + +WE SILENCED EVERY GUN! + +THE OLD COMMODORE’S COMPLIMENTS SENT +PLUMP INTO DONELSON! + +“Well, well, go on!” exclaimed the crowd +To him who thus much read aloud. +“That’s all,” he said. “What! nothing more” +“Enough for a cheer, though--hip, hurrah!” +“But here’s old Baldy come again--” +“More news!”--And now a different strain. + +(Our own reporter a dispatch compiles, + As best he may, from varied sources.) + +Large re-enforcements have arrived-- + Munitions, men, and horses-- +For Grant, and all debarked, with stores. + + The enemy’s field-works extend six miles-- +The gate still hid; so well contrived. + +Yesterday stung us; frozen shores + Snow-clad, and through the drear defiles + +And over the desolate ridges blew +A Lapland wind. + The main affair + Was a good two hours’ steady fight +Between our gun-boats and the Fort. + The Louisville’s wheel was smashed outright. +A hundred-and-twenty-eight-pound ball +Came planet-like through a starboard port, +Killing three men, and wounding all +The rest of that gun’s crew, +(The captain of the gun was cut in two); +Then splintering and ripping went-- +Nothing could be its continent. + In the narrow stream the Louisville, +Unhelmed, grew lawless; swung around, + And would have thumped and drifted, till +All the fleet was driven aground, +But for the timely order to retire. + +Some damage from our fire, ’tis thought, +Was done the water-batteries of the Fort. + +Little else took place that day, + Except the field artillery in line +Would now and then--for love, they say-- + Exchange a valentine. +The old sharpshooting going on. +Some plan afoot as yet unknown; +So Friday closed round Donelson. + +LATER. + Great suffering through the night-- +A stinging one. Our heedless boys + Were nipped like blossoms. Some dozen + Hapless wounded men were frozen. +During day being struck down out of sight, +And help-cries drowned in roaring noise, +They were left just where the skirmish shifted-- +Left in dense underbrush now-drifted. +Some, seeking to crawl in crippled plight, +So stiffened--perished. + Yet in spite +Of pangs for these, no heart is lost. +Hungry, and clothing stiff with frost, +Our men declare a nearing sun +Shall see the fall of Donelson. + And this they say, yet not disown +The dark redoubts round Donelson, + And ice-glazed corpses, each a stone-- + A sacrifice to Donelson; +They swear it, and swerve not, gazing on +A flag, deemed black, flying from Donelson. +Some of the wounded in the wood + Were cared for by the foe last night, +Though he could do them little needed good, + Himself being all in shivering plight. +The rebel is wrong, but human yet; +He’s got a heart, and thrusts a bayonet. +He gives us battle with wondrous will-- +The blufff’s a perverted Bunker Hill._ + +The stillness stealing through the throng +The silent thought and dismal fear revealed; + They turned and went, + Musing on right and wrong + And mysteries dimly sealed-- +Breasting the storm in daring discontent; +The storm, whose black flag showed in heaven, +As if to say no quarter there was given + To wounded men in wood, + Or true hearts yearning for the good-- +All fatherless seemed the human soul. +But next day brought a bitterer bowl-- + On the bulletin-board this stood; + + _Saturday morning at 3 A.M. + A stir within the Fort betrayed + That the rebels were getting under arms; + Some plot these early birds had laid. + But a lancing sleet cut him who stared + Into the storm. After some vague alarms, + Which left our lads unscared, + Out sallied the enemy at dim of dawn, + With cavalry and artillery, and went + In fury at our environment. + Under cover of shot and shell + Three columns of infantry rolled on, + Vomited out of Donelson-- + Rolled down the slopes like rivers of hell, + Surged at our line, and swelled and poured + Like breaking surf. But unsubmerged + Our men stood up, except where roared + The enemy through one gap. We urged + Our all of manhood to the stress, + But still showed shattered in our desperateness. + Back set the tide, + But soon afresh rolled in; + And so it swayed from side to side-- + Far batteries joining in the din, + Though sharing in another fray-- + Till all became an Indian fight, + Intricate, dusky, stretching far away, + Yet not without spontaneous plan + However tangled showed the plight; + Duels all over ’tween man and man, + Duels on cliff-side, and down in ravine, + Duels at long range, and bone to bone; + Duels every where flitting and half unseen. + Only by courage good as their own, + And strength outlasting theirs, + Did our boys at last drive the rebels off. + Yet they went not back to their distant lairs + In strong-hold, but loud in scoff + Maintained themselves on conquered ground-- + Uplands; built works, or stalked around. + Our right wing bore this onset. Noon + Brought calm to Donelson. + +The reader ceased; the storm beat hard; + ’Twas day, but the office-gas was lit; + Nature retained her sulking-fit, + In her hand the shard. +Flitting faces took the hue +Of that washed bulletin-board in view, +And seemed to bear the public grief +As private, and uncertain of relief; +Yea, many an earnest heart was won, + As broodingly he plodded on, +To find in himself some bitter thing, +Some hardness in his lot as harrowing + As Donelson. + +That night the board stood barren there, + Oft eyes by wistful people passing, + Who nothing saw but the rain-beads chasing +Each other down the wafered square, +As down some storm-beat grave-yard stone. +But next day showed-- + + MORE NEWS LAST NIGHT. + + +STORY OF SATURDAY AFTERNOON. + +VICISSITUDES OF THE WAR. + + _The damaged gun-boats can’t wage fight +For days; so says the Commodore. +Thus no diversion can be had. +Under a sunless sky of lead + Our grim-faced boys in blacked plight +Gaze toward the ground they held before, +And then on Grant. He marks their mood, +And hails it, and will turn the same to good. +Spite all that they have undergone, +Their desperate hearts are set upon +This winter fort, this stubborn fort, +This castle of the last resort, + This Donelson. + +1 P.M. + + An order given + Requires withdrawal from the front + Of regiments that bore the brunt +Of morning’s fray. Their ranks all riven +Are being replaced by fresh, strong men. +Great vigilance in the foeman’s Den; +He snuffs the stormers. Need it is +That for that fell assault of his, +That rout inflicted, and self-scorn-- +Immoderate in noble natures, torn +By sense of being through slackness overborne-- +The rebel be given a quick return: +The kindest face looks now half stern. +Balked of their prey in airs that freeze, +Some fierce ones glare like savages. +And yet, and yet, strange moments are-- +Well--blood, and tears, and anguished War! +The morning’s battle-ground is seen + In lifted glades, like meadows rare; + The blood-drops on the snow-crust there +Like clover in the white-week show-- + Flushed fields of death, that call again-- + Call to our men, and not in vain, +For that way must the stormers go. + +3 P.M. + + The work begins. +Light drifts of men thrown forward, fade + In skirmish-line along the slope, +Where some dislodgments must be made + Ere the stormer with the strong-hold cope. + +Lew Wallace, moving to retake +The heights late lost-- + (Herewith a break. + Storms at the West derange the wires. +Doubtless, ere morning, we shall hear +The end; we look for news to cheer-- + Let Hope fan all her fires.)_ + + +Next day in large bold hand was seen +The closing bulletin: + +VICTORY! + _Our troops have retrieved the day +By one grand surge along the line; +The spirit that urged them was divine. + The first works flooded, naught could stay +The stormers: on! still on! +Bayonets for Donelson! + +Over the ground that morning lost +Rolled the blue billows, tempest-tossed, + Following a hat on the point of a sword. +Spite shell and round-shot, grape and canister, +Up they climbed without rail or banister-- + Up the steep hill-sides long and broad, +Driving the rebel deep within his works. +’Tis nightfall; not an enemy lurks + In sight. The chafing men + Fret for more fight: + “To-night, to-night let us take the Den” +But night is treacherous, Grant is wary; +Of brave blood be a little chary. +Patience! the Fort is good as won; +To-morrow, and into Donelson._ + +LATER AND LAST. + + THE FORT IS OURS. + + _A flag came out at early morn +Bringing surrender. From their towers + Floats out the banner late their scorn. +In Dover, hut and house are full + Of rebels dead or dying. + The national flag is flying +From the crammed court-house pinnacle. +Great boat-loads of our wounded go +To-day to Nashville. The sleet-winds blow; +But all is right: the fight is won, +The winter-fight for Donelson. + Hurrah! +The spell of old defeat is broke, + The Habit of victory begun; +Grant strikes the war’s first sounding stroke + At Donelson. + +For lists of killed and wounded, see +The morrow’s dispatch: to-day ’tis victory._ + +The man who read this to the crowd + Shouted as the end he gained; + And though the unflagging tempest rained, + They answered him aloud. +And hand grasped hand, and glances met +In happy triumph; eyes grew wet. +O, to the punches brewed that night +Went little water. Windows bright +Beamed rosy on the sleet without, +And from the deep street came the frequent shout; +While some in prayer, as these in glee, +Blessed heaven for the winter-victory. + +But others were who wakeful laid + In midnight beds, and early rose, + And, feverish in the foggy snows, +Snatched the damp paper--wife and maid. + The death-list like a river flows + Down the pale sheet, +And there the whelming waters meet. + + Ah God! may Time with happy haste + Bring wail and triumph to a waste, + And war be done; + The battle flag-staff fall athwart + The curs’d ravine, and wither; naught + Be left of trench or gun; + The bastion, let it ebb away, + Washed with the river bed; and Day + In vain seek Donelson. + + + +The Cumberland. +(March, 1862.) + + +Some names there are of telling sound, + Whose voweled syllables free +Are pledge that they shall ever live renowned; + Such seem to be +A Frigate’s name (by present glory spanned)-- + The Cumberland. + + Sounding name as ere was sung, + Flowing, rolling on the tongue-- + Cumberland! Cumberland! + +She warred and sunk. There’s no denying + That she was ended--quelled; +And yet her flag above her fate is flying, + As when it swelled +Unswallowed by the swallowing sea: so grand-- + The Cumberland. + + Goodly name as ere was sung, + Roundly rolling on the tongue-- + Cumberland! Cumberland! + +What need to tell how she was fought-- + The sinking flaming gun-- +The gunner leaping out the port-- + Washed back, undone! +Her dead unconquerably manned + The Cumberland. + + Noble name as ere was sung, + Slowly roll it on the tongue-- + Cumberland! Cumberland! + +Long as hearts shall share the flame + Which burned in that brave crew, +Her fame shall live--outlive the victor’s name; + For this is due. +Your flag and flag-staff shall in story stand-- + Cumberland! + + Sounding name as ere was sung, + Long they’ll roll it on the tongue-- + Cumberland! Cumberland! + + + +In the Turret. +(March, 1862.) + + +Your honest heart of duty, Worden, + So helped you that in fame you dwell; +You bore the first iron battle’s burden + Sealed as in a diving-bell. +Alcides, groping into haunted hell +To bring forth King Admetus’ bride, +Braved naught more vaguely direful and untried. + What poet shall uplift his charm, +Bold Sailor, to your height of daring, + And interblend therewith the calm, +And build a goodly style upon your bearing. + +Escaped the gale of outer ocean-- + Cribbed in a craft which like a log +Was washed by every billow’s motion-- + By night you heard of Og +The huge; nor felt your courage clog +At tokens of his onset grim: +You marked the sunk ship’s flag-staff slim, + Lit by her burning sister’s heart; +You marked, and mused: “Day brings the trial: + Then be it proved if I have part +With men whose manhood never took denial.” + +A prayer went up--a champion’s. Morning + Beheld you in the Turret walled +by adamant, where a spirit forewarning + And all-deriding called: +“Man, darest thou--desperate, unappalled-- +Be first to lock thee in the armored tower? +I have thee now; and what the battle-hour + To me shall bring--heed well--thou’lt share; +This plot-work, planned to be the foeman’s terror, + To thee may prove a goblin-snare; +Its very strength and cunning--monstrous error!” + +“Stand up, my heart; be strong; what matter + If here thou seest thy welded tomb? +And let huge Og with thunders batter-- + Duty be still my doom, +Though drowning come in liquid gloom; +First duty, duty next, and duty last; +Ay, Turret, rivet me here to duty fast!--” + So nerved, you fought wisely and well; +And live, twice live in life and story; + But over your Monitor dirges swell, +In wind and wave that keep the rites of glory. + + + +The Temeraire.[3] + +_(Supposed to have been suggested to an Englishman of the old order by +the fight of the Monitor and Merrimac.)_ + + +The gloomy hulls, in armor grim, + Like clouds o’er moors have met, +And prove that oak, and iron, and man + Are tough in fibre yet. + +But Splendors wane. The sea-fight yields + No front of old display; +The garniture, emblazonment, + And heraldry all decay. + +Towering afar in parting light, + The fleets like Albion’s forelands shine-- +The full-sailed fleets, the shrouded show + Of Ships-of-the-Line. + +The fighting Temeraire, + Built of a thousand trees, +Lunging out her lightnings, + And beetling o’er the seas-- +O Ship, how brave and fair, + That fought so oft and well, +On open decks you manned the gun + Armorial.[4] +What cheering did you share, + Impulsive in the van, +When down upon leagued France and Spain + We English ran-- +The freshet at your bowsprit + Like the foam upon the can. +Bickering, your colors + Licked up the Spanish air, +You flapped with flames of battle-flags-- + Your challenge, Temeraire! +The rear ones of our fleet + They yearned to share your place, +Still vying with the Victory + Throughout that earnest race-- +The Victory, whose Admiral, + With orders nobly won, +Shone in the globe of the battle glow-- + The angel in that sun. +Parallel in story, + Lo, the stately pair, +As late in grapple ranging, + The foe between them there-- +When four great hulls lay tiered, + And the fiery tempest cleared, +And your prizes twain appeared, + Temeraire! + +But Trafalgar’ is over now, + The quarter-deck undone; +The carved and castled navies fire + Their evening-gun. +O, Tital Temeraire, + Your stern-lights fade away; +Your bulwarks to the years must yield, + And heart-of-oak decay. +A pigmy steam-tug tows you, + Gigantic, to the shore-- +Dismantled of your guns and spars, + And sweeping wings of war. +The rivets clinch the iron-clads, + Men learn a deadlier lore; +But Fame has nailed your battle-flags-- + Your ghost it sails before: +O, the navies old and oaken, + O, the Temeraire no more! + + + +A Utilitarian View of the Monitors Fight. + + +Plain be the phrase, yet apt the verse, + More ponderous than nimble; +For since grimed War here laid aside +His Orient pomp, ’twould ill befit + Overmuch to ply +The Rhyme’s barbaric cymbal. + +Hail to victory without the gaud + Of glory; zeal that needs no fans +Of banners; plain mechanic power +Plied cogently in War now placed-- + Where War belongs-- +Among the trades and artisans. + +Yet this was battle, and intense-- + Beyond the strife of fleets heroic; +Deadlier, closer, calm ’mid storm; +No passion; all went on by crank, + Pivot, and screw, +And calculations of caloric. + +Needless to dwell; the story’s known. + the ringing of those plates on plates +Still ringeth round the world-- +The clangor of that blacksmith’s fray. + The anvil-din +Resounds this message from the Fates: + +War shall yet be, and to the end; + But war-paint shows the streaks of weather; +War yet shall be, but warriors +Are now but operatives; War’s made + Less grand than Peace, +And a singe runs through lace and feather. + + + +Shiloh. +A Requiem. +(April, 1862.) + + +Skimming lightly, wheeling still, + The swallows fly low +Over the field in clouded days, + The forest-field of Shiloh-- +Over the field where April rain +Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain +Through the pause of night +That followed the Sunday fight + Around the church of Shiloh-- +The church so lone, the log-built one, +That echoed to many a parting groan + And natural prayer +Of dying foemen mingled there-- +Foemen at morn, but friends at eve-- + Fame or country least their care: +(What like a bullet can undeceive!) + But now they lie low, +While over them the swallows skim, + And all is hushed at Shiloh. + + + +The Battle for the Mississipppi. +(April, 1862.) + + +When Israel camped by Migdol hoar, + Down at her feet her shawm she threw, +But Moses sung and timbrels rung + For Pharaoh’s standed crew. +So God appears in apt events-- + The Lord is a man of war! +So the strong wind to the muse is given + In victory’s roar. + +Deep be the ode that hymns the fleet-- + The fight by night--the fray +Which bore our Flag against the powerful stream, + And led it up to day. +Dully through din of larger strife + Shall bay that warring gun; +But none the less to us who live + It peals--an echoing one. + +The shock of ships, the jar of walls, + The rush through thick and thin-- +The flaring fire-rafts, glare and gloom-- + Eddies, and shells that spin-- +The boom-chain burst, the hulks dislodged, + The jam of gun-boats driven, +Or fired, or sunk--made up a war + Like Michael’s waged with leven. + +The manned Varuna stemmed and quelled + The odds which hard beset; +The oaken flag-ship, half ablaze, + Passed on and thundered yet; +While foundering, gloomed in grimy flame, + The Ram Manassas--hark the yell!-- +Plunged, and was gone; in joy or fright, + The River gave a startled swell. + +They fought through lurid dark till dawn; + The war-smoke rolled away +With clouds of night, and showed the fleet + In scarred yet firm array, +Above the forts, above the drift + Of wrecks which strife had made; +And Farragut sailed up to the town + And anchored--sheathed the blade. + +The moody broadsides, brooding deep, + Hold the lewd mob at bay, +While o’er the armed decks’ solemn aisles + The meek church-pennons play; +By shotted guns the sailors stand, + With foreheads bound or bare; +The captains and the conquering crews + Humble their pride in prayer. + +They pray; and after victory, prayer + Is meet for men who mourn their slain; +The living shall unmoor and sail, + But Death’s dark anchor secret deeps detain. +Yet glory slants her shaft of rays + Far through the undisturbed abyss; +There must be other, nobler worlds for them + Who nobly yield their lives in this. + + + +Malvern Hill. +(July, 1862.) + + +Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill + In prime of morn and May, +Recall ye how McClellan’s men + Here stood at bay? +While deep within yon forest dim + Our rigid comrades lay-- +Some with the cartridge in their mouth, +Others with fixed arms lifted South-- + Invoking so +The cypress glades? Ah wilds of woe! + +The spires of Richmond, late beheld + Through rifts in musket-haze, +Were closed from view in clouds of dust + On leaf-walled ways, +Where streamed our wagons in caravan; + And the Seven Nights and Days +Of march and fast, retreat and fight, +Pinched our grimed faces to ghastly plight-- + Does the elm wood +Recall the haggard beards of blood? + +The battle-smoked flag, with stars eclipsed, + We followed (it never fell!)-- +In silence husbanded our strength-- + Received their yell; +Till on this slope we patient turned + With cannon ordered well; +Reverse we proved was not defeat; +But ah, the sod what thousands meet!-- + Does Malvern Wood +Bethink itself, and muse and brood? + + _We elms of Malvern Hill + Remember every thing; + But sap the twig will fill: + Wag the world how it will, + Leaves must be green in Spring._ + + + + +The Victor of Antietam.[5] +(1862.) + + +When tempest winnowed grain from bran; +And men were looking for a man, +Authority called you to the van, + McClellan: +Along the line the plaudit ran, +As later when Antietam’s cheers began. + +Through storm-cloud and eclipse must move +Each Cause and Man, dear to the stars and Jove; +Nor always can the wisest tell +Deferred fulfillment from the hopeless knell-- +The struggler from the floundering ne’er-do-well. +A pall-cloth on the Seven Days fell, + Mcclellan-- +Unprosperously heroical! +Who could Antietam’s wreath foretell? + +Authority called you; then, in mist +And loom of jeopardy--dismissed. +But staring peril soon appalled; +You, the Discarded, she recalled-- +Recalled you, nor endured delay; +And forth you rode upon a blasted way, +Arrayed Pope’s rout, and routed Lee’s array, + McClellan: +Your tent was choked with captured flags that day, + McClellan. +Antietam was a telling fray. + +Recalled you; and she heard your drum +Advancing through the glastly gloom. +You manned the wall, you propped the Dome, +You stormed the powerful stormer home, + McClellan: +Antietam’s cannon long shall boom. + +At Alexandria, left alone, + McClellan-- +Your veterans sent from you, and thrown +To fields and fortunes all unknown-- +What thoughts were yours, revealed to none, +While faithful still you labored on-- +Hearing the far Manassas gun! + McClellan, +Only Antietam could atone. + +You fought in the front (an evil day, + McClellan)-- +The fore-front of the first assay; +The Cause went sounding, groped its way; +The leadsmen quarrelled in the bay; +Quills thwarted swords; divided sway; +The rebel flushed in his lusty May: +You did your best, as in you lay, + McClellan. +Antietam’s sun-burst sheds a ray. + +Your medalled soldiers love you well, + McClellan: +Name your name, their true hearts swell; +With you they shook dread Stonewall’s spell,[6] +With you they braved the blended yell +Of rebel and maligner fell; +With you in shame or fame they dwell, + McClellan: +Antietam-braves a brave can tell. + +And when your comrades (now so few, + McClellan-- +Such ravage in deep files they rue) +Meet round the board, and sadly view +The empty places; tribute due +They render to the dead--and you! +Absent and silent o’er the blue; +The one-armed lift the wine to _you_, + McClellan, +And great Antietam’s cheers renew. + + + +Battle of Stone River, Tennessee. +A View from Oxford Cloisters. +(January, 1863.) + + +With Tewksbury and Barnet heath + In days to come the field shall blend, +The story dim and date obscure; + In legend all shall end. +Even now, involved in forest shade + A Druid-dream the strife appears, +The fray of yesterday assumes + The haziness of years. + In North and South still beats the vein + Of Yorkist and Lancastrian. + +Our rival Roses warred for Sway-- + For Sway, but named the name of Right; +And Passion, scorning pain and death, + Lent sacred fervor to the fight. +Each lifted up a broidered cross, + While crossing blades profaned the sign; +Monks blessed the fraticidal lance, + And sisters scarfs could twine. + Do North and South the sin retain + Of Yorkist and Lancastrian? + +But Rosecrans in the cedarn glade, + And, deep in denser cypress gloom, +Dark Breckenridge, shall fade away + Or thinly loom. +The pale throngs who in forest cowed + Before the spell of battle’s pause, +Forefelt the stillness that shall dwell + On them and on their wars. + North and South shall join the train + Of Yorkist and Lancastrian. + +But where the sword has plunged so deep, + And then been turned within the wound +By deadly Hate; where Climes contend + On vasty ground-- +No warning Alps or seas between, + And small the curb of creed or law, +And blood is quick, and quick the brain; + Shall North and South their rage deplore, + And reunited thrive amain + Like Yorkist and Lancastrian? + + + +Running the Batteries, +As observed from the Anchorage above Vicksburgh. +(April, 1863.) + + +A moonless night--a friendly one; + A haze dimmed the shadowy shore +As the first lampless boat slid silent on; + Hist! and we spake no more; +We but pointed, and stilly, to what we saw. + +We felt the dew, and seemed to feel + The secret like a burden laid. +The first boat melts; and a second keel + Is blent with the foliaged shade-- +Their midnight rounds have the rebel officers made? + +Unspied as yet. A third--a fourth-- + Gun-boat and transport in Indian file +Upon the war-path, smooth from the North; + But the watch may they hope to beguile? +The manned river-batteries stretch for mile on mile. + +A flame leaps out; they are seen; + Another and another gun roars; +We tell the course of the boats through the screen + By each further fort that pours, +And we guess how they jump from their beds on those shrouded shores. + +Converging fires. We speak, though low: + “That blastful furnace can they threadd” +“Why, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego + Came out all right, we read; +The Lord, be sure, he helps his people, Ned.” + +How we strain our gaze. On bluffs they shun + A golden growing flame appears-- +Confirms to a silvery steadfast one: + “The town is afire!” crows Hugh: “three cheers” +Lot stops his mouth: “Nay, lad, better three tears.” + +A purposed light; it shows our fleet; + Yet a little late in its searching ray, +So far and strong, that in phantom cheat + Lank on the deck our shadows lay; +The shining flag-ship stings their guns to furious play. + +How dread to mark her near the glare + And glade of death the beacon throws +Athwart the racing waters there; + One by one each plainer grows, +Then speeds a blazoned target to our gladdened foes. + +The impartial cresset lights as well + The fixed forts to the boats that run; +And, plunged from the ports, their answers swell + Back to each fortress dun: +Ponderous words speaks every monster gun. + +Fearless they flash through gates of flame, + The salamanders hard to hit, +Though vivid shows each bulky frame; + And never the batteries intermit, +Nor the boats huge guns; they fire and flit. + +Anon a lull. The beacon dies: + “Are they out of that strait accurst” +But other flames now dawning rise, + Not mellowly brilliant like the first, +But rolled in smoke, whose whitish volumes burst. + +A baleful brand, a hurrying torch + Whereby anew the boats are seen-- +A burning transport all alurch! + Breathless we gaze; yet still we glean +Glimpses of beauty as we eager lean. + +The effulgence takes an amber glow + Which bathes the hill-side villas far; +Affrighted ladies mark the show + Painting the pale magnolia-- +The fair, false, Circe light of cruel War. + +The barge drifts doomed, a plague-struck one. + Shoreward in yawls the sailors fly. +But the gauntlet now is nearly run, + The spleenful forts by fits reply, +And the burning boat dies down in morning’s sky. + +All out of range. Adieu, Messieurs! + Jeers, as it speeds, our parting gun. +So burst we through their barriers + And menaces every one: +So Porter proves himself a brave man’s son.[7] + + + +Stonewall Jackson. +Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville. +(May, 1863.) + + +The Man who fiercest charged in fight, + Whose sword and prayer were long-- + Stonewall! + Even him who stoutly stood for Wrong, +How can we praise? Yet coming days + Shall not forget him with this song. + +Dead is the Man whose Cause is dead, + Vainly he died and set his seal-- + Stonewall! + Earnest in error, as we feel; +True to the thing he deemed was due, + True as John Brown or steel. + +Relentlessly he routed us; + But _we_ relent, for he is low-- + Stonewall! + Justly his fame we outlaw; so +We drop a tear on the bold Virginian’s bier, + Because no wreath we owe. + + + +Stonewall Jackson. +(Ascribed to a Virginian.) + + +One man we claim of wrought renown + Which not the North shall care to slur; +A Modern lived who sleeps in death, + Calm as the marble Ancients are: + ’Tis he whose life, though a vapor’s wreath, + Was charged with the lightning’s burning breath-- + Stonewall, stormer of the war. + +But who shall hymn the roman heart? + A stoic he, but even more: +The iron will and lion thew + Were strong to inflict as to endure: + Who like him could stand, or pursue? + His fate the fatalist followed through; + In all his great soul found to do + Stonewall followed his star. + +He followed his star on the Romney march + Through the sleet to the wintry war; +And he followed it on when he bowed the grain-- + The Wind of the Shenandoah; + At Gaines’s Mill in the giant’s strain-- + On the fierce forced stride to Manassas-plain, + Where his sword with thunder was clothed again, + Stonewall followed his star. + +His star he followed athwart the flood + To Potomac’s Northern shore, +When midway wading, his host of braves + “_My Maryland!_” loud did roar-- + To red Antietam’s field of graves, + Through mountain-passes, woods and waves, + They followed their pagod with hymns and glaives, + For Stonewall followed a star. + +Back it led him to Marye’s slope, + Where the shock and the fame he bore; +And to green Moss-Neck it guided him-- + Brief respite from throes of war: + To the laurel glade by the Wilderness grim, + Through climaxed victory naught shall dim, + Even unto death it piloted him-- + Stonewall followed his star. + +Its lead he followed in gentle ways + Which never the valiant mar; +A cap we sent him, bestarred, to replace + The sun-scorched helm of war: + A fillet he made of the shining lace + Childhood’s laughing brow to grace-- + Not his was a goldsmith’s star. + +O, much of doubt in after days + Shall cling, as now, to the war; +Of the right and the wrong they’ll still debate, + Puzzled by Stonewall’s star: + “Fortune went with the North elate” + “Ay, but the south had Stonewall’s weight, + And he fell in the South’s vain war.” + + + +Gettysburg. +The Check. +(July, 1863.) + + +O pride of the days in prime of the months + Now trebled in great renown, +When before the ark of our holy cause + Fell Dagon down-- +Dagon foredoomed, who, armed and targed, +Never his impious heart enlarged +Beyond that hour; god walled his power, +And there the last invader charged. + +He charged, and in that charge condensed + His all of hate and all of fire; +He sought to blast us in his scorn, + And wither us in his ire. +Before him went the shriek of shells-- +Aerial screamings, taunts and yells; +Then the three waves in flashed advance + Surged, but were met, and back they set: +Pride was repelled by sterner pride, + And Right is a strong-hold yet. + +Before our lines it seemed a beach + Which wild September gales have strown +With havoc on wreck, and dashed therewith + Pale crews unknown-- +Men, arms, and steeds. The evening sun +Died on the face of each lifeless one, +And died along the winding marge of fight + And searching-parties lone. + +Sloped on the hill the mounds were green, + Our center held that place of graves, +And some still hold it in their swoon, + And over these a glory waves. +The warrior-monument, crashed in fight,[8] +Shall soar transfigured in loftier light, + A meaning ampler bear; +Soldier and priest with hymn and prayer +Have laid the stone, and every bone + Shall rest in honor there. + + + +The House-top. +A Night Piece. +(July, 1863.) + + +No sleep. The sultriness pervades the air +And binds the brain--a dense oppression, such +As tawny tigers feel in matted shades, +Vexing their blood and making apt for ravage. +Beneath the stars the roofy desert spreads +Vacant as Libya. All is hushed near by. +Yet fitfully from far breaks a mixed surf +Of muffled sound, the Atheist roar of riot. +Yonder, where parching Sirius set in drought, +Balefully glares red Arson--there-and there. +The Town is taken by its rats--ship-rats. +And rats of the wharves. All civil charms +And priestly spells which late held hearts in awe-- +Fear-bound, subjected to a better sway +Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve, +And man rebounds whole æons back in nature.[9] +Hail to the low dull rumble, dull and dead, +And ponderous drag that shakes the wall. +Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll +Of black artillery; he comes, though late; +In code corroborating Calvin’s creed +And cynic tyrannies of honest kings; +He comes, nor parlies; and the Town redeemed, +Give thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds +The grimy slur on the Republic’s faith implied, +Which holds that Man is naturally good, +And--more--is Nature’s Roman, never to be scourged. + + + +Look-out Mountain. +The Night Fight. +(November, 1863.) + + +Who inhabiteth the Mountain + That it shines in lurid light, +And is rolled about with thunders, + And terrors, and a blight, +Like Kaf the peak of Eblis-- + Kaf, the evil height? +Who has gone up with a shouting + And a trumpet in the night? + +There is battle in the Mountain-- + Might assaulteth Might; +’Tis the fastness of the Anarch, + Torrent-torn, an ancient height; +The crags resound the clangor + Of the war of Wrong and Right; +And the armies in the valley + Watch and pray for dawning light. + +Joy, Joy, the day is breaking, + And the cloud is rolled from sight; +There is triumph in the Morning + For the Anarch’s plunging flight; +God has glorified the Mountain + Where a Banner burneth bright, +And the armies in the valley + They are fortified in right. + + + +Chattanooga. +(November, 1863.) + + +A kindling impulse seized the host + Inspired by heaven’s elastic air;[9] +Their hearts outran their General’s plan, + Though Grant commanded there-- + Grant, who without reserve can dare; +And, “Well, go on and do your will” + He said, and measured the mountain then: +So master-riders fling the rein-- + But you must know your men. + +On yester-morn in grayish mist, + Armies like ghosts on hills had fought, +And rolled from the cloud their thunders loud + The Cumberlands far had caught: + To-day the sunlit steeps are sought. +Grant stood on cliffs whence all was plain, + And smoked as one who feels no cares; +But mastered nervousness intense + Alone such calmness wears. + +The summit-cannon plunge their flame + Sheer down the primal wall, +But up and up each linking troop + In stretching festoons crawl-- + Nor fire a shot. Such men appall +The foe, though brave. He, from the brink, + Looks far along the breadth of slope, +And sees two miles of dark dots creep, + And knows they mean the cope. + +He sees them creep. Yet here and there + Half hid ’mid leafless groves they go; +As men who ply through traceries high + Of turreted marbles show-- + So dwindle these to eyes below. +But fronting shot and flanking shell + Sliver and rive the inwoven ways; +High tops of oaks and high hearts fall, + But never the climbing stays. + +From right to left, from left to right + They roll the rallying cheer-- +Vie with each other, brother with brother, + Who shall the first appear-- + What color-bearer with colors clear +In sharp relief, like sky-drawn Grant, + Whose cigar must now be near the stump-- +While in solicitude his back + Heap slowly to a hump. + +Near and more near; till now the flags + Run like a catching flame; +And one flares highest, to peril nighest-- + _He_ means to make a name: + Salvos! they give him his fame. +The staff is caught, and next the rush, + And then the leap where death has led; +Flag answered flag along the crest, + And swarms of rebels fled. + +But some who gained the envied Alp, + And--eager, ardent, earnest there-- +Dropped into Death’s wide-open arms, + Quelled on the wing like eagles struck in air-- + Forever they slumber young and fair, +The smile upon them as they died; + Their end attained, that end a height: +Life was to these a dream fulfilled, + And death a starry night. + + + +The Armies of the Wilderness. +(1683-64.) + + +I + +Like snows the camps on southern hills + Lay all the winter long, +Our levies there in patience stood-- + They stood in patience strong. +On fronting slopes gleamed other camps + Where faith as firmly clung: +Ah, froward king! so brave miss-- + The zealots of the Wrong. + + _In this strife of brothers + (God, hear their country call), + However it be, whatever betide, + Let not the just one fall._ + +Through the pointed glass our soldiers saw + The base-ball bounding sent; +They could have joined them in their sport + But for the vale’s deep rent. +And others turned the reddish soil, + Like diggers of graves they bent: +The reddish soil and tranching toil + Begat presentiment. + + _Did the Fathers feel mistrust? + Can no final good be wrought? + Over and over, again and again + Must the fight for the Right be fought?_ + +They lead a Gray-back to the crag: + “Your earth-works yonder--tell us, man” +“A prisoner--no deserter, I, + Nor one of the tell-tale clan” +His rags they mark: “True-blue like you + Should wear the color--your Country’s, man” +He grinds his teeth: “However that be, + Yon earth-works have their plan.” + + _Such brave ones, foully snared + By Belial’s wily plea, + Were faithful unto the evil end-- + Feudal fidelity._ + +“Well, then, your camps--come, tell the names” + Freely he leveled his finger then: +“Yonder--see--are our Georgians; on the crest, + The Carolinians; lower, past the glen, +Virginians--Alabamians--Mississippians--Kentuckians + (Follow my finger)--Tennesseeans; and the ten +Camps _there_--ask your grave-pits; they’ll tell. + Halloa! I see the picket-hut, the den +Where I last night lay.” “Where’s Lee” + “In the hearts and bayonets of all yon men!” + + _The tribes swarm up to war + As in ages long ago, + Ere the palm of promise leaved + And the lily of Christ did blow._ + +Their mounted pickets for miles are spied + Dotting the lowland plain, +The nearer ones in their veteran-rags-- + Loutish they loll in lazy disdain. +But ours in perilous places bide + With rifles ready and eyes that strain +Deep through the dim suspected wood + Where the Rapidan rolls amain. + + _The Indian has passed away, + But creeping comes another-- + Deadlier far. Picket, + Take heed--take heed of thy brother!_ + +From a wood-hung height, an outpost lone, + Crowned with a woodman’s fort, +The sentinel looks on a land of dole, + Like Paran, all amort. +Black chimneys, gigantic in moor-like wastes, + The scowl of the clouded sky retort; +The hearth is a houseless stone again-- + Ah! where shall the people be sought? + + _Since the venom such blastment deals, + The south should have paused, and thrice, + Ere with heat of her hate she hatched + The egg with the cockatrice._ + +A path down the mountain winds to the glade + Where the dead of the Moonlight Fight lie low; +A hand reaches out of the thin-laid mould + As begging help which none can bestow. +But the field-mouse small and busy ant + Heap their hillocks, to hide if they may the woe: +By the bubbling spring lies the rusted canteen, + And the drum which the drummer-boy dying let go. + + _Dust to dust, and blood for blood-- + Passion and pangs! Has Time + Gone back? or is this the Age + Of the world’s great Prime?_ + +The wagon mired and cannon dragged + Have trenched their scar; the plain +Tramped like the cindery beach of the damned-- + A site for the city of Cain. +And stumps of forests for dreary leagues + Like a massacre show. The armies have lain +By fires where gums and balms did burn, + And the seeds of Summer’s reign. + + _Where are the birds and boys? + Who shall go chestnutting when + October returns? The nuts-- + O, long ere they grow again._ + +They snug their huts with the chapel-pews, + In court-houses stable their steeds-- +Kindle their fires with indentures and bonds, + And old Lord Fairfax’s parchment deeds; +And Virginian gentlemen’s libraries old-- + Books which only the scholar heeds-- +Are flung to his kennel. It is ravage and range, + And gardens are left to weeds. + + _Turned adrift into war + Man runs wild on the plain, + Like the jennets let loose + On the Pampas--zebras again._ + +Like the Pleiads dim, see the tents through the storm-- + Aloft by the hill-side hamlet’s graves, +On a head-stone used for a hearth-stone there + The water is bubbling for punch for our braves. +What if the night be drear, and the blast + Ghostly shrieks? their rollicking staves +Make frolic the heart; beating time with their swords, + What care they if Winter raves? + + _Is life but a dream? and so, + In the dream do men laugh aloud? + So strange seems mirth in a camp, + So like a white tent to a shroud._ + + +II + +The May-weed springs; and comes a Man + And mounts our Signal Hill; +A quiet Man, and plain in garb-- + Briefly he looks his fill, +Then drops his gray eye on the ground, + Like a loaded mortar he is still: +Meekness and grimness meet in him-- + The silent General. + + _Were men but strong and wise, + Honest as Grant, and calm, + War would be left to the red and black ants, + And the happy world disarm._ + +That eve a stir was in the camps, + Forerunning quiet soon to come +Among the streets of beechen huts + No more to know the drum. +The weed shall choke the lowly door, + And foxes peer within the gloom, +Till scared perchange by Mosby’s prowling men, + Who ride in the rear of doom. + + _Far West, and farther South, + Wherever the sword has been, + Deserted camps are met, + And desert graves are seen._ + +The livelong night they ford the flood; + With guns held high they silent press, +Till shimmers the grass in their bayonets’ sheen-- + On Morning’s banks their ranks they dress; +Then by the forests lightly wind, + Whose waving boughs the pennons seem to bless, +Borne by the cavalry scouting on-- + Sounding the Wilderness. + + _Like shoals of fish in spring + That visit Crusoe’s isle, + The host in the lonesome place-- + The hundred thousand file._ + +The foe that held his guarded hills + Must speed to woods afar; +For the scheme that was nursed by the Culpepper hearth + With the slowly-smoked cigar-- +The scheme that smouldered through winter long + Now bursts into act--into war-- +The resolute scheme of a heart as calm + As the Cyclone’s core. + + _The fight for the city is fought + In Nature’s old domain; + Man goes out to the wilds, + And Orpheus’ charm is vain._ + +In glades they meet skull after skull + Where pine-cones lay--the rusted gun, +Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat + And cuddled-up skeleton; +And scores of such. Some start as in dreams, + And comrades lost bemoan: +By the edge of those wilds Stonewall had charged-- + But the Year and the Man were gone. + + _At the height of their madness + The night winds pause, + Recollecting themselves; + But no lull in these wars._ + +A gleam!--a volley! And who shall go + Storming the swarmers in jungles dread? +No cannon-ball answers, no proxies are sent-- + They rush in the shrapnel’s stead. +Plume and sash are vanities now-- + Let them deck the pall of the dead; +They go where the shade is, perhaps into Hades, + Where the brave of all times have led. + + _There’s a dust of hurrying feet, + Bitten lips and bated breath, + And drums that challenge to the grave, + And faces fixed, forefeeling death._ + +What husky huzzahs in the hazy groves-- + What flying encounters fell; +Pursuer and pursued like ghosts disappear + In gloomed shade--their end who shall tell? +The crippled, a ragged-barked stick for a crutch, + Limp to some elfin dell-- +Hobble from the sight of dead faces--white + As pebbles in a well. + + _Few burial rites shall be; + No priest with book and band + Shall come to the secret place + Of the corpse in the foeman’s land._ + +Watch and fast, march and fight--clutch your gun? + Day-fights and night-fights; sore is the strees; +Look, through the pines what line comes on? + Longstreet slants through the hauntedness? +’Tis charge for charge, and shout for yell: + Such battles on battles oppress-- +But Heaven lent strength, the Right strove well, + And emerged from the Wilderness. + + _Emerged, for the way was won; + But the Pillar of Smoke that led + Was brand-like with ghosts that went up + Ashy and red._ + +None can narrate that strife in the pines, + A seal is on it--Sabaean lore! +Obscure as the wood, the entangled rhyme + But hints at the maze of war-- +Vivid glimpses or livid through peopled gloom, + And fires which creep and char-- +A riddle of death, of which the slain + Sole solvers are. + + _Long they withhold the roll + Of the shroudless dead. It is right; + Not yet can we bear the flare + Of the funeral light._ + + + +On the Photograph of a Corps Commander. + + +Ay, man is manly. Here you see + The warrior-carriage of the head, +And brave dilation of the frame; + And lighting all, the soul that led +In Spottsylvaniaa’s charge to victory, + Which justifies his fame. + +A cheering picture. It is good + To look upon a Chief like this, +In whom the spirit moulds the form. + Here favoring Nature, oft remiss, +With eagle mien expressive has endued + A man to kindle strains that warm. + +Trace back his lineage, and his sires, + Yeoman or noble, you shall find +Enrolled with men of Agincourt, + Heroes who shared great Harry’s mind. +Down to us come the knightly Norman fires, + And front the Templars bore. + +Nothing can lift the heart of man + Like manhood in a fellow-man. +The thought of heaven’s great King afar + But humbles us--too weak to scan; +But manly greatness men can span, + And feel the bonds that draw. + + + +The Swamp Angel.[10] + + +There is a coal-black Angel + With a thick Afric lip, +And he dwells (like the hunted and harried) + In a swamp where the green frogs dip. +But his face is against a City + Which is over a bay of the sea, +And he breathes with a breath that is blastment, + And dooms by a far decree. + +By night there is fear in the City, + Through the darkness a star soareth on; +There’s a scream that screams up to the zenith, + Then the poise of a meteor lone-- +Lighting far the pale fright of the faces, + And downward the coming is seen; +Then the rush, and the burst, and the havoc, + And wails and shrieks between. + +It comes like the thief in the gloaming; + It comes, and none may foretell +The place of the coming--the glaring; + They live in a sleepless spell +That wizens, and withers, and whitens; + It ages the young, and the bloom +Of the maiden is ashes of roses-- + The Swamp Angel broods in his gloom. + +Swift is his messengers’ going, + But slowly he saps their halls, +As if by delay deluding. + They move from their crumbling walls +Farther and farther away; + But the Angel sends after and after, +By night with the flame of his ray-- + By night with the voice of his screaming-- +Sends after them, stone by stone, + And farther walls fall, farther portals, +And weed follows weed through the Town. + +Is this the proud City? the scorner + Which never would yield the ground? +Which mocked at the coal-black Angel? + The cup of despair goes round. +Vainly she calls upon Michael + (The white man’s seraph was he), +For Michael has fled from his tower + To the Angel over the sea. + +Who weeps for the woeful City + Let him weep for our guilty kind; +Who joys at her wild despairing-- + Christ, the Forgiver, convert his mind. + + + +The Battle for the Bay. +(August, 1864.) + + +O mystery of noble hearts, + To whom mysterious seas have been +In midnight watches, lonely calm and storm, + A stern, sad disciple, +And rooted out the false and vain, + And chastened them to aptness for + Devotion and the deeds of war, +And death which smiles and cheers in spite of pain. + +Beyond the bar the land-wind dies, + The prows becharmed at anchor swim: +A summer night; the stars withdrawn look down-- + Fair eve of battle grim. +The sentries pace, bonetas glide; + Below, the sleeping sailor swing, + And if their dreams to quarters spring, +Or cheer their flag, or breast a stormy tide. + +But drums are beat: _Up anchor all!_ + The triple lines steam slowly on; +Day breaks, and through the sweep of decks each man + Stands coldly by his gun-- +As cold as it. But he shall warm-- + Warm with the solemn metal there, + And all its ordered fury share, +In attitude a gladiatorial form. + +The Admiral--yielding the love + Which held his life and ship so dear-- +Sailed second in the long fleet’s midmost line; + Yet thwarted all their care: +He lashed himself aloft, and shone + Star of the fight, with influence sent + Throughout the dusk embattlement; +And so they neared the strait and walls of stone. + +No sprintly fife as in the field, + The decks were hushed like fanes in prayer; +Behind each man a holy angel stood-- + He stood, though none was ’ware. +Out spake the forts on either hand, + Back speak the ships when spoken to, + And set their flags in concert true, +And _On and in!_ is Farragut’s command. + +But what delays? ’mid wounds above + Dim buoys give hint of death below-- +Sea-ambuscades, where evil art had aped + Hecla that hides in snow. +The centre-van, entangled, trips; + The starboard leader holds straight on: + A cheer for the Tecumseh!--nay, +Before their eyes the turreted ship goes down! + +The fire redoubles, While the fleet + Hangs dubious--ere the horror ran-- +The Admiral rushes to his rightful place-- + Well met! apt hour and man!-- +Closes with peril, takes the lead, + His action is a stirring call; + He strikes his great heart through them all, +And is the genius of their daring deed. + +The forts are daunted, slack their fire, + Confounded by the deadlier aim +And rapid broadsides of the speeding fleet, + And fierce denouncing flame. +Yet shots from four dark hulls embayed + Come raking through the loyal crews, + Whom now each dying mate endues +With his last look, anguished yet undismayed. + +A flowering time to guilt is given, + And traitors have their glorying hour; +O late, but sure, the righteous Paramount comes-- + Palsy is on their power! +So proved it with the rebel keels, + The strong-holds past: assailed, they run; + The Selma strikes, and the work is done: +The dropping anchor the achievement seals. + +But no, she turns--the Tennessee! + The solid Ram of iron and oak, +Strong as Evil, and bold as Wrong, though lone-- + A pestilence in her smoke. +The flag-ship is her singled mark, + The wooden Hartford. Let her come; + She challenges the planet of Doom, +And naught shall save her--not her iron bark. + +_Slip anchor, all! and at her, all!_ + _Bear down with rushing beaks--and_ now! +First the Monongahela struck--and reeled; + The Lackawana’s prow +Next crashed--crashed, but not crashing; then + The Admiral rammed, and rasping nigh + Sloped in a broadside, which glanced by: +The Monitors battered at her adamant den. + +The Chickasaw plunged beneath the stern + And pounded there; a huge wrought orb +From the Manhattan pierced one wall, but dropped; + Others the seas absorb. +Yet stormed on all sides, narrowed in, + Hampered and cramped, the bad one fought-- + Spat ribald curses from the port +Who shutters, jammed, locked up this Man-of-Sin. + +No pause or stay. They made a din + Like hammers round a boiler forged; +Now straining strength tangled itself with strength, + Till Hate her will disgorged. +The white flag showed, the fight was won-- + Mad shouts went up that shook the Bay; + But pale on the scarred fleet’s decks there lay +A silent man for every silenced gun. + +And quiet far below the wave, + Where never cheers shall move their sleep, +Some who did boldly, nobly earn them, lie-- + Charmed children of the deep. +But decks that now are in the seed, + And cannon yet within the mine, + Shall thrill the deeper, gun and pine, +Because of the Tecumseh’s glorious deed. + + + +Sheridan at Cedar Creek. +(October, 1864.) + + +Shoe the steed with silver + That bore him to the fray, +When he heard the guns at dawning-- + Miles away; +When he heard them calling, calling-- + Mount! nor stay: + Quick, or all is lost; + They’ve surprised and stormed the post, + They push your routed host-- + Gallop! retrieve the day. + +House the horse in ermine-- + For the foam-flake blew +White through the red October; + He thundered into view; +They cheered him in the looming, + Horseman and horse they knew. + The turn of the tide began, + The rally of bugles ran, + He swung his hat in the van; + The electric hoof-spark flew. + +Wreathe the steed and lead him-- + For the charge he led +Touched and turned the cypress + Into amaranths for the head +Of Philip, king of riders, + Who raised them from the dead. + The camp (at dawning lost), + By eve, recovered--forced, + Rang with laughter of the host + At belated Early fled. + +Shroud the horse in sable-- + For the mounds they heap! +There is firing in the Valley, + And yet no strife they keep; +It is the parting volley, + It is the pathos deep. + There is glory for the brave + Who lead, and noblys ave, + But no knowledge in the grave + Where the nameless followers sleep. + + + +In the Prison Pen. +(1864.) + + +Listless he eyes the palisades + And sentries in the glare; +’Tis barren as a pelican-beach-- + But his world is ended there. + +Nothing to do; and vacant hands + Bring on the idiot-pain; +He tries to think--to recollect, + But the blur is on his brain. + +Around him swarm the plaining ghosts + Like those on Virgil’s shore-- +A wilderness of faces dim, + And pale ones gashed and hoar. + +A smiting sun. No shed, no tree; + He totters to his lair-- +A den that sick hands dug in earth + Ere famine wasted there, + +Or, dropping in his place, he swoons, + Walled in by throngs that press, +Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead-- + Dead in his meagreness. + + + +The College Colonel. + + +He rides at their head; + A crutch by his saddle just slants in view, +One slung arm is in splints, you see, + Yet he guides his strong steed--how coldly too. + +He brings his regiment home-- + Not as they filed two years before, +But a remnant half-tattered, and battered, and worn, +Like castaway sailors, who--stunned + By the surf’s loud roar, + Their mates dragged back and seen no more-- +Again and again breast the surge, + And at last crawl, spent, to shore. + +A still rigidity and pale-- + An Indian aloofness lones his brow; +He has lived a thousand years +Compressed in battle’s pains and prayers, + Marches and watches slow. + +There are welcoming shouts, and flags; + Old men off hat to the Boy, +Wreaths from gay balconies fall at his feet, + But to _him_--there comes alloy. + +It is not that a leg is lost, + It is not that an arm is maimed. +It is not that the fever has racked-- + Self he has long disclaimed. + +But all through the Seven Day’s Fight, + And deep in the wilderness grim, +And in the field-hospital tent, + And Petersburg crater, and dim +Lean brooding in Libby, there came-- + Ah heaven!--what _truth_ to him. + + + +The Eagle of the Blue.[12] + + +Aloft he guards the starry folds + Who is the brother of the star; +The bird whose joy is in the wind + Exultleth in the war. + +No painted plume--a sober hue, + His beauty is his power; +That eager calm of gaze intent + Foresees the Sibyl’s hour. + +Austere, he crowns the swaying perch, + Flapped by the angry flag; +The hurricane from the battery sings, + But his claw has known the crag. + +Amid the scream of shells, his scream + Runs shrilling; and the glare +Of eyes that brave the blinding sun + The vollied flame can bear. + +The pride of quenchless strength is his-- + Strength which, though chained, avails; +The very rebel looks and thrills-- + The anchored Emblem hails. + +Though scarred in many a furious fray, + No deadly hurt he knew; +Well may we think his years are charmed-- + The Eagle of the Blue. + + + +A Dirge for McPherson,[13] +Killed in front of Atlanta. +(July, 1864.) + + +Arms reversed and banners craped-- + Muffled drums; +Snowy horses sable-draped-- + McPherson comes. + + _But, tell us, shall we know him more, + Lost-Mountain and lone Kenesaw?_ + +Brave the sword upon the pall-- + A gleam in gloom; +So a bright name lighteth all + McPherson’s doom. + +Bear him through the chapel-door-- + Let priest in stole +Pace before the warrior + Who led. Bell--toll! + +Lay him down within the nave, + The Lesson read-- +Man is noble, man is brave, + But man’s--a weed. + +Take him up again and wend + Graveward, nor weep: +There’s a trumpet that shall rend + This Soldier’s sleep. + +Pass the ropes the coffin round, + And let descend; +Prayer and volley--let it sound + McPherson’s end. + + _True fame is his, for life is o’er-- + Sarpedon of the mighty war._ + + + +At the Cannon’s Mouth. +Destruction of the Ram Albermarle by the Torpedo-Launch. +(October, 1864.) + + +Palely intent, he urged his keel + Full on the guns, and touched the spring; +Himself involved in the bolt he drove +Timed with the armed hull’s shot that stove +His shallop--die or do! +Into the flood his life he threw, + Yet lives--unscathed--a breathing thing +To marvel at. + + He has his fame; +But that mad dash at death, how name? + +Had Earth no charm to stay the Boy + From the martyr-passion? Could he dare +Disdain the Paradise of opening joy + Which beckons the fresh heart every where? +Life has more lures than any girl + For youth and strength; puts forth a share +Of beauty, hinting of yet rarer store; +And ever with unfathomable eyes, + Which baffingly entice, +Still strangely does Adonis draw. +And life once over, who shall tell the rest? +Life is, of all we know, God’s best. +What imps these eagles then, that they +Fling disrespect on life by that proud way +In which they soar above our lower clay. + +Pretense of wonderment and doubt unblest: + In Cushing’s eager deed was shown + A spirit which brave poets own-- +That scorn of life which earns life’s crown; + Earns, but not always wins; but he-- + The star ascended in his nativity. + + + +The March to the Sea. +(December, 1864.) + + +Not Kenesaw high-arching, + Nor Allatoona’s glen-- +Though there the graves lie parching-- + Stayed Sherman’s miles of men; +From charred Atlanta marching + They launched the sword again. + The columns streamed like rivers + Which in their course agree, + And they streamed until their flashing + Met the flashing of the sea: + It was glorious glad marching, + That marching to the sea. + +They brushed the foe before them + (Shall gnats impede the bull?); +Their own good bridges bore them + Over swamps or torrents full, +And the grand pines waving o’er them + Bowed to axes keen and cool. + The columns grooved their channels. + Enforced their own decree, + And their power met nothing larger + Until it met the sea: + It was glorious glad marching, + A marching glad and free. + +Kilpatrick’s snare of riders + In zigzags mazed the land, +Perplexed the pale Southsiders + With feints on every hand; +Vague menace awed the hiders + In forts beyond command. + To Sherman’s shifting problem + No foeman knew the key; + But onward went the marching + Unpausing to the sea: + It was glorious glad marching, + The swinging step was free. + +The flankers ranged like pigeons + In clouds through field or wood; +The flocks of all those regions, + The herds and horses good, +Poured in and swelled the legions, + For they caught the marching mood. + A volley ahead! They hear it; + And they hear the repartee: + Fighting was but frolic + In that marching to the sea: + It was glorious glad marching, + A marching bold and free. + +All nature felt their coming, + The birds like couriers flew, +And the banners brightly blooming + The slaves by thousands drew, +And they marched beside the drumming, + And they joined the armies blue. + The cocks crowed from the cannon + (Pets named from Grant and Lee), + Plumed fighters and campaigners + In the marching to the sea: + It was glorious glad marching, + For every man was free. + +The foragers through calm lands + Swept in tempest gay, +And they breathed the air of balm-lands + Where rolled savannas lay, +And they helped themselves from farm-lands-- + As who should say them nay? + The regiments uproarious + Laughed in Plenty’s glee; + And they marched till their broad laughter + Met the laughter of the sea: + It was glorious glad marching, + That marching to the sea. + +The grain of endless acres + Was threshed (as in the East) +By the trampling of the Takers, + Strong march of man and beast; +The flails of those earth-shakers + Left a famine where they ceased. + The arsenals were yielded; + The sword (that was to be), + Arrested in the forging, + Rued that marching to the sea: + It was glorious glad marching, + But ah, the stern decree! + +For behind they left a wailing, + A terror and a ban, +And blazing cinders sailing, + And houseless households wan, +Wide zones of counties paling, + And towns where maniacs ran. + Was it Treason’s retribution-- + Necessity the plea? + They will long remember Sherman + And his streaming columns free-- + They will long remember Sherman + Marching to the sea. + + + +The Frenzy in the Wake.[14] +Sherman’s advance through the Carolinas. +(February, 1865.) + + +So strong to suffer, shall we be + Weak to contend, and break +The sinews of the Oppressor’s knee + That grinds upon the neck? + O, the garments rolled in blood + Scorch in cities wrapped in flame, + And the African--the imp! + He gibbers, imputing shame. + +Shall Time, avenging every woe, + To us that joy allot +Which Israel thrilled when Sisera’s brow + Showed gaunt and showed the clot? + Curse on their foreheads, cheeks, and eyes-- + The Northern faces--true + To the flag we hate, the flag whose stars + Like planets strike us through. + +From frozen Maine they come, + Far Minnesota too; +They come to a sun whose rays disown-- + May it wither them as the dew! + The ghosts of our slain appeal: + “Vain shall our victories be” + But back from its ebb the flood recoils-- + Back in a whelming sea. + +With burning woods our skies are brass, + The pillars of dust are seen; +The live-long day their cavalry pass-- + No crossing the road between. + We were sore deceived--an awful host! + They move like a roaring wind. + Have we gamed and lost? but even despair + Shall never our hate rescind. + + + +The Fall of Richmond. +The tidings received in the Northern Metropolis. +(April, 1865.) + + +What mean these peals from every tower, + And crowds like seas that sway? +The cannon reply; they speak the heart + Of the People impassioned, and say-- +A city in flags for a city in flames, + Richmond goes Babylon’s way-- + _Sing and pray._ + +O weary years and woeful wars, + And armies in the grave; +But hearts unquelled at last deter +The helmed dilated Lucifer-- + Honor to Grant the brave, +Whose three stars now like Orion’s rise + When wreck is on the wave-- + _Bless his glaive._ + +Well that the faith we firmly kept, + And never our aim forswore +For the Terrors that trooped from each recess +When fainting we fought in the Wilderness, + And Hell made loud hurrah; +But God is in Heaven, and Grant in the Town, + And Right through might is Law-- + _God’s way adore._ + + + +The Surrender at Appomattox. +(April, 1865.) + + +As billows upon billows roll, + On victory victory breaks; +Ere yet seven days from Richmond’s fall + And crowning triumph wakes +The loud joy-gun, whose thunders run + By sea-shore, streams, and lakes. + The hope and great event agree + In the sword that Grant received from Lee. + +The warring eagles fold the wing, + But not in Cæsar’s sway; +Not Rome o’ercome by Roman arms we sing, + As on Pharsalia’s day, +But Treason thrown, though a giant grown, + And Freedom’s larger play. + All human tribes glad token see + In the close of the wars of Grant and Lee. + + + +A Canticle: +Significant of the national exaltation of enthusiasm at +the close of the War. + + +O the precipice Titanic + Of the congregated Fall, +And the angle oceanic + Where the deepening thunders call-- + And the Gorge so grim, + And the firmamental rim! +Multitudinously thronging + The waters all converge, +Then they sweep adown in sloping + Solidity of surge. + + The Nation, in her impulse + Mysterious as the Tide, + In emotion like an ocean + Moves in power, not in pride; + And is deep in her devotion + As Humanity is wide. + + Thou Lord of hosts victorious, + The confluence Thou hast twined; + By a wondrous way and glorious + A passage Thou dost find-- + A passage Thou dost find: + Hosanna to the Lord of hosts, + The hosts of human kind. + +Stable in its baselessness + When calm is in the air, +The Iris half in tracelessness + Hovers faintly fair. +Fitfully assailing it + A wind from heaven blows, +Shivering and paling it + To blankness of the snows; +While, incessant in renewal, + The Arch rekindled grows, +Till again the gem and jewel + Whirl in blinding overthrows-- +Till, prevailing and transcending, + Lo, the Glory perfect there, +And the contest finds an ending, + For repose is in the air. + +But the foamy Deep unsounded, + And the dim and dizzy ledge, +And the booming roar rebounded, + And the gull that skims the edge! + The Giant of the Pool + Heaves his forehead white as wool-- +Toward the Iris every climbing + From the Cataracts that call-- +Irremovable vast arras + Draping all the Wall. + + The Generations pouring + From times of endless date, + In their going, in their flowing + Ever form the steadfast State; + And Humanity is growing + Toward the fullness of her fate. + + Thou Lord of hosts victorious, + Fulfill the end designed; + By a wondrous way and glorious + A passage Thou dost find-- + A passage Thou dost find: + Hosanna to the Lord of hosts, + The hosts of human kind. + + + +The Martyr. +Indicative of the passion of the people on the 15th of +April, 1865. + + +Good Friday was the day + Of the prodigy and crime, +When they killed him in his pity, + When they killed him in his prime +Of clemency and calm-- + When with yearning he was filled + To redeem the evil-willed, +And, though conqueror, be kind; + But they killed him in his kindness, + In their madness and their blindness, +And they killed him from behind. + + There is sobbing of the strong, + And a pall upon the land; + But the People in their weeping + Bare the iron hand: + Beware the People weeping + When they bare the iron hand. + +He lieth in his blood-- + The father in his face; +They have killed him, the Forgiver-- + The Avenger takes his place, [15] +The Avenger wisely stern, + Who in righteousness shall do + What the heavens call him to, +And the parricides remand; + For they killed him in his kindness, + In their madness and their blindness, +And his blood is on their hand. + + There is sobbing of the strong, + And a pall upon the land; + But the People in their weeping + Bare the iron hand: + Beware the People weeping + When they bare the iron hand. + + + +“The Coming Storm:” +A Picture by S.R. Gifford, and owned by E.B. +Included in the N.A. Exhibition, April, 1865. + + +All feeling hearts must feel for him + Who felt this picture. Presage dim-- +Dim inklings from the shadowy sphere + Fixed him and fascinated here. + +A demon-cloud like the mountain one + Burst on a spirit as mild +As this urned lake, the home of shades. + But Shakspeare’s pensive child + +Never the lines had lightly scanned, + Steeped in fable, steeped in fate; +The Hamlet in his heart was ’ware, + Such hearts can antedate. + +No utter surprise can come to him + Who reaches Shakspeare’s core; +That which we seek and shun is there-- + Man’s final lore. + + + +Rebel Color-bearers at Shiloh:[16] +A plea against the vindictive cry raised by civilians shortly +after the surrender at Appomattox. + + +The color-bearers facing death +White in the whirling sulphurous wreath, + Stand boldly out before the line +Right and left their glances go, +Proud of each other, glorying in their show; +Their battle-flags about them blow, + And fold them as in flame divine: +Such living robes are only seen +Round martyrs burning on the green-- +And martyrs for the Wrong have been. + +Perish their Cause! but mark the men-- +Mark the planted statues, then +Draw trigger on them if you can. + +The leader of a patriot-band +Even so could view rebels who so could stand; + And this when peril pressed him sore, +Left aidless in the shivered front of war-- + Skulkers behind, defiant foes before, +And fighting with a broken brand. +The challenge in that courage rare-- +Courage defenseless, proudly bare-- +Never could tempt him; he could dare +Strike up the leveled rifle there. + +Sunday at Shiloh, and the day +When Stonewall charged--McClellan’s crimson May, +And Chickamauga’s wave of death, +And of the Wilderness the cypress wreath-- + All these have passed away. +The life in the veins of Treason lags, +Her daring color-bearers drop their flags, + And yield. _Now_ shall we fire? + Can poor spite be? +Shall nobleness in victory less aspire +Than in reverse? Spare Spleen her ire, + And think how Grant met Lee. + + + +The Muster:[17] +Suggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington +(May, 1865.) + + +The Abrahamic river-- + Patriarch of floods, +Calls the roll of all his streams + And watery mutitudes: + Torrent cries to torrent, + The rapids hail the fall; + With shouts the inland freshets + Gather to the call. + + The quotas of the Nation, + Like the water-shed of waves, + Muster into union-- + Eastern warriors, Western braves. + + Martial strains are mingling, + Though distant far the bands, + And the wheeling of the squadrons + Is like surf upon the sands. + + The bladed guns are gleaming-- + Drift in lengthened trim, + Files on files for hazy miles-- + Nebulously dim. + + O Milky Way of armies-- + Star rising after star, + New banners of the Commonwealths, + And eagles of the War. + +The Abrahamic river + To sea-wide fullness fed, +Pouring from the thaw-lands + By the God of floods is led: + His deep enforcing current + The streams of ocean own, + And Europe’s marge is evened + By rills from Kansas lone. + + + +Aurora-Borealis. +Commemorative of the Dissolution of Armies at the Peace. +(May, 1865.) + + +What power disbands the Northern Lights + After their steely play? +The lonely watcher feels an awe + Of Nature’s sway, + As when appearing, + He marked their flashed uprearing +In the cold gloom-- + Retreatings and advancings, +(Like dallyings of doom), + Transitions and enhancings, + And bloody ray. + +The phantom-host has faded quite, + Splendor and Terror gone-- +Portent or promise--and gives way + To pale, meek Dawn; + The coming, going, + Alike in wonder showing-- +Alike the God, + Decreeing and commanding +The million blades that glowed, + The muster and disbanding-- + Midnight and Morn. + + + +The Released Rebel Prisoner.[18] +(June, 1865.) + + +Armies he’s seen--the herds of war, + But never such swarms of men +As now in the Nineveh of the North-- + How mad the Rebellion then! + +And yet but dimly he divines + The depth of that deceit, +And superstition of vast pride + Humbled to such defeat. + +Seductive shone the Chiefs in arms-- + His steel the nearest magnet drew; +Wreathed with its kind, the Gulf-weed drives-- + ’Tis Nature’s wrong they rue. + +His face is hidden in his beard, + But his heart peers out at eye-- +And such a heart! like mountain-pool + Where no man passes by. + +He thinks of Hill--a brave soul gone; + And Ashby dead in pale disdain; +And Stuart with the Rupert-plume, + Whose blue eye never shall laugh again. + +He hears the drum; he sees our boys + From his wasted fields return; +Ladies feast them on strawberries, + And even to kiss them yearn. + +He marks them bronzed, in soldier-trim, + The rifle proudly borne; +They bear it for an heir-loom home, + And he--disarmed--jail-worn. + +Home, home--his heart is full of it; + But home he never shall see, +Even should he stand upon the spot; + ’Tis gone!--where his brothers be. + +The cypress-moss from tree to tree + Hangs in his Southern land; +As weird, from thought to thought of his + Run memories hand in hand. + +And so he lingers--lingers on + In the City of the Foe-- +His cousins and his countrymen + Who see him listless go. + + + +A Grave near Petersburg, Virginia.[19] + + +Head-board and foot-board duly placed-- + Grassed in the mound between; +Daniel Drouth is the slumberer’s name-- + Long may his grave be green! + +Quick was his way--a flash and a blow, + Full of his fire was he-- +A fire of hell--’tis burnt out now-- + Green may his grave long be! + +May his grave be green, though he + Was a rebel of iron mould; +Many a true heart--true to the Cause, + Through the blaze of his wrath lies cold. + +May his grave be green--still green + While happy years shall run; +May none come nigh to disinter + The--_Buried Gun_. + + + +“Formerly a Slave.” +An idealized Portrait, by E. Vedder, in the Spring +Exhibition of the National Academy, 1865. + + +The sufferance of her race is shown, + And retrospect of life, +Which now too late deliverance dawns upon; + Yet is she not at strife. + +Her children’s children they shall know + The good withheld from her; +And so her reverie takes prophetic cheer-- + In spirit she sees the stir + +Far down the depth of thousand years, + And marks the revel shine; +Her dusky face is lit with sober light, + Sibylline, yet benign. + + + +The Apparition. +(A Retrospect.) + + +Convulsions came; and, where the field + Long slept in pastoral green, +A goblin-mountain was upheaved +(Sure the scared sense was all deceived), + Marl-glen and slag-ravine. + +The unreserve of Ill was there, + The clinkers in her last retreat; +But, ere the eye could take it in, +Or mind could comprehension win, + It sunk!--and at our feet. + +So, then, Solidity’s a crust-- + The core of fire below; +All may go well for many a year, +But who can think without a fear + Of horrors that happen so? + + + +Magnanimity Baffled. + + +“Sharp words we had before the fight; + But--now the fight is done-- +Look, here’s my hand,” said the Victor bold, + “Take it--an honest one! +What, holding back? I mean you well; + Though worsted, you strove stoutly, man; +The odds were great; I honor you; + Man honors man. + +“Still silent, friend? can grudges be? + Yet am I held a foe?-- +Turned to the wall, on his cot he lies-- + Never I’ll leave him so! +Brave one! I here implore your hand; + Dumb still? all fellowship fled? +Nay, then, I’ll have this stubborn hand” + He snatched it--it was dead. + + + +On the Slain Collegians.[20] + + +Youth is the time when hearts are large, + And stirring wars +Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn + To the blade it draws. +If woman incite, and duty show + (Though made the mask of Cain), +Or whether it be Truth’s sacred cause, + Who can aloof remain +That shares youth’s ardor, uncooled by the snow + Of wisdom or sordid gain? + +The liberal arts and nurture sweet +Which give his gentleness to man-- + Train him to honor, lend him grace +Through bright examples meet-- +That culture which makes never wan +With underminings deep, but holds + The surface still, its fitting place, + And so gives sunniness to the face +And bravery to the heart; what troops + Of generous boys in happiness thus bred-- + Saturnians through life’s Tempe led, +Went from the North and came from the South, +With golden mottoes in the mouth, + To lie down midway on a bloody bed. + +Woe for the homes of the North, +And woe for the seats of the South; +All who felt life’s spring in prime, +And were swept by the wind of their place and time-- + All lavish hearts, on whichever side, +Of birth urbane or courage high, +Armed them for the stirring wars-- +Armed them--some to die. + Apollo-like in pride, +Each would slay his Python--caught +The maxims in his temple taught-- + Aflame with sympathies whose blaze +Perforce enwrapped him--social laws, + Friendship and kin, and by-gone days-- +Vows, kisses--every heart unmoors, +And launches into the seas of wars. +What could they else--North or South? +Each went forth with blessings given +By priests and mothers in the name of Heaven; + And honor in both was chief. +Warred one for Right, and one for Wrong? +So be it; but they both were young-- +Each grape to his cluster clung, +All their elegies are sung. + +The anguish of maternal hearts + Must search for balm divine; +But well the striplings bore their fated parts + (The heavens all parts assign)-- +Never felt life’s care or cloy. +Each bloomed and died an unabated Boy; +Nor dreamed what death was--thought it mere +Sliding into some vernal sphere. +They knew the joy, but leaped the grief, +Like plants that flower ere comes the leaf-- +Which storms lay low in kindly doom, +And kill them in their flush of bloom. + + + +America. + + +I. + +Where the wings of a sunny Dome expand +I saw a Banner in gladsome air-- +Starry, like Berenice’s Hair-- +Afloat in broadened bravery there; +With undulating long-drawn flow, +As rolled Brazilian billows go +Voluminously o’er the Line. +The Land reposed in peace below; + The children in their glee +Were folded to the exulting heart + Of young Maternity. + + +II. + +Later, and it streamed in fight + When tempest mingled with the fray, +And over the spear-point of the shaft + I saw the ambiguous lightning play. +Valor with Valor strove, and died: +Fierce was Despair, and cruel was Pride; +And the lorn Mother speechless stood, +Pale at the fury of her brood. + + +III. + +Yet later, and the silk did wind + Her fair cold form; +Little availed the shining shroud, + Though ruddy in hue, to cheer or warm. +A watcher looked upon her low, and said-- +She sleeps, but sleeps, she is not dead. + But in that sleep contortion showed +The terror of the vision there-- + A silent vision unavowed, +Revealing earth’s foundation bare, + And Gorgon in her hidden place. +It was a thing of fear to see + So foul a dream upon so fair a face, +And the dreamer lying in that starry shroud. + + +IV. + +But from the trance she sudden broke-- + The trance, or death into promoted life; +At her feet a shivered yoke, +And in her aspect turned to heaven + No trace of passion or of strife-- +A clear calm look. It spake of pain, +But such as purifies from stain-- +Sharp pangs that never come again-- + And triumph repressed by knowledge meet, +Power dedicate, and hope grown wise, + And youth matured for age’s seat-- +Law on her brow and empire in her eyes. + So she, with graver air and lifted flag; +While the shadow, chased by light, +Fled along the far-drawn height, + And left her on the crag. + + + + +Verses +Inscriptive and Memorial + + + +On the Home Guards +who perished in the Defense of Lexington, Missouri. + + +The men who here in harness died + Fell not in vain, though in defeat. +They by their end well fortified + The Cause, and built retreat +(With memory of their valor tried) +For emulous hearts in many an after fray-- +Hearts sore beset, which died at bay. + + + +Inscription +for Graves at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. + + +Let none misgive we died amiss + When here we strove in furious fight: +Furious it was; nathless was this + Better than tranquil plight, +And tame surrender of the Cause +Hallowed by hearts and by the laws. + We here who warred for Man and Right, +The choice of warring never laid with us. + There we were ruled by the traitor’s choice. + Nor long we stood to trim and poise, +But marched, and fell--victorious! + + + +The Fortitude of the North +under the Disaster of the Second Manassas. + + +They take no shame for dark defeat + While prizing yet each victory won, +Who fight for the Right through all retreat, + Nor pause until their work is done. +The Cape-of-Storms is proof to every throe; + Vainly against that foreland beat +Wild winds aloft and wilder waves below: + The black cliffs gleam through rents in sleet +When the livid Antarctic storm-clouds glow. + + + +On the Men of Maine +killed in the Victory of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. + + +Afar they fell. It was the zone + Of fig and orange, cane and lime +(A land how all unlike their own, +With the cold pine-grove overgrown), + But still their Country’s clime. +And there in youth they died for her-- + The Volunteers, +For her went up their dying prayers: + So vast the Nation, yet so strong the tie. +What doubt shall come, then, to deter + The Republic’s earnest faith and courage high. + + + +An Epitaph. + + +When Sunday tidings from the front + Made pale the priest and people, +And heavily the blessing went, + And bells were dumb in the steeple; +The Soldier’s widow (summering sweerly here, + In shade by waving beeches lent) + Felt deep at heart her faith content, +And priest and people borrowed of her cheer. + + + +Inscription +for Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg. + + +To them who crossed the flood +And climbed the hill, with eyes + Upon the heavenly flag intent, + And through the deathful tumult went +Even unto death: to them this Stone-- +Erect, where they were overthrown-- + Of more than victory the monument. + + + +The Mound by the Lake. + + +The grass shall never forget this grave. +When homeward footing it in the sun + After the weary ride by rail, +The stripling soldiers passed her door, + Wounded perchance, or wan and pale, +She left her household work undone-- +Duly the wayside table spread, + With evergreens shaded, to regale +Each travel-spent and grateful one. +So warm her heart--childless--unwed, +Who like a mother comforted. + + + +On the Slain at Chickamauga. + + +Happy are they and charmed in life + Who through long wars arrive unscarred +At peace. To such the wreath be given, +If they unfalteringly have striven-- + In honor, as in limb, unmarred. +Let cheerful praise be rife, + And let them live their years at ease, +Musing on brothers who victorious died-- + Loved mates whose memory shall ever please. + +And yet mischance is honorable too-- + Seeming defeat in conflict justified +Whose end to closing eyes is his from view. +The will, that never can relent-- +The aim, survivor of the bafflement, + Make this memorial due. + + + +An uninscribed Monument +on one of the Battle-fields of the Wilderness. + + +Silence and Solitude may hint + (Whose home is in yon piny wood) +What I, though tableted, could never tell-- +The din which here befell, + And striving of the multitude. +The iron cones and spheres of death + Set round me in their rust, + These, too, if just, +Shall speak with more than animated breath. + Thou who beholdest, if thy thought, +Not narrowed down to personal cheer, +Take in the import of the quiet here-- + The after-quiet--the calm full fraught; +Thou too wilt silent stand-- +Silent as I, and lonesome as the land. + + + +On Sherman’s Men +who fell in the Assault of Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia. + + +They said that Fame her clarion dropped + Because great deeds were done no more-- +That even Duty knew no shining ends, +And Glory--’twas a fallen star! + But battle can heroes and bards restore. + Nay, look at Kenesaw: +Perils the mailed ones never knew +Are lightly braved by the ragged coats of blue, +And gentler hearts are bared to deadlier war. + + + +On the Grave +of a young Cavalry Officer killed in the Valley of Virginia. + + +Beauty and youth, with manners sweet, and friends-- + Gold, yet a mind not unenriched had he +Whom here low violets veil from eyes. + But all these gifts transcended be: +His happier fortune in this mound you see. + + + +A Requiem +for Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports. + + +When, after storms that woodlands rue, + To valleys comes atoning dawn, +The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew; + And meadow-larks, no more withdrawn, +Caroling fly in the languid blue; +The while, from many a hid recess, +Alert to partake the blessedness, +The pouring mites their airy dance pursue. + So, after ocean’s ghastly gales, +When laughing light of hoyden morning breaks, + Every finny hider wakes-- + From vaults profound swims up with glittering scales; + Through the delightsome sea he sails, +With shoals of shining tiny things +Frolic on every wave that flings + Against the prow its showery spray; +All creatures joying in the morn, +Save them forever from joyance torn, + Whose bark was lost where now the dolphins play; +Save them that by the fabled shore, + Down the pale stream are washed away, +Far to the reef of bones are borne; + And never revisits them the light, +Nor sight of long-sought land and pilot more; + Nor heed they now the lone bird’s flight +Round the lone spar where mid-sea surges pour. + + + +On a natural Monument +in a field of Georgia.[21] + + +No trophy this--a Stone unhewn, + And stands where here the field immures +The nameless brave whose palms are won. +Outcast they sleep; yet fame is nigh-- + Pure fame of deeds, not doers; +Nor deeds of men who bleeding die + In cheer of hymns that round them float: +In happy dreams such close the eye. +But withering famine slowly wore, + And slowly fell disease did gloat. +Even Nature’s self did aid deny; +They choked in horror the pensive sigh. + Yea, off from home sad Memory bore +(Though anguished Yearning heaved that way), +Lest wreck of reason might befall. + As men in gales shun the lee shore, +Though there the homestead be, and call, +And thitherward winds and waters sway-- +As such lorn mariners, so fared they. +But naught shall now their peace molest. + Their fame is this: they did endure-- +Endure, when fortitude was vain +To kindle any approving strain +Which they might hear. To these who rest, + This healing sleep alone was sure. + + + +Commemorative of a Naval Victory. + + +Sailors there are of gentlest breed, + Yet strong, like every goodly thing; +The discipline of arms refines, + And the wave gives tempering. + The damasked blade its beam can fling; +It lends the last grave grace: +The hawk, the hound, and sworded nobleman + In Titian’s picture for a king, +Are of Hunter or warrior race. + +In social halls a favored guest + In years that follow victory won, +How sweet to feel your festal fame, + In woman’s glance instinctive thrown: + Repose is yours--your deed is known, +It musks the amber wine; +It lives, and sheds a litle from storied days + Rich as October sunsets brown, +Which make the barren place to shine. + +But seldom the laurel wreath is seen + Unmixed with pensive pansies dark; +There’s a light and a shadow on every man + Who at last attains his lifted mark-- + Nursing through night the ethereal spark. +Elate he never can be; +He feels that spirits which glad had hailed his worth, + Sleep in oblivion.--The shark +Glides white through the prosphorus sea. + + + +Presentation to the Authorities, +by Privates, of Colors captured in Battles ending in the +Surrender of Lee. + + +These flags of armies overthrown-- +Flags fallen beneath the sovereign one +In end foredoomed which closes war; +We here, the captors, lay before + The altar which of right claims all-- +Our Country. And as freely we, + Revering ever her sacred call, +Could lay our lives down--though life be +Thrice loved and precious to the sense +Of such as reap the recompense + Of life imperiled for just cause-- +Imperiled, and yet preserved; +While comrades, whom Duty as strongly nerved, +Whose wives were all as dear, lie low. +But these flags given, glad we go + To waiting homes with vindicated laws. + + + +The Returned Volunteer to his Rifle. + + +Over the hearth--my father’s seat-- + Repose, to patriot-memory dear, +Thou tried companion, whom at last I greet + By steepy banks of Hudson here. +How oft I told thee of this scene-- +The Highlands blue--the river’s narrowing sheen. +Little at Gettysburg we thought +To find such haven; but God kept it green. +Long rest! with belt, and bayonet, and canteen. + + + + +The Scout toward Aldie. + + +The cavalry-camp lies on the slope + Of what was late a vernal hill, +But now like a pavement bare-- +An outpost in the perilous wilds + Which ever are lone and still; + But Mosby’s men are there-- + Of Mosby best beware. + +Great trees the troopers felled, and leaned + In antlered walls about their tents; +Strict watch they kept; ’twas _Hark!_ and _Mark!_ +Unarmed none cared to stir abroad + For berries beyond their forest-fence: + As glides in seas the shark, + Rides Mosby through green dark. + +All spake of him, but few had seen + Except the maimed ones or the low; +Yet rumor made him every thing-- +A farmer--woodman--refugee-- + The man who crossed the field but now; + A spell about his life did cling-- + Who to the ground shall Mosby bring? + +The morning-bugles lonely play, + Lonely the evening-bugle calls-- +Unanswered voices in the wild; +The settled hush of birds in nest + Becharms, and all the wood enthralls: + Memory’s self is so beguiled + That Mosby seems a satyr’s child. + +They lived as in the Eerie Land-- + The fire-flies showed with fairy gleam; +And yet from pine-tops one might ken +The Capitol dome--hazy--sublime-- + A vision breaking on a dream: + So strange it was that Mosby’s men + Should dare to prowl where the Dome was seen. + +A scout toward Aldie broke the spell.-- + The Leader lies before his tent +Gazing at heaven’s all-cheering lamp +Through blandness of a morning rare; + His thoughts on bitter-sweets are bent: + His sunny bride is in the camp-- + But Mosby--graves are beds of damp! + +The trumpet calls; he goes within; + But none the prayer and sob may know: +Her hero he, but bridegroom too. +Ah, love in a tent is a queenly thing, + And fame, be sure, refines the vow; + But fame fond wives have lived to rue, + And Mosby’s men fell deeds can do. + +_Tan-tara! tan-tara! tan-tara!_ + Mounted and armed he sits a king; +For pride she smiles if now she peep-- +Elate he rides at the head of his men; + He is young, and command is a boyish thing: + They file out into the forest deep-- + Do Mosby and his rangers sleep? + +The sun is gold, and the world is green, + Opal the vapors of morning roll; +The champing horses lightly prance-- +Full of caprice, and the riders too + Curving in many a caricole. + But marshaled soon, by fours advance-- + Mosby had checked that airy dance. + +By the hospital-tent the cripples stand-- + Bandage, and crutch, and cane, and sling, +And palely eye the brave array; +The froth of the cup is gone for them + (Caw! caw! the crows through the blueness wing); + Yet these were late as bold, as gay; + But Mosby--a clip, and grass is hay. + +How strong they feel on their horses free, + Tingles the tendoned thigh with life; +Their cavalry-jackets make boys of all-- +With golden breasts like the oriole; + The chat, the jest, and laugh are rife. + But word is passed from the front--a call + For order; the wood is Mosby’s hall. + +To which behest one rider sly + (Spurred, but unarmed) gave little heed-- +Of dexterous fun not slow or spare, +He teased his neighbors of touchy mood, + Into plungings he pricked his steed: + A black-eyed man on a coal-black mare, + Alive as Mosby in mountain air. + +His limbs were long, and large and round; + He whispered, winked--did all but shout: +A healthy man for the sick to view; +The taste in his mouth was sweet at morn; + Little of care he cared about. + And yet of pains and pangs he knew-- + In others, maimed by Mosby’s crew. + +The Hospital Steward--even he + (Sacred in person as a priest), +And on his coat-sleeve broidered nice +Wore the caduceus, black and green. + No wonder he sat so light on his beast; + This cheery man in suit of price + Not even Mosby dared to slice. + +They pass the picket by the pine + And hollow log--a lonesome place; +His horse adroop, and pistol clean; +’Tis cocked--kept leveled toward the wood; + Strained vigilance ages his childish face. + Since midnight has that stripling been + Peering for Mosby through the green. + +Splashing they cross the freshet-flood, + And up the muddy bank they strain; +A horse at the spectral white-ash shies-- +One of the span of the ambulance, + Black as a hearse. They give the rein: + Silent speed on a scout were wise, + Could cunning baffle Mosby’s spies. + +Rumor had come that a band was lodged + In green retreats of hills that peer +By Aldie (famed for the swordless charge[22]). +Much store they’d heaped of captured arms + And, peradventure, pilfered cheer; + For Mosby’s lads oft hearts enlarge + In revelry by some gorge’s marge. + +“Don’t let your sabres rattle and ring; + To his oat-bag let each man give heed-- +There now, that fellow’s bag’s untied, +Sowing the road with the precious grain. + Your carbines swing at hand--you need! + Look to yourselves, and your nags beside, + Men who after Mosby ride.” + +Picked lads and keen went sharp before-- + A guard, though scarce against surprise; +And rearmost rode an answering troop, +But flankers none to right or left. + No bugle peals, no pennon flies: + Silent they sweep, and fail would swoop + On Mosby with an Indian whoop. + +On, right on through the forest land, + Nor man, nor maid, nor child was seen-- +Not even a dog. The air was still; +The blackened hut they turned to see, + And spied charred benches on the green; + A squirrel sprang from the rotting mill + Whence Mosby sallied late, brave blood to spill. + +By worn-out fields they cantered on-- + Drear fields amid the woodlands wide; +By cross-roads of some olden time, +In which grew groves; by gate-stones down-- + Grassed ruins of secluded pride: + A strange lone land, long past the prime, + Fit land for Mosby or for crime. + +The brook in the dell they pass. One peers + Between the leaves: “Ay, there’s the place-- +There, on the oozy ledge--’twas there +We found the body (Blake’s you know); + Such whirlings, gurglings round the face-- + Shot drinking! Well, in war all’s fair-- + So Mosby says. The bough--take care!” + +Hard by, a chapel. Flower-pot mould + Danked and decayed the shaded roof; +The porch was punk; the clapboards spanned +With ruffled lichens gray or green; + Red coral-moss was not aloof; + And mid dry leaves green dead-man’s-hand + Groped toward that chapel in Mosby-land. + +They leave the road and take the wood, + And mark the trace of ridges there-- +A wood where once had slept the farm-- +A wood where once tobacco grew + Drowsily in the hazy air, + And wrought in all kind things a calm-- + Such influence, Mosby! bids disarm. + +To ease even yet the place did woo-- + To ease which pines unstirring share, +For ease the weary horses sighed: +Halting, and slackening girths, they feed, + Their pipes they light, they loiter there; + Then up, and urging still the Guide, + On, and after Mosby ride. + +This Guide in frowzy coat of brown, + And beard of ancient growth and mould, +Bestrode a bony steed and strong, +As suited well with bulk he bore-- + A wheezy man with depth of hold + Who jouncing went. A staff he swung-- + A wight whom Mosby’s wasp had stung. + +Burnt out and homeless--hunted long! + That wheeze he caught in autumn-wood +Crouching (a fat man) for his life, +And spied his lean son ’mong the crew + That probed the covert. Ah! black blood + Was his ’gainst even child and wife-- + Fast friends to Mosby. Such the strife. + +A lad, unhorsed by sliding girths, + Strains hard to readjust his seat +Ere the main body show the gap +’Twixt them and the read-guard; scrub-oaks near + He sidelong eyes, while hands move fleet; + Then mounts and spurs. One drop his cap-- + “Let Mosby fine!” nor heeds mishap. + +A gable time-stained peeps through trees: + “You mind the fight in the haunted house? +That’s it; we clenched them in the room-- +An ambuscade of ghosts, we thought, + But proved sly rebels on a house! + Luke lies in the yard.” The chimneys loom: + Some muse on Mosby--some on doom. + +Less nimbly now through brakes they wind, + And ford wild creeks where men have drowned; +They skirt the pool, a void the fen, +And so till night, when down they lie, + They steeds still saddled, in wooded ground: + Rein in hand they slumber then, + Dreaming of Mosby’s cedarn den. + +But Colonel and Major friendly sat + Where boughs deformed low made a seat. +The Young Man talked (all sworded and spurred) +Of the partisan’s blade he longed to win, + And frays in which he meant to beat. + The grizzled Major smoked, and heard: + “But what’s that--Mosby?” “No, a bird.” + +A contrast here like sire and son, + Hope and Experience sage did meet; +The Youth was brave, the Senior too; +But through the Seven Days one had served, + And gasped with the rear-guard in retreat: + So he smoked and smoked, and the wreath he blew-- + “Any _sure_ news of Mosby’s crew?” + +He smoked and smoked, eying the while + A huge tree hydra-like in growth-- +Moon-tinged--with crook’d boughs rent or lopped-- +Itself a haggard forest. “Come” + The Colonel cried, “to talk you’re loath; + D’ye hear? I say he must be stopped, + This Mosby--caged, and hair close cropped.” + +“Of course; but what’s that dangling there” + “Where?” “From the tree--that gallows-bough; + A bit of frayed bark, is it not” +“Ay--or a rope; did _we_ hang last?-- + Don’t like my neckerchief any how” + He loosened it: “O ay, we’ll stop + This Mosby--but that vile jerk and drop!”[23] + +By peep of light they feed and ride, + Gaining a grove’s green edge at morn, +And mark the Aldie hills upread +And five gigantic horsemen carved + Clear-cut against the sky withdrawn; + Are more behind? an open snare? + Or Mosby’s men but watchmen there? + +The ravaged land was miles behind, + And Loudon spread her landscape rare; +Orchards in pleasant lowlands stood, +Cows were feeding, a cock loud crew, + But not a friend at need was there; + The valley-folk were only good + To Mosby and his wandering brood. + +What best to do? what mean yon men? + Colonel and Guide their minds compare; +Be sure some looked their Leader through; +Dismsounted, on his sword he leaned + As one who feigns an easy air; + And yet perplexed he was they knew-- + Perplexed by Mosby’s mountain-crew. + +The Major hemmed as he would speak, + But checked himself, and left the ring +Of cavalrymen about their Chief-- +Young courtiers mute who paid their court + By looking with confidence on their king; + They knew him brave, foresaw no grief-- + But Mosby--the time to think is brief. + +The Surgeon (sashed in sacred green) + Was glad ’twas not for _him_ to say +What next should be; if a trooper bleeds, +Why he will do his best, as wont, + And his partner in black will aid and pray; + But judgment bides with him who leads, + And Mosby many a problem breeds. + +The Surgeon was the kindliest man + That ever a callous trace professed; +He felt for him, that Leader young, +And offered medicine from his flask: + The Colonel took it with marvelous zest. + For such fine medicine good and strong, + Oft Mosby and his foresters long. + +A charm of proof. “Ho, Major, come-- + Pounce on yon men! Take half your troop, +Through the thickets wind--pray speedy be-- +And gain their read. And, Captain Morn, + Picket these roads--all travelers stop; + The rest to the edge of this crest with me, + That Mosby and his scouts may see.” + +Commanded and done. Ere the sun stood steep, + Back came the Blues, with a troop of Grays, +Ten riding double--luckless ten!-- +Five horses gone, and looped hats lost, + And love-locks dancing in a maze-- + Certes, but sophomores from the glen + Of Mosby--not his veteran men. + +“Colonel,” said the Major, touching his cap, + “We’ve had our ride, and here they are” +“Well done! how many found you there” +“As many as I bring you here” + “And no one hurt?” “There’ll be no scar-- + One fool was battered.” “Find their lair” + “Why, Mosby’s brood camp every where.” + +He sighed, and slid down from his horse, + And limping went to a spring-head nigh. +“Why, bless me, Major, not hurt, I hope” +“Battered my knee against a bar + When the rush was made; all right by-and-by.-- + Halloa! they gave you too much rope-- + Go back to Mosby, eh? elope?” + +Just by the low-hanging skirt of wood + The guard, remiss, had given a chance +For a sudden sally into the cover-- +But foiled the intent, nor fired a shot, + Though the issue was a deadly trance; + For, hurled ’gainst an oak that humped low over, + Mosby’s man fell, pale as a lover. + +They pulled some grass his head to ease + (Lined with blue shreds a ground-nest stirred). +The Surgeon came--“Here’s a to-do” +“Ah!” cried the Major, darting a glance, + “This fellow’s the one that fired and spurred + Down hill, but met reserves below-- + My boys, not Mosby’s--so we go!” + +The Surgeon--bluff, red, goodly man-- + Kneeled by the hurt one; like a bee +He toiled. The pale young Chaplain too-- +(Who went to the wars for cure of souls, + And his own student-ailments)--he + Bent over likewise; spite the two, + Mosby’s poor man more pallid grew. + +Meanwhile the mounted captives near + Jested; and yet they anxious showed; +Virginians; some of family-pride, +And young, and full of fire, and fine + In open feature and cheek that glowed; + And here thralled vagabonds now they ride-- + But list! one speaks for Mosby’s side. + +“Why, three to one--your horses strong-- + Revolvers, rifles, and a surprise-- +Surrender we account no shame! +We live, are gay, and life is hope; + We’ll fight again when fight is wise. + There are plenty more from where we came; + But go find Mosby--start the game!” + +Yet one there was who looked but glum; + In middle-age, a father he, +And this his first experience too: +“They shot at my heart when my hands were up-- + This fighting’s crazy work, I see” + But noon is high; what next do? + The woods are mute, and Mosby is the foe. + +“Save what we’ve got,” the Major said; + “Bad plan to make a scout too long; +The tide may turn, and drag them back, +And more beside. These rides I’ve been, + And every time a mine was sprung. + To rescue, mind, they won’t be slack-- + Look out for Mosby’s rifle-crack.” + +“We’ll welcome it! give crack for crack! + Peril, old lad, is what I seek” +“O then, there’s plenty to be had-- +By all means on, and have our fill” + With that, grotesque, he writhed his neck, + Showing a scar by buck-shot made-- + Kind Mosby’s Christmas gift, he said. + +“But, Colonel, my prisoners--let a guard + Make sure of them, and lead to camp. +That done, we’re free for a dark-room fight +If so you say.” The other laughed; + “Trust me, Major, nor throw a damp. + But first to try a little sleight-- + Sure news of Mosby would suit me quite.” + +Herewith he turned--“Reb, have a dram” + Holding the Surgeon’s flask with a smile +To a young scapegrace from the glen. +“O yes!” he eagerly replied, + “And thank you, Colonel, but--any guile? + For if you think we’ll blab--why, then + You don’t know Mosby or his men.” + +The Leader’s genial air relaxed. + “Best give it up,” a whisperer said. +“By heaven, I’ll range their rebel den” +“They’ll treat you well,” the captive cried; + “They’re all like us--handsome--well bred: + In wood or town, with sword or pen, + Polite is Mosby, bland his men.” + +“Where were you, lads, last night?--come, tell” + “We?--at a wedding in the Vale-- +The bridegroom our comrade; by his side +Belisent, my cousin--O, so proud + Of her young love with old wounds pale-- + A Virginian girl! God bless her pride-- + Of a crippled Mosby-man the bride!” + +“Four wall shall mend that saucy mood, + And moping prisons tame him down” +Said Captain Cloud. “God help that day” +Cried Captain Morn, “and he so young. + But hark, he sings--a madcap one” + “_O we multiply merrily in the May, + The birds and Mosby’s men, they say!_” + +While echoes ran, a wagon old, + Under stout guard of Corporal Chew +Came up; a lame horse, dingy white, +With clouted harness; ropes in hand, + Cringed the humped driver, black in hue; + By him (for Mosby’s band a sight) + A sister-rebel sat, her veil held tight. + +“I picked them up,” the Corporal said, + “Crunching their way over stick and root, +Through yonder wood. The man here--Cuff-- +Says they are going to Leesburg town” + The Colonel’s eye took in the group; + The veiled one’s hand he spied--enough! + Not Mosby’s. Spite the gown’s poor stuff, + +Off went his hat: “Lady, fear not; + We soldiers do what we deplore-- +I must detain you till we march” +The stranger nodded. Nettled now, + He grew politer than before:-- + “’Tis Mosby’s fault, this halt and search” + The lady stiffened in her starch. + +“My duty, madam, bids me now + Ask what may seem a little rude. +Pardon--that veil--withdraw it, please +(Corporal! make every man fall back); + Pray, now I do but what I should; + Bethink you, ’tis in masks like these + That Mosby haunts the villages.” + +Slowly the stranger drew her veil, + And looked the Soldier in the eye-- +A glance of mingled foul and fair; +Sad patience in a proud disdain, + And more than quietude. A sigh + She heaved, and if all unaware, + And far seemed Mosby from her care. + +She came from Yewton Place, her home, + So ravaged by the war’s wild play-- +Campings, and foragings, and fires-- +That now she sought an aunt’s abode. + Her Kinsmen? In Lee’s army, they. + The black? A servant, late her sire’s. + And Mosby? Vainly he inquires. + +He gazed, and sad she met his eye; + “In the wood yonder were you lost” +No; at the forks they left the road +Because of hoof-prints (thick they were-- + Thick as the words in notes thrice crossed), + And fearful, made that episode. + In fear of Mosby? None she showed. + +Her poor attire again he scanned: + “Lady, once more; I grieve to jar +On all sweet usage, but must plead +To have what peeps there from your dress; + That letter--’tis justly prize of war” + She started--gave it--she must need. + “’Tis not from Mosby? May I read?” + +And straight such matter he perused + That with the Guide he went apart. +The Hospital Steward’s turn began: +“Must squeeze this darkey; every tap + Of knowledge we are bound to start” + “Garry,” she said, “tell all you can + Of Colonel Mosby--that brave man.” + +“Dun know much, sare; and missis here + Know less dan me. But dis I know--” +“Well, what?” “I dun know what I know” +“A knowing answer!” The hump-back coughed, + Rubbing his yellowish wool like tow. + “Come--Mosby--tell!” “O dun look so! + My gal nursed missis--let we go.” + +“Go where?” demanded Captain Cloud; + “Back into bondage? Man, you’re free” +“Well, _let_ we free!” The Captain’s brow +Lowered; the Colonel came--had heard: + “Pooh! pooh! his simple heart I see-- + A faithful servant.--Lady” (a bow), + “Mosby’s abroad--with us you’ll go. + +“Guard! look to your prisoners; back to camp! + The man in the grass--can he mount and away? +Why, how he groans!” “Bad inward bruise-- +Might lug him along in the ambulance” + “Coals to Newcastle! let him stay. + Boots and saddles!--our pains we lose, + Nor care I if Mosby hear the news!” + +But word was sent to a house at hand, + And a flask was left by the hurt one’s side. +They seized in that same house a man, +Neutral by day, by night a foe-- + So charged his neighbor late, the Guide. + A grudge? Hate will do what it can; + Along he went for a Mosby-man. + +No secrets now; the bugle calls; + The open road they take, nor shun +The hill; retrace the weary way. +But one there was who whispered low, + “This is a feint--we’ll back anon; + Young Hair-Brains don’t retreat, they say; + A brush with Mosby is the play!” + +They rode till eve. Then on a farm + That lay along a hill-side green, +Bivouacked. Fires were made, and then +Coffee was boiled; a cow was coaxed + And killed, and savory roasts were seen; + And under the lee of a cattle-pen + The guard supped freely with Mosby’s men. + +The ball was bandied to and fro; + Hits were given and hits were met; +“Chickamauga, Feds--take off your hat” +“But the Fight in the Clouds repaid you, Rebs” + “Forgotten about Manassas yet” + Chatting and chaffing, and tit for tat, + Mosby’s clan with the troopers sat. + +“Here comes the moon!” a captive cried; + “A song! what say? Archy, my lad” +Hailing are still one of the clan +(A boyish face with girlish hair), + “Give us that thing poor Pansy made + Last Year.” He brightened, and began; + And this was the song of Mosby’s man: + + _Spring is come; she shows her pass-- + Wild violets cool! + South of woods a small close grass-- + A vernal wool! + Leaves are a’bud on the sassafras-- + They’ll soon be full; + Blessings on the friendly screen-- + I’m for the South! says the leafage green._ + + _Robins! fly, and take your fill + Of out-of-doors-- + Garden, orchard, meadow, hill, + Barns and bowers; + Take your fill, and have your will-- + Virginia’s yours! + But, bluebirds! keep away, and fear + The ambuscade in bushes here._ + +“A green song that,” a seargeant said; + “But where’s poor Pansy? gone, I fear” +“Ay, mustered out at Ashby’s Gap” +“I see; now for a live man’s song; + Ditty for ditty--prepare to cheer. + My bluebirds, you can fling a cap! + You barehead Mosby-boys--why--clap!” + + _Nine Blue-coats went a-nutting + Slyly in Tennessee-- + Not for chestnuts--better than that-- + Hugh, you bumble-bee! + Nutting, nutting-- + All through the year there’s nutting!_ + + _A tree they spied so yellow, + Rustling in motion queer; + In they fired, and down they dropped-- + Butternuts, my dear! + Nutting, nutting-- + Who’ll ’list to go a-nutting?_ + +Ah! why should good fellows foemen be? + And who would dream that foes they were-- +Larking and singing so friendly then-- +A family likeness in every face. + But Captain Cloud made sour demur: + “Guard! keep your prisoners _in_ the pen, + And let none talk with Mosby’s men.” + +That captain was a valorous one + (No irony, but honest truth), +Yet down from his brain cold drops distilled, +Making stalactites in his heart-- + A conscientious soul, forsooth; + And with a formal hate was filled + Of Mosby’s band; and some he’d killed. + +Meantime the lady rueful sat, + Watching the flicker of a fire +Were the Colonel played the outdoor host +In brave old hall of ancient Night. + But ever the dame grew shyer and shyer, + Seeming with private grief engrossed-- + Grief far from Mosby, housed or lost. + +The ruddy embers showed her pale. + The Soldier did his best devoir: +“Some coffee?--no?--cracker?--one” +Cared for her servant--sought to cheer: + “I know, I know--a cruel war! + But wait--even Mosby’ll eat his bun; + The Old Hearth--back to it anon!” + +But cordial words no balm could bring; + She sighed, and kept her inward chafe, +And seemed to hate the voice of glee-- +Joyless and tearless. Soon he called + An escort: “See this lady safe + In yonder house.--Madam, you’re free. + And now for Mosby.--Guide! with me.” + +(“A night-ride, eh?”) “Tighten your girths! + But, buglers! not a note from you. +Fling more rails on the fires--a blaze” +(“Sergeant, a feint--I told you so-- + Toward Aldie again. Bivouac, adieu!”) + After the cheery flames they gaze, + Then back for Mosby through the maze. + +The moon looked through the trees, and tipped + The scabbards with her elfin beam; +The Leader backward cast his glance, +Proud of the cavalcade that came-- + A hundred horses, bay and cream: + “Major! look how the lads advance-- + Mosby we’ll have in the ambulance!” + +“No doubt, no doubt:--was that a hare?-- + First catch, then cook; and cook him brown” +“Trust me to catch,” the other cried-- +“The lady’s letter!--a dance, man, dance + This night is given in Leesburg town” + “He’ll be there too!” wheezed out the Guide; + “That Mosby loves a dance and ride!” + +“The lady, ah!--the lady’s letter-- + A _lady_, then, is in the case” +Muttered the Major. “Ay, her aunt +Writes her to come by Friday eve + (To-night), for people of the place, + At Mosby’s last fight jubilant, + A party give, though table-cheer be scant.” + +The Major hemmed. “Then this night-ride + We owe to her?--One lighted house +In a town else dark.--The moths, begar! +Are not quite yet all dead!” “How? how” + “A mute, meek mournful little mouse!-- + Mosby has wiles which subtle are-- + But woman’s wiles in wiles of war!” + +“Tut, Major! by what craft or guile--” + “Can’t tell! but he’ll be found in wait. +Softly we enter, say, the town-- +Good! pickets post, and all so sure-- + When--crack! the rifles from every gate, + The Gray-backs fire--dashes up and down-- + Each alley unto Mosby known!” + +“Now, Major, now--you take dark views + Of a moonlight night.” “Well, well, we’ll see” +And smoked as if each whiff were gain. +The other mused; then sudden asked, + “What would you do in grand decree” + I’d beat, if I could, Lee’s armies--then + Send constables after Mosby’s men.” + +“Ay! ay!--you’re odd.” The moon sailed up; + On through the shadowy land they went. +“_Names must be made and printed be!_” +Hummed the blithe Colonel. “Doc, your flask! + Major, I drink to your good content. + My pipe is out--enough for me! + One’s buttons shine--does Mosby see? + +“But what comes here?” A man from the front + Reported a tree athwart the road. +“Go round it, then; no time to bide; +All right--go on! Were one to stay + For each distrust of a nervous mood, + Long miles we’d make in this our ride + Through Mosby-land.--Oh! with the Guide!” + +Then sportful to the Surgeon turned: + “Green sashes hardly serve by night” +“Nor bullets nor bottles,” the Major sighed, +“Against these moccasin-snakes--such foes + As seldom come to solid fight: + They kill and vanish; through grass they glide; + Devil take Mosby!--” his horse here shied. + +“Hold! look--the tree, like a dragged balloon; + A globe of leaves--some trickery here; +My nag is right--best now be shy” +A movement was made, a hubbub and snarl; + Little was plain--they blindly steer. + The Pleiads, as from ambush sly, + Peep out--Mosby’s men in the sky! + +As restive they turn, how sore they feel, + And cross, and sleepy, and full of spleen, +And curse the war. “Fools, North and South” +Said one right out. “O for a bed! + O now to drop in this woodland green” + He drops as the syllables leave his mouth-- + Mosby speaks from the undergrowth-- + +Speaks in a volley! out jets the flame! + Men fall from their saddles like plums from trees; +Horses take fright, reins tangle and bind; +“Steady--Dismount--form--and into the wood” + They go, but find what scarce can please: + Their steeds have been tied in the field behind, + And Mosby’s men are off like the wind. + +Sound the recall! vain to pursue-- + The enemy scatters in wilds he knows, +To reunite in his own good time; +And, to follow, they need divide-- + To come lone and lost on crouching foes: + Maple and hemlock, beech and lime, + Are Mosby’s confederates, share the crime. + +“Major,” burst in a bugler small, + “The fellow we left in Loudon grass-- +Sir slyboots with the inward bruise, +His voice I heard--the very same-- + Some watchword in the ambush pass; + Ay, sir, we had him in his shoes-- + We caught him--Mosby--but to lose!” + +“Go, go!--these saddle-dreamers! Well, + And here’s another.--Cool, sir, cool” +“Major, I saw them mount and sweep, +And one was humped, or I mistake, + And in the skurry dropped his wool” + “A wig! go fetch it:--the lads need sleep; + They’ll next see Mosby in a sheep! + +“Come, come, fall back! reform yours ranks-- + All’s jackstraws here! Where’s Captain Morn?-- +We’ve parted like boats in a raging tide! +But stay-the Colonel--did he charge? + And comes he there? ’Tis streak of dawn; + Mosby is off, the woods are wide-- + Hist! there’s a groan--this crazy ride!” + +As they searched for the fallen, the dawn grew chill; + They lay in the dew: “Ah! hurt much, Mink? +And--yes--the Colonel!” Dead! but so calm +That death seemed nothing--even death, + The thing we deem every thing heart can think; + Amid wilding roses that shed their balm, + Careless of Mosby he lay--in a charm! + +The Major took him by the Hand-- + Into the friendly clasp it bled +(A ball through heart and hand he rued): +“Good-by” and gazed with humid glance; + Then in a hollow revery said + “The weakness thing is lustihood; + But Mosby--” and he checked his mood. + +“Where’s the advance?--cut off, by heaven! + Come, Surgeon, how with your wounded there” +“The ambulance will carry all” +“Well, get them in; we go to camp. + Seven prisoners gone? for the rest have care” + Then to himself, “This grief is gall; + That Mosby!--I’ll cast a silver ball!” + +“Ho!” turning--“Captain Cloud, you mind + The place where the escort went--so shady? +Go search every closet low and high, +And barn, and bin, and hidden bower-- + Every covert--find that lady! + And yet I may misjudge her--ay, + Women (like Mosby) mystify. + +“We’ll see. Ay, Captain, go--with speed! + Surround and search; each living thing +Secure; that done, await us where +We last turned off. Stay! fire the cage + If the birds be flown.” By the cross-road spring + The bands rejoined; no words; the glare + Told all. Had Mosby plotted there? + +The weary troop that wended now-- + Hardly it seemed the same that pricked +Forth to the forest from the camp: +Foot-sore horses, jaded men; + Every backbone felt as nicked, + Each eye dim as a sick-room lamp, + All faces stamped with Mosby’s stamp. + +In order due the Major rode-- + Chaplain and Surgeon on either hand; +A riderless horse a negro led; +In a wagon the blanketed sleeper went; + Then the ambulance with the bleeding band; + And, an emptied oat-bag on each head, + Went Mosby’s men, and marked the dead. + +What gloomed them? what so cast them down, + And changed the cheer that late they took, +As double-guarded now they rode +Between the files of moody men? + Some sudden consciousness they brook, + Or dread the sequel. That night’s blood + Disturbed even Mosby’s brotherhood. + +The flagging horses stumbled at roots, + Floundered in mires, or clinked the stones; +No rider spake except aside; +But the wounded cramped in the ambulance, + It was horror to hear their groans-- + Jerked along in the woodland ride, + While Mosby’s clan their revery hide. + +The Hospital Steward--even he-- + Who on the sleeper kept his glance, +Was changed; late bright-black beard and eye +Looked now hearse-black; his heavy heart, + Like his fagged mare, no more could dance; + His grape was now a raisin dry: + ’Tis Mosby’s homily--_Man must die_. + +The amber sunset flushed the camp + As on the hill their eyes they fed; +The pickets dumb looks at the wagon dart; +A handkerchief waves from the bannered tent-- + As white, alas! the face of the dead: + Who shall the withering news impart? + The bullet of Mosby goes through heart to heart! + +They buried him where the lone ones lie + (Lone sentries shot on midnight post)-- +A green-wood grave-yard hid from ken, +Where sweet-fern flings an odor nigh-- + Yet held in fear for the gleaming ghost! + Though the bride should see threescore and ten, + She will dream of Mosby and his men. + +Now halt the verse, and turn aside-- + The cypress falls athwart the way; +No joy remains for bard to sing; +And heaviest dole of all is this, + That other hearts shall be as gay + As hers that now no more shall spring: + To Mosby-land the dirges cling. + + + + +Lee in the Capitol. + + + +Lee in the Capitol.[24] +(April, 1866.) + + +Hard pressed by numbers in his strait, + Rebellion’s soldier-chief no more contends-- +Feels that the hour is come of Fate, + Lays down one sword, and widened warfare ends. +The captain who fierce armies led +Becomes a quiet seminary’s head-- +Poor as his privates, earns his bread. +In studious cares and aims engrossed, + Strives to forget Stuart and Stonewall dead-- +Comrades and cause, station and riches lost, + And all the ills that flock when fortune’s fled. +No word he breathes of vain lament, + Mute to reproach, nor hears applause-- +His doom accepts, perforce content, + And acquiesces in asserted laws; +Secluded now would pass his life, +And leave to time the sequel of the strife. + But missives from the Senators ran; +Not that they now would gaze upon a swordless foe, +And power made powerless and brought low: + Reasons of state, ’tis claimed, require the man. +Demurring not, promptly he comes +By ways which show the blackened homes, + And--last--the seat no more his own, +But Honor’s; patriot grave-yards fill +The forfeit slopes of that patrician hill, + And fling a shroud on Arlington. +The oaks ancestral all are low; +No more from the porch his glance shall go +Ranging the varied landscape o’er, +Far as the looming Dome--no more. +One look he gives, then turns aside, +Solace he summons from his pride: +“So be it! They await me now +Who wrought this stinging overthrow; +They wait me; not as on the day +Of Pope’s impelled retreat in disarray-- +By me impelled--when toward yon Dome +The clouds of war came rolling home” +The burst, the bitterness was spent, +The heart-burst bitterly turbulent, +And on he fared. + + In nearness now + He marks the Capitol--a show +Lifted in amplitude, and set +With standards flushed with a glow of Richmond yet; + Trees and green terraces sleep below. +Through the clear air, in sunny light, +The marble dazes--a temple white. + +Intrepid soldier! had his blade been drawn +For yon stirred flag, never as now +Bid to the Senate-house had he gone, +But freely, and in pageant borne, +As when brave numbers without number, massed, +Plumed the broad way, and pouring passed-- +Bannered, beflowered--between the shores +Of faces, and the dinn’d huzzas, +And balconies kindling at the sabre-flash, +’Mid roar of drums and guns, and cymbal-crash, +While Grant and Sherman shone in blue-- +Close of the war and victory’s long review. + +Yet pride at hand still aidful swelled, +And up the hard ascent he held. +The meeting follows. In his mien +The victor and the vanquished both are seen-- +All that he is, and what he late had been. +Awhile, with curious eyes they scan +The Chief who led invasion’s van-- +Allied by family to one, +Founder of the Arch the Invader warred upon: +Who looks at Lee must think of Washington; +In pain must think, and hide the thought, +So deep with grievous meaning it is fraught. + +Secession in her soldier shows +Silent and patient; and they feel + (Developed even in just success) +Dim inklings of a hazy future steal; + Their thoughts their questions well express: +“Does the sad South still cherish hate? +Freely will Southen men with Northern mate? +The blacks--should we our arm withdraw, +Would that betray them? some distrust your law. +And how if foreign fleets should come-- +Would the South then drive her wedges home” +And more hereof. The Virginian sees-- +Replies to such anxieties. +Discreet his answers run--appear +Briefly straightforward, coldly clear. + +“If now,” the Senators, closing, say, +“Aught else remain, speak out, we pray” +Hereat he paused; his better heart +Strove strongly then; prompted a worthier part +Than coldly to endure his doom. +Speak out? Ay, speak, and for the brave, +Who else no voice or proxy have; +Frankly their spokesman here become, +And the flushed North from her own victory save. +That inspiration overrode-- +Hardly it quelled the galling load +Of personal ill. The inner feud +He, self-contained, a while withstood; +They waiting. In his troubled eye +Shadows from clouds unseen they spy; +They could not mark within his breast +The pang which pleading thought oppressed: +He spoke, nor felt the bitterness die. + +“My word is given--it ties my sword; +Even were banners still abroad, +Never could I strive in arms again +While you, as fit, that pledge retain. +Our cause I followed, stood in field and gate-- +All’s over now, and now I follow Fate. +But this is naught. A People call-- +A desolted land, and all +The brood of ills that press so sore, +The natural offspring of this civil war, +Which ending not in fame, such as might rear +Fitly its sculptured trophy here, +Yields harvest large of doubt and dread +To all who have the heart and head +To feel and know. How shall I speak? +Thoughts knot with thoughts, and utterance check. +Before my eyes there swims a haze, +Through mists departed comrades gaze-- +First to encourage, last that shall upbraid! +How shall I speak? The South would fain +Feel peace, have quiet law again-- +Replant the trees for homestead-shade. + You ask if she recants: she yields. +Nay, and would more; would blend anew, +As the bones of the slain in her forests do, +Bewailed alike by us and you. + A voice comes out from these charnel-fields, +A plaintive yet unheeded one: +_‘Died all in vain? both sides undone’_ +Push not your triumph; do not urge +Submissiveness beyond the verge. +Intestine rancor would you bide, +Nursing eleven sliding daggers in your side? + +“Far from my thought to school or threat; +I speak the things which hard beset. +Where various hazards meet the eyes, +To elect in magnanimity is wise. +Reap victory’s fruit while sound the core; +What sounder fruit than re-established law? +I know your partial thoughts do press +Solely on us for war’s unhappy stress; +But weigh--consider--look at all, +And broad anathema you’ll recall. +The censor’s charge I’ll not repeat, +The meddlers kindled the war’s white heat-- +Vain intermeddlers and malign, +Both of the palm and of the pine; +I waive the thought--which never can be rife-- +Common’s the crime in every civil strife: +But this I feel, that North and South were driven +By Fate to arms. For our unshriven, +What thousands, truest souls, were tried-- + As never may any be again-- +All those who stemmed Secession’s pride, +But at last were swept by the urgent tide + Into the chasm. I know their pain. +A story here may be applied: +‘In Moorish lands there lived a maid + Brought to confess by vow the creed + Of Christians. Fain would priests persuade +That now she must approve by deed + The faith she kept. “What dead?” she asked. +“Your old sire leave, nor deem it sin, + And come with us.” Still more they tasked +The sad one: “If heaven you’d win-- + Far from the burning pit withdraw, +Then must you learn to hate your kin, + Yea, side against them--such the law, +For Moor and Christian are at war” +“Then will I never quit my sire, +But here with him through every trial go, +Nor leave him though in flames below-- +God help me in his fire!” +So in the South; vain every plea +’Gainst Nature’s strong fidelity; + True to the home and to the heart, +Throngs cast their lot with kith and kin, + Foreboding, cleaved to the natural part-- +Was this the unforgivable sin? +These noble spirits are yet yours to win. +Shall the great North go Sylla’s way? +Proscribe? prolong the evil day? +Confirm the curse? infix the hate? +In Unions name forever alienate? + +“From reason who can urge the plea-- +Freemen conquerors of the free? +When blood returns to the shrunken vein, +Shall the wound of the Nation bleed again? +Well may the wars wan thought supply, +And kill the kindling of the hopeful eye, +Unless you do what even kings have done +In leniency--unless you shun +To copy Europe in her worst estate-- +Avoid the tyranny you reprobate.” + +He ceased. His earnestness unforeseen +Moved, but not swayed their former mien; + And they dismissed him. Forth he went +Through vaulted walks in lengthened line +Like porches erst upon the Palatine: + Historic reveries their lesson lent, + The Past her shadow through the Future sent. + +But no. Brave though the Soldier, grave his plea-- + Catching the light in the future’s skies, +Instinct disowns each darkening prophecy: + Faith in America never dies; +Heaven shall the end ordained fulfill, +We march with Providence cheery still. + + + + +A Meditation: + +Attributed to a northerner after attending the last of two funerals +from the same homestead--those of a national and a confederate +officer (brothers), his kinsmen, who had died from the effects of +wounds received in the closing battles. + + + +A Meditation. + + +How often in the years that close, + When truce had stilled the sieging gun, +The soldiers, mounting on their works, + With mutual curious glance have run +From face to face along the fronting show, +And kinsman spied, or friend--even in a foe. + +What thoughts conflicting then were shared. + While sacred tenderness perforce +Welled from the heart and wet the eye; + And something of a strange remorse +Rebelled against the sanctioned sin of blood, +And Christian wars of natural brotherhood. + +Then stirred the god within the breast-- + The witness that is man’s at birth; +A deep misgiving undermined + Each plea and subterfuge of earth; +The felt in that rapt pause, with warning rife, +Horror and anguish for the civil strife. + +Of North or South they recked not then, + Warm passion cursed the cause of war: +Can Africa pay back this blood + Spilt on Potomac’s shore? +Yet doubts, as pangs, were vain the strife to stay, +And hands that fain had clasped again could slay. + +How frequent in the camp was seen + The herald from the hostile one, +A guest and frank companion there + When the proud formal talk was done; +The pipe of peace was smoked even ’mid the war, +And fields in Mexico again fought o’er. + +In Western battle long they lay + So near opposed in trench or pit, +That foeman unto foeman called + As men who screened in tavern sit: +“You bravely fight” each to the other said-- +“Toss us a biscuit!” o’er the wall it sped. + +And pale on those same slopes, a boy-- + A stormer, bled in noon-day glare; +No aid the Blue-coats then could bring, + He cried to them who nearest were, +And out there came ’mid howling shot and shell +A daring foe who him befriended well. + +Mark the great Captains on both sides, + The soldiers with the broad renown-- +They all were messmates on the Hudson’s marge, + Beneath one roof they laid them down; +And free from hate in many an after pass, +Strove as in school-boy rivalry of the class. + +A darker side there is; but doubt + In Nature’s charity hovers there: +If men for new agreement yearn, + Then old upbraiding best forbear: +“_The South’s the sinner!_” Well, so let it be; +But shall the North sin worse, and stand the Pharisee? + +O, now that brave men yield the sword, + Mine be the manful soldier-view; +By how much more they boldly warred, + By so much more is mercy due: +When Vickburg fell, and the moody files marched out, +Silent the victors stood, scorning to raise a shout. + + + + +Footnotes. + + +1. The gloomy lull of the early part of the winter of 1860-1, seeming +big with final disaster to our institutions, affected some minds that +believed them to constitute one of the great hopes of mankind, much as +the eclipse which came over the promise of the first French Revolution +affected kindred natures, throwing them for the time into doubt and +misgivings universal. + +2. “The terrible Stone Fleet on a mission as pitiless as the granite +that freights it, sailed this morning from Port Royal, and before two +days are past will have made Charleston an inland city. The ships are +all old whalers, and cost the government from $2500 to $5000 each. Some +of them were once famous ships.--” (From Newspaper Correspondences of +the day.) + +Sixteen vessels were accordingly sunk on the bar at the river entrance. +Their names were as follows: + +Amazon, +America, +American, +Archer, +Courier, +Fortune, +Herald, +Kensington, +Leonidas, +Maria Theresa, +Potomac, +Rebecca Simms, +L.C. Richmond, +Robin Hood, +Tenedos, +William Lee. + +All accounts seem to agree that the object proposed was not +accomplished. The channel is even said to have become ultimately +benefited by the means employed to obstruct it. + +3. The _Temeraire_, that storied ship of the old English fleet, and the +subject of the well-known painting by Turner, commends itself to the +mind seeking for some one craft to stand for the poetic ideal of those +great historic wooden warships, whose gradual displacement is lamented +by none more than by regularly educated navy officers, and of all +nations. + +4. Some of the cannon of old times, especially the brass ones, unlike +the more effective ordnance of the present day, were cast in shapes +which Cellini might have designed, were gracefully enchased, generally +with the arms of the country. A few of them--field-pieces--captured in +our earlier wars, are preserved in arsenals and navy-yards. + +5. Whatever just military criticism, favorable or otherwise, has at any +time been made upon General McClellan’s campaigns, will stand. But if, +during the excitement of the conflict, aught was spread abroad tending +the unmerited disparagement of the man, it must necessarily die out, +though not perhaps without leaving some traces, which may or may not +prove enduring. Some there are whose votes aided in the re-election of +Abraham Lincoln, who yet believed, and retain the belief, that General +McClellan, to say the least, always proved himself a patriotic and +honorable soldier. The feeling which surviving comrades entertain for +their late commnder is one which, from its passion, is susceptible of +versified representation, and such it receives. + +6. At Antietam Stonewall Jackson led one wing of Lee’s army, consequenty +sharing that day in whatever may be deemed to have been the fortunes of +his superior. + +7. Admiral Porter is son of the late Commodore Porter, commander of the +Frigate Essex on that Pacific cruise which ended in the desparate fight +off Valparaiso with the English frigates Cherub and Phoebe, in the year +1814. + +8. Among numerous head-stones or monuments on Cemetery Hill, marred or +destroyed by the enemy’s concentrated fire, was one, somewhat +conspicuous, of a Federal officer killed before Richmond in 1862. + +On the 4th of July 1865, the Gettysburg National Cemetery, on the same +height with the original burial-ground, was consecrated, and the +corner-stone laid of a commemorative pile. + +9. “I dare not write the horrible and inconceivable atrocities +committed,” says Froissart, in alluding to the remarkable sedition in +France during his time. The like may be hinted of some proceedings of +the draft-rioters. + +10. Although the month was November, the day was in character an October +one--cool, clear, bright, intoxicatingly invigorating; one of those days +peculiar to the ripest hours of our American Autumn. This weather must +have had much to do with the spontaneous enthusiasm which seized the +troops--and enthusiasm aided, doubtless, by glad thoughts of the victory +of Look-out Mountain won the day previous, and also by the elation +attending the capture, after a fierce struggle, of the long ranges of +rifle-pits at the mountain’s base, where orders for the time should have +stopped the advance. But there and then it was that the army took the +bit between its teeth, and ran away with the generals to the victory +commemorated. General Grant, at Culpepper, a few weeks prior to crossing +the Rapidan for the Wilderness, expressed to a visitor his impression of +the impulse and the spectacle: Said he: “I never saw any thing like it:” +language which seems curiously undertoned, considering its application; +but from the taciturn Commander it was equivalent to a superlative or +hyperbole from the talkative. + +The height of the Ridge, according to the account at hand, varies along +its length from six to seven hundred feet above the plain; it slopes at +an angle of about forty-five degrees. + +11. The great Parrott gun, planted in the marshes of James Island, and +employed in the prolonged, though at times intermitted bombardment of +Charleston, was known among our soldiers as the Swamp Angel. + +St. Michael’s, characterized by its venerable tower, was the historic +and aristrocratic church of the town. + +12. Among the Northwestern regiments there would seem to have been more +than one which carried a living eagle as an added ensign. The bird +commemorated here was, according the the account, borne aloft on a perch +beside the standard; went through successive battles and campaigns; was +more than once under the surgeon’s hands; and at the close of the +contest found honorable repose in the capital of Wisconsin, from which +state he had gone to the wars. + +13. The late Major General McPherson, commanding the Army of the +Tennessee, a major of Ohio and a West Pointer, was one of the foremost +spirits of the war. Young, though a veteran; hardy, intrepid, sensitive +in honor, full of engaging qualities, with manly beauty; possessed of +genius, a favorite with the army, and with Grant and Sherman. Both +Generals have generously acknowledged their professional obligiations to +the able engineer and admirable soldier, their subordinate and junior. + +In an informal account written by the Achilles to this Sarpedon, he +says: “On that day we avenged his death. Near twenty-two hundred of the +enemy’s dead remained on the ground when night closed upon the scene of +action.” + +It is significant of the scale on which the war was waged, that the +engagement thus written of goes solely (so far as can be learned) under +the vague designation of one of the battles before Atlanta. + +14. The piece was written while yet the reports were coming North of +Sherman’s homeward advance from Savannah. It is needless to point out +its purely dramatic character. + +Though the sentiment ascribed in the beginning of the second stanza +must, in the present reading, suggest the historic tragedy of the 14th +of April, nevertheless, as intimated, it was written prior to that +event, and without any distinct application in the writer’s mind. After +consideration, it is allowed to remain. + +Few need be reminded that, by the less intelligent classes of the South, +Abraham Lincoln, by nature the most kindly of men, was regarded as a +monster wantonly warring upon liberty. He stood for the personification +of tyrannic power. Each Union soldier was called a Lincolnite. + +Undoubtedly Sherman, in the desolation he inflicted after leaving +Atlanta, acted not in contravention of orders; and all, in a military +point of view, if by military judged deemed to have been expedient, and +nothing can abate General Sherman’s shining renown; his claims to it +rest on no single campaign. Still, there are those who can not but +contrast some of the scenes enacted in Georgia and the Carolinas, and +also in the Shenandoah, with a circumstance in a great Civil War of +heathen antiquity. Plutarch relates that in a military council held by +Pompey and the chiefs of that party which stood for the Commonwealth, it +was decided that under no plea should any city be sacked that was +subject to the people of Rome. There was this difference, however, +between the Roman civil conflict and the American one. The war of Pompey +and Caesar divided the Roman people promiscuously; that of the North and +South ran a frontier line between what for the time were distinct +communities or nations. In this circumstance, possibly, and some others, +may be found both the cause and the justification of some of the +sweeping measures adopted. + +15. At this period of excitement the thought was by some passionately +welcomed that the Presidential successor had been raised up by heaven to +wreak vengeance on the South. The idea originated in the remembrance +that Andrew Johnson by birth belonged to that class of Southern whites +who never cherished love for the dominant: that he was a citizen of +Tennessee, where the contest at times and in places had been close and +bitter as a Middle-Age feud; the himself and family had been hardly +treated by the Secessionists. + +But the expectations build hereon (if, indeed, ever soberly +entertained), happily for the country, have not been verified. + +Likely the feeling which would have held the entire South chargeable +with the crime of one exceptional assassin, this too has died away with +the natural excitement of the hour. + +16. The incident on which this piece is based is narrated in a newspaper +account of the battle to be found in the “Rebellion Record.” During the +disaster to the national forces on the first day, a brigade on the +extreme left found itself isolated. The perils it encountered are given +in detail. Among others, the following sentences occur: + +“Under cover of the fire from the bluffs, the rebels rushed down, +crossed the ford, and in a moment were seen forming this side the creek +in open fields, and within close musket-range. Their color-bearers +stepped defiantly to the front as the engagement opened furiously; the +rebels pouring in sharp, quick volleys of musketry, and their batteries +above continuing to support them with a destructive fire. Our +sharpshooters wanted to pick off the audacious rebel color-bearers, but +Colonel Stuart interposed: ‘No, no, they’re too brave fellows to be +killed.’” + +17. According to a report of the Secretary of War, there were on the +first day of March, 1865, 965,000 men on the army pay-rolls. Of these, +some 200,000--artillery, cavalry, and infantry--made up from the larger +portion of the veterans of Grant and Sherman, marched by the President. +The total number of Union troops enlisted during the war was 2,668,000. + +18. For a month or two after the completion of peace, some thousands of +released captives from the military prisons of the North, natives of all +parts of the South, passed through the city of New York, sometimes +waiting farther transportation for days, during which interval they +wandered penniless about the streets, or lay in their worn and patched +gray uniforms under the trees of Battery, near the barracks where they +were lodged and fed. They were transported and provided for at the +charge of government. + +19. Shortly prior to the evacuation of Petersburg, the enemy, with a +view to ultimate repossession, interred some of his heavy guns in the +same field with his dead, and with every circumstance calculated to +deceive. Subsequently the negroes exposed the stratagem. + +20. The records of Northern colleges attest what numbers of our noblest +youth went from them to the battle-field. Southern members of the same +classes arrayed themselves on the side of Secession; while Southern +seminaries contributed large quotas. Of all these, what numbers marched +who never returned except on the shield. + +21. Written prior to the founding of the National Cemetery at +Andersonville, where 15,000 of the reinterred captives now sleep, each +beneath his personal head-board, inscribed from records found in the +prison-hospital. Some hundreds rest apart and without name. A glance at +the published pamphlet containing the list of the buried at +Andersonville conveys a feeling mournfully impressive. Seventy-four +large double-columned page in fine print. Looking through them is like +getting lost among the old turbaned head-stones and cypresses in the +interminable Black Forest of Scutari, over against Constantinople. + +22. In one of Kilpatrick’s earlier cavalry fights near Aldie, a Colonel +who, being under arrest, had been temporarily deprived of his sword, +nevertheless, unarmed, insisted upon charging at the head of his men, +which he did, and the onset proved victorious. + +23. Certain of Mosby’s followers, on the charge of being unlicensed +foragers or fighters, being hung by order of a Union cavalry commander, +the Partisan promptly retaliated in the woods. In turn, this also was +retaliated, it is said. To what extent such deplorable proceedings were +carried, it is not easy to learn. + +South of the Potamac in Virginia, and within a gallop of the Long Bridge +at Washington, is the confine of a country, in some places wild, which +throughout the war it was unsafe for a Union man to traverse except with +an armed escort. This was the chase of Mosby, the scene of many of his +exploits or those of his men. In the heart of this region at least one +fortified camp was maintained by our cavalry, and from time to time +expeditions ended disastrously. Such results were helped by the +exceeding cunning of the enemy, born of his wood-craft, and, in some +instances, by undue confidence on the part of our men. A body of +cavalry, starting from camp with the view of breaking up a nest of +rangers, and absent say three days, would return with a number of their +own forces killed and wounded (ambushed), without being able to +retaliate farther than by foraging on the country, destroying a house or +two reported to be haunts of the guerrillas, or capturing non-combatants +accused of being secretly active in their behalf. + +In the verse the name of Mosby is invested with some of those +associations with which the popular mind is familiar. But facts do not +warrant the belief that every clandestine attack of men who passed for +Mosby’s was made under his eye or even by his knowledge. + +In partisan warfare he proved himself shrewd, able, and enterprising, +and always a wary fighter. He stood well in the confidence of his +superior officers, and was empoyed by them at times in furtherance of +important movements. To our wounded on more than one occasion he showed +considerate kindness. Officers and civilians captured by forces under +his immediate command were, so long as remaining under his orders, +treated with civility. These things are well known to those personally +familiar with the irregular fighting in Virginia. + +24. Among those summoned during the spring just passed to appear before +the Reconstruction Committee of Congress was Robert E. Lee. His +testimony is deeply interesting, both in itself and as coming from him. +After various questions had been put and briefly answered, these words +were addressed to him: + +“If there be any other matter about which you wish to speak on this +occasions, do so freely.” Waiving this invitation, he responded by a +short personal explanation of some point in a previous answer, and after +a few more brief questions and replies, the interview closed. + +In the verse a poetical liberty has been ventured. Lee is not only +represented as responding to the invitation, but also as at last +renouncing his cold reserve, doubtless the cloak to feelings more or +less poignant. If for such freedom warrant be necessary the speeches in +ancient histories, not to speak of those in Shakespeare’s historic +plays, may not unfitly perhaps be cited. + +The character of the original measures proposed about time in the +National Legislature for the treatment of the (as yet) Congressionally +excluded South, and the spirit in which those measures were +advocated--these are circumstances which it is fairly supposable would +have deeply influenced the thoughts, whether spoken or withheld, of a +Southerner placed in the position of Lee before the Reconstruction +Committee. + + + + +Supplement. + + +Were I fastidiously anxious for the symmetry of this book, it would +close with the notes. But the times are such that patriotism--not free +from solicitude--urges a claim overriding all literary scruples. + +It is more than a year since the memorable surrender, but events have +not yet rounded themselves into completion. Not justly can we complain +of this. There has been an upheavel affecting the basis of things; to +altered circumstances complicated adaptations are to be made; there are +difficulties great and novel. But is Reason still waiting for Passion to +spend itself? We have sung of the soldiers and sailors, but who shall +hymn the politicians? + +In view of the infinite desirableness of Re-establishment, and +considering that, so far as feeling is concerned, it depends not mainly +on the temper in which the South regards the North, but rather +conversely; one who never was a blind adherent feels constrained to +submit some thoughts, counting on the indulgence of his countrymen. + +And, first, it may be said that, if among the feelings and opinions +growing immediately out of a great civil convulsion, there are any which +time shall modify or do away, they are presumably those of a less +temperate and charitable cast. + +There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, +or why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with political +trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered by a cause not +partisan. Yet the work of Reconstruction, if admitted to be feasible at +all, demands little but common sense and Christian charity. Little but +these? These are much. + +Some of us are concerned because as yet the South shows no penitence. +But what exactly do we mean by this? Since down to the close of the war +she never confessed any for braving it, the only penitence now left her +is that which springs solely from the sense of discomfiture; and since +this evidently would be a contrition hypocritical, it would be unworthy +in us to demand it. Certain it is that penitence, in the sense of +voluntary humiliation, will never be displayed. Nor does this afford +just ground for unreserved condemnation. It is enough, for all practical +purposes, if the South have been taught by the terrors of civil war to +feel that Secession, like Slavery, is against Destiny; that both now lie +buried in one grave; that her fate is linked with ours; and that +together we comprise the Nation. + +The clouds of heroes who battled for the Union it is needless to +eulogize here. But how of the soldiers on the other side? And when of a +free community we name the soldiers, we thereby name the people. It was +in subserviency to the slave-interest that Secession was plotted; but it +was under the plea, plausibly urged, that certain inestimable rights +guaranteed by the Constitution were directly menaced, that the people of +the South were cajoled into revolution. Through the arts of the +conspirators and the perversity of fortune, the most sensitive love of +liberty was entrapped into the support of a war whose implied end was +the erecting in our advanced century of an Anglo-American empire based +upon the systematic degradation of man. + +Spite this clinging reproach, however, signal military virtues and +achievements have conferred upon the Confederate arms historic fame, and +upon certain of the commanders a renown extending beyond the sea--a +renown which we of the North could not suppress even if we would. In +personal character, also, not a few of the military leaders of the South +enforce forbearance; the memory of others the North refrains from +disparaging; and some, with more or less of reluctance, she can respect. +Posterity, sympathizing with our convictions, but removed from our +passions, may perhaps go farther here. If George IV. could out of the +graceful instinct of a gentleman, raise an honorable monument in the +great fane of Christendom over the remains of the enemy of his dynasty, +Charles Edward, the invader of England and victor in the rout at Preston +Pans--Upon whose head the king’s ancestor but one reign removed has set +a price--is it probable that the grandchildren of General Grant will +pursue with rancor, or slur by sour neglect, the memory of Stonewall +Jackson? + +But the South herself is not wanting in recent histories and biographies +which record the deeds of her chieftains--writings freely published at +the North by loyal houses, widely read here, and with a deep though +saddened interest. By students of the war such works are hailed as +welcome accessories, and tending to the completeness of the record. + +Supposing a happy issue out of present perplexities, then, in the +generation next to come, Southerners there will be yielding allegiance +to the Union, feeling all their interests bound up in it, and yet +cherishing unrebuked that kind of feeling for the memory of the soldiers +of the fallen Confederacy that Burns, Scott, and the Ettrick Shepherd +felt for the memory of the gallant clansmen ruined through their +fidelity to the Stuarts--a feeling whose passion was tempered by the +poetry imbuing it, and which in no wise affected their loyalty to the +Georges, and which, it may be added, indirectly contributed excellent +things to literature. But, setting this view aside, dishonorable would +it be in the South were she willing to abandon to shame the memory of +brave men who with signal personal disinterestedness warred in her +behalf, though from motives, as we believe, so deplorably astray. + +Patriotism is not baseness, neither is it inhumanity. The mourners who +this summer bear flowers to the mounds of the Virginian and Georgian +dead are, in their domestic bereavement and proud affection, as sacred +in the eye of Heaven as are those who go with similar offerings of +tender grief and love into the cemeteries of our Northern martyrs. And +yet, in one aspect, how needless to point the contrast. + +Cherishing such sentiments, it will hardly occasion surprise that, in +looking over the battle-pieces in the foregoing collection, I have been +tempted to withdraw or modify some of them, fearful lest in presenting, +though but dramatically and by way of a poetic record, the passions and +epithets of civil war, I might be contributing to a bitterness which +every sensible American must wish at an end. So, too, with the emotion +of victory as reproduced on some pages, and particularly toward the +close. It should not be construed into an exultation misapplied--an +exultation as ungenerous as unwise, and made to minister, however +indirectly, to that kind of censoriousness too apt to be produced in +certain natures by success after trying reverses. Zeal is not of +necessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence with poetry +or patriotism. + +There were excesses which marked the conflict, most of which are perhaps +inseparable from a civil strife so intense and prolonged, and involving +warfare in some border countries new and imperfectly civilized. +Barbarities also there were, for which the Southern people collectively +can hardly be held responsible, though perpetrated by ruffians in their +name. But surely other qualities--exalted ones--courage and fortitude +matchless, were likewise displayed, and largely; and justly may these be +held the characteristic traits, and not the former. + +In this view, what Northern writer, however patriotic, but must revolt +from acting on paper a part any way akin to that of the live dog to the +dead lion; and yet it is right to rejoice for our triumph, so far as it +may justly imply an advance for our whole country and for humanity. + +Let it be held no reproach to any one that he pleads for reasonable +consideration for our late enemies, now stricken down and unavoidably +debarred, for the time, from speaking through authorized agencies for +themselves. Nothing has been urged here in the foolish hope of +conciliating those men--few in number, we trust--who have resolved never +to be reconciled to the Union. On such hearts every thing is thrown away +except it be religious commiseration, and the sincerest. Yet let them +call to mind that unhappy Secessionist, not a military man, who with +impious alacrity fired the first shot of the Civil War at Sumter, and a +little more than four years afterward fired the last one into his own +heart at Richmond. + +Noble was the gesture into which patriotic passion surprised the people +in a utilitarian time and country; yet the glory of the war falls short +of its pathos--a pathos which now at last ought to disarm all animosity. + +How many and earnest thoughts still rise, and how hard to repress them. +We feel what past years have been, and years, unretarded years, shall +come. May we all have moderation; may we all show candor. Though, +perhaps, nothing could ultimately have averted the strife, and though to +treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes, +nevertheless, let us not cover up or try to extenuate what, humanly +speaking, is the truth--namely, that those unfraternal denunciations, +continued through years, and which at last inflamed to deeds that ended +in bloodshed, were reciprocal; and that, had the preponderating strength +and the prospect of its unlimited increase lain on the other side, on +ours might have lain those actions which now in our late opponents we +stigmatize under the name of Rebellion. As frankly let us own--what it +would be unbecoming to parade were foreigners concerned--that our +triumph was won not more by skill and bravery than by superior resources +and crushing numbers; that it was a triumph, too, over a people for +years politically misled by designing men, and also by some +honestly-erring men, who from their position could not have been +otherwise than broadly influential; a people who, though indeed, they +sought to perpetuate the curse of slavery, and even extend it, were not +the authors of it, but (less fortunate, not less righteous than we) were +the fated inheritors; a people who, having a like origin with ourselves, +share essentially in whatever worthy qualities we may possess. No one +can add to the lasting reproach which hopeless defeat has now cast upon +Secession by withholding the recognition of these verities. + +Surely we ought to take it to heart that that kind of pacification, +based upon principles operating equally all over the land, which lovers +of their country yearn for, and which our arms, though signally +triumphant, did not bring about, and which law-making, however anxious, +or energetic, or repressive, never by itself can achieve, may yet be +largely aided by generosity of sentiment public and private. Some +revisionary legislation and adaptive is indispensable; but with this +should harmoniously work another kind of prudence not unallied with +entire magnanimity. Benevolence and policy--Christianity and +Machiavelli--dissuade from penal severities toward the subdued. +Abstinence here is as obligatory as considerate care for our unfortunate +fellow-men late in bonds, and, if observed, would equally prove to be +wise forecast. The great qualities of the South, those attested in the +War, we can perilously alienate, or we may make them nationally +available at need. + +The blacks, in their infant pupilage to freedom, appeal to the +sympathies of every humane mind. The paternal guardianship which for the +interval government exercises over them was prompted equally by duty and +benevolence. Yet such kindliness should not be allowed to exclude +kindliness to communities who stand nearer to us in nature. For the +future of the freed slaves we may well be concerned; but the future of +the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges a paramount +claim upon our anxiety. Effective benignity, like the Nile, is not +narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad. To be sure, it is +vain to seek to glide, with moulded words, over the difficulties of the +situation. And for them who are neither partisans, nor enthusiasts, nor +theorists, nor cynics, there are some doubts not readily to be solved. +And there are fears. Why is not the cessation of war now at length +attended with the settled calm of peace? Wherefore in a clear sky do we +still turn our eyes toward the South, as the Neapolitan, months after +the eruption, turns his toward Vesuvius? Do we dread lest the repose may +be deceptive? In the recent convulsion has the crater but shifted? Let +us revere that sacred uncertainty which forever impends over men and +nations. Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical +iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its +downfall. But we should remember that emancipation was accomplished not +by deliberate legislation; only through agonized violence could so +mighty a result be effected. In our natural solicitude to confirm the +benefit of liberty to the blacks, let us forbear from measures of +dubious constitutional rightfulness toward our white countrymen +--measures of a nature to provoke, among other of the last evils, +exterminating hatred of race toward race. In imagination let us place +ourselves in the unprecedented position of the Southerners--their +position as regards the millions of ignorant manumitted slaves in their +midst, for whom some of us now claim the suffrage. Let us be Christians +toward our fellow-whites, as well as philanthropists toward the blacks +our fellow-men. In all things, and toward all, we are enjoined to do as +we would be done by. Nor should we forget that benevolent desires, after +passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without +incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied. +Something may well be left to the graduated care of future legislation, +and to heaven. In one point of view the co-existence of the two races in +the South--whether the negro be bond or free--seems (even as it did to +Abraham Lincoln) a grave evil. Emancipation has ridded the country of +the reproach, but not wholly of the calamity. Especially in the present +transition period for both races in the South, more or less of trouble +may not unreasonably be anticipated; but let us not hereafter be too +swift to charge the blame exclusively in any one quarter. With certain +evils men must be more or less patient. Our institutions have a potent +digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements +thrown in, however originally alien. + +But, so far as immediate measures looking toward permanent +Re-establishment are concerned, no consideration should tempt us to +pervert the national victory into oppression for the vanquished. Should +plausible promise of eventual good, or a deceptive or spurious sense of +duty, lead us to essay this, count we must on serious consequences, not +the least of which would be divisions among the Northern adherents of +the Union. Assuredly, if any honest Catos there be who thus far have +gone with us, no longer will they do so, but oppose us, and as +resolutely as hitherto they have supported. But this path of thought +leads toward those waters of bitterness from which one can only turn +aside and be silent. + +But supposing Re-establishment so far advanced that the Southern seats +in Congress are occupied, and by men qualified in accordance with those +cardinal principles of representative government which hitherto have +prevailed in the land--what then? Why the Congressman elected by the +people of the South will--represent the people of the South. This may +seem a flat conclusion; but in view of the last five years, may there +not be latent significance in it? What will be the temper of those +Southern members? and, confronted by them, what will be the mood of our +own representatives? In private life true reconciliation seldom follows +a violent quarrel; but if subsequent intercourse be unavoidable, nice +observances and mutual are indispensable to the prevention of a new +rupture. Amity itelf can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and +true friends are punctilious equals. On the floor of Congress North and +South are to come together after a passionate duel, in which the South +though proving her valor, has been made to bite the dust. Upon +differences in debate shall acrimonious recriminations be exchanged? +shall censorious superiority assumed by one section provoke defiant +self-assertion on the other? shall Manassas and Chickamauga be retorted +for Chattanooga and Richmond? Under the supposition that the full +Congress will be composed of gentlemen, all this is impossible. Yet if +otherwise, it needs no prophet of Israel to foretell the end. The +maintenance of Congressional decency in the future will rest mainly with +the North. Rightly will more forbearance be required from the North than +the South, for the North is victor. + +But some there are who may deem these latter thoughts inapplicable, and +for this reason: Since the test-oath opertively excludes from Congress +all who in any way participated in Secession, therefore none but +Southerners wholly in harmony with the North are eligible to seats. This +is true for the time being. But the oath is alterable; and in the wonted +fluctuations of parties not improbably it will undergo alteration, +assuming such a form, perhaps, as not to bar the admission into the +National Legislature of men who represent the populations lately in +revolt. Such a result would involve no violation of the principles of +democratic government. Not readily can one perceive how the political +existence of the millions of late Secessionists can permanently be +ignored by this Republic. The years of the war tried our devotion to the +Union; the time of peace may test the sincerity of our faith in +democracy. + +In no spirit of opposition, not by way of challenge, is any thing +here thrown out. These thoughts are sincere ones; they seem natural +--inevitable. Here and there they must have suggested themselves to many +thoughtful patriots. And, if they be just thoughts, ere long they must +have that weight with the public which already they have had with +individuals. + +For that heroic band--those children of the furnace who, in regions like +Texas and Tennessee, maintained their fidelity through terrible +trials--we of the North felt for them, and profoundly we honor them. Yet +passionate sympathy, with resentments so close as to be almost domestic +in their bitterness, would hardly in the present juncture tend to +discreet legislation. Were the Unionists and Secessionists but as +Guelphs and Ghibellines? If not, then far be it from a great nation now +to act in the spirit that animated a triumphant town-faction in the +Middle Ages. But crowding thoughts must at last be checked; and, in +times like the present, one who desires to be impartially just in the +expression of his views, moves as among sword-points presented on every +side. + +Let us pray that the terrible historic tragedy of our time may not have +been enacted without instructing our whole beloved country through +terror and pity; and may fulfillment verify in the end those +expectations which kindle the bards of Progress and Humanity. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BATTLE-PIECES AND ASPECTS OF THE WAR *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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