Chapter III: Part 3

The gunner wiped his smoke-dimmed face--
“I’ll do the best I can,
And down--brave fellows though they be--
We’ll bring them to a man!”

“I’ll trust you for it!”--Like a flash
The captain turned and wheeled,
And with his sword above his head
Dashed backward to the field.

Fierce belched the cannon’s ceaseless fire,
With deadly crash and din;
And, though the line still held the height,
Its ranks began to thin.

“Two rounds--and we will clear the hill!”
But, as the gunner spoke,
A sudden overwhelming storm
Of bullets o’er him broke.

And when the smoke had lifted, there
Still straining all his powers,
They heard him shout: “Two shots, my boys,
And then the day is ours!

“No matter if one arm be gone,
I keep the other still;
I promised I would do my best,
And so you’ll see, I will!

“Let me make trial while my strength
Can do the duty set;
I tell you that this strong left hand
Is good for service yet!”

They primed the piece, and twice he sent,
With all too deadly aim,
The shells that mowed the broken line,
And swept the hill with flame.

“Where’s Fergus?”--and the captain’s horse
Came spurring into sight--
“Where’s Fergus? let him take my thanks,--
His fire has won the fight!”

The dying gunner raised his head,
His lips were faintly stirred--
“Captain, I said I’d do my best--
And--I have kept my word!”

MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON.

(By special permission of Dr. George J. Preston.)

32

AN INCIDENT OF WAR

Our new flag-bearer, pale and slim,
A beardless youth of quiet mien,
Much chaffed at by the soldiers grim
(Before in battle he had been),
Hid the heroic fire in him.

He sang old hymns, and prayed at night;
“A bad sign,” quoth the sergeant bold;
“Camp-meeting tunes before a fight
Loosen a soldier’s moral hold,
And pluck beats prayer a mighty sight.”

The boy blushed red, but tenderly
He to the sergeant turned, and said:
“That God should mind me what am I?
And yet by Him my soul is fed--
Send this to mother if I die.”

The sergeant, with a knowing look,
And winking at the rest, replied:
“Yes, son, I’ll give your Ma the book--”
Just then a volley rattled wide,
And one great gun the valley shook.

The pale flag-bearer disappeared.
“Gone to the rear,” the sergeant said;
“Praying would make a Turk afeared;
Those lonesome tunes have turned his head--”
And then the tide of battle neared.

We formed in haste and dashed away,
Across the field, our place to fill;
At first a skirmish, then a spray
Of cannon smoke upon a hill
Flanked by long lines in close array.

Down charged the foe; we rushed to meet,
We filled the valley like a sea;
The cannons flashed a level sheet
Of blinding flame, the musketry
Cut men as sickles cut the wheat!

Oh, then we shouted! More and more
The fervor of our courage rose,
As through our solid columns tore
The death hail’s crashing, gusty blows,
And louder leaped the cannon roar!

But how could human courage meet
That icy flood? All, all in vain
Our counter-charge; in slow retreat
We crossed the tumbled heaps of slain,
With grave-pits yawning at our feet!

“Rally! For shame!” rang out a cry
Forth from the thundering vortex cast;
A voice so steady, clear, and high,
It sounded like a bugle-blast
Blown from the lips of Victory.

We paused, took hope, yelled loud, and so
Renewed the charge, all as one man,
Leaped where Death’s waves had thickest flow,
And felt the breath of horror fan
Our naked souls as cold as snow!

The volleys quickened, coalesced,
Rolled deep, rocked earth, and jarred the sky,
When lo, our banner-bearer pressed
His standard forward, held it high
And rode upon the battle’s crest!

We saw him wave it over all;
Caught in the battle trough and dashed
From side to side, it would not fall;
But like a meteor danced and flashed
And reveled in the sulphurous pall!

We swept the field and won the hill;
Our flag flared out upon the crest,
Where wavering, gasping, pale and chill,
A dozen bullets through his breast,
The slender hero held it still!

We leaped to lift his drooping head,
The sergeant clasped him to his breast;
“I bore the flag,” the low voice said,
“And God bore me, now let me rest;”
And so we laid him with the dead.

MAURICE THOMPSON.

(By special permission of the author, and of Houghton, Mifflin and
Company.)

33

THE BLACK REGIMENT

Dark as the clouds of even,
Ranked in the western heaven,
Waiting the breath that lifts
All the dead mass, and drifts
Tempest and falling brand
Over a ruined land,--
So still and orderly,
Arm to arm, knee to knee,
Waiting the great event,
Stands the black regiment.

Down the long dusky line
Teeth gleam, and eyeballs shine;
And the bright bayonet,
Bristling and firmly set,
Flashed with a purpose grand,
Long ere the sharp command
Of the fierce rolling drum
Told them their time had come,
Told them what work was sent
For the black regiment.

“Now!” the flag-sergeant cried,
“Though death and hell betide,
Let the whole nation see
If we are fit to be
Free in this land; or bound
Down, like the whining hound,--
Bound with red stripes of pain
In our cold chains again!”
Oh, what a shout there went
From the black regiment!

“Charge!” trump and drum awoke;
Onward the bondsmen broke;
Bayonet and sabre-stroke
Vainly opposed their rush.
Through the wild battle’s crush,
With but one thought aflush,
Driving their lords like chaff,
In the gun’s mouth they laugh;
Or at the slippery brands,
Leaping with open hands,
Down they tear man and horse,
Down in their awful course;
Trampling with bloody heel
Over the crushing steel,--
All their eyes forward bent,
Rushed the black regiment.

“Freedom!” their battle-cry,--
“Freedom! or leave to die!”
Ah, and they meant the word!
Not as with us ’tis heard,--
Not a mere party shout;
They gave their spirits out,
Trusting the end to God,
And on the gory sod
Rolled in triumphant blood.
Glad to strike one free blow,
Whether for weal or woe;
Glad to breathe one free breath,
Though on the lips of death;
Praying--alas, in vain!--
That they might fall again,
So they could once more see
That burst to liberty!
This was what “freedom” lent
To the black regiment.

Hundreds on hundreds fell;
But they are resting well;
Scourges, and shackles strong,
Never shall do them wrong.
Oh, to the living few,
Soldiers, be just and true!
Hail them as comrades tried;
Fight with them side by side;
Never, in field or tent,
Scorn the black regiment!

GEORGE HENRY BOKER.

34

GREENCASTLE JENNY

Oh, Greencastle streets were a stream of steel
With the slanted muskets the soldiers bore,
And the scared earth muttered and shook to feel
The tramp and the rumble of Longstreet’s Corps;
The bands were blaring _The Bonny Blue Flag_,
And the banners borne were a motley many;
And watching the gray column wind and drag
Was a slip of a girl--we’ll call her Jenny.

A slip of a girl--what needs her name?--
With her cheeks aflame and her lips aquiver,
As she leaned and looked with a loyal shame
On the steady flow of the steely river:
Till a storm grew black in her hazel eyes
Time had not tamed, nor a lover sighed for;
And she ran and she girded her, apron-wise,
With the flag she loved and her brothers died for.

Out of the doorway they saw her start
(Pickett’s Virginians were marching through),
The hot little foolish hero-heart
Armored with stars and the sacred blue.
Clutching the folds of red and white
Stood she and bearded those ranks of theirs,
Shouting shrilly with all her might,
“Come and take it, the man that dares!”

Pickett’s Virginians were passing through;
Supple as steel and brown as leather,
Rusty and dusty of hat and shoe,
Wonted to hunger and war and weather;
Peerless, fearless, an army’s flower!
Sterner soldiers the world saw never,
Marching lightly, that summer hour,
To death and failure and fame forever.

Rose from the rippling ranks a cheer;
Pickett saluted, with bold eyes beaming,
Sweeping his hat like a cavalier,
With his tawny locks in the warm wind streaming.
Fierce little Jenny! her courage fell,
As the firm lines flickered with friendly laughter,
And Greencastle streets gave back the yell
That Gettysburg slopes gave back soon after.

So they cheered for the flag they fought
With the generous glow of the stubborn fighter,
Loving the brave as the brave men ought,
And never a finger was raised to fright her:
So they marched, though they knew it not,
Through the fresh green June to the shock infernal,
To the hell of the shell and the plunging shot,
And the charge that has won them a name eternal.

And she felt at last, as she hid her face,
There had lain at the root of her childish daring
A trust in the men of her own brave race,
And a secret faith in the foe’s forbearing.
And she sobbed, till the roll of the rumbling gun
And the swinging tramp of the marching men
Were a memory only, and day was done,
And the stars in the fold of the blue again.

(_Thank God that the day of the sword is done,
And the stars in the fold of the blue again!_)

HELEN GRAY CONE.

(By special permission of the author.)

35

JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG

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

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

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

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

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

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

So raged the battle. You know the rest:
How the rebels beaten and backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge, and ran.
At which John Burns--a practical man--
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows.
That is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns:
In fighting the battle, the question’s whether
You show a hat that’s white, or a feather!

BRET HARTE.

(By special permission of Houghton, Mifflin and Company.)

36

HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG

A cloud possessed the hollow field,
The gathering battle’s smoky shield.
Athwart the gloom the lightning flashed,
And through the cloud some horsemen dashed,
And from the heights the thunder pealed.

Then at the brief command of Lee
Moved out that matchless infantry,
With Pickett leading grandly down,
To rush against the roaring crown
Of those dread heights of destiny.

Far heard above the angry guns
A cry across the tumult runs,--
The voice that rang through Shiloh’s woods
And Chickamauga’s solitudes,
The fierce South cheering on her sons!

Ah, how the withering tempest blew
Against the front of Pettigrew!
A Kamsin wind that scorched and singed
Like that infernal flame that fringed
The British squares at Waterloo!

A thousand fell where Kemper led;
A thousand died where Garnett bled:
In blinding flame and strangling smoke
The remnant through the batteries broke
And crossed the works with Armistead.

“Once more in Glory’s van with me!”
Virginia cried to Tennessee:
“We two together, come what may,
Shall stand upon these works to-day!”
(The reddest day in history.)

Brave Tennessee! In reckless way
Virginia heard her comrade say:
“Close round this rent and riddled rag!”
What time she set her battle-flag
Amid the guns of Doubleday.

But who shall break the guards that wait
Before the awful face of Fate?
The tattered standards of the South
Were shriveled at the cannon’s mouth,
And all her hopes were desolate.

In vain the Tennesseean set
His breast against the bayonet!
In vain Virginia charged and raged,
A tigress in her wrath uncaged,
Till all the hill was red and wet!

Above the bayonets, mixed and crossed,
Men saw a gray, gigantic ghost
Receding through the battle-cloud,
And heard across the tempest loud
The death-cry of a nation lost!

The brave went down! Without disgrace
They leaped to Ruin’s red embrace.
They only heard Fame’s thunders wake,
And saw the dazzling sun-burst break
In smiles on Glory’s bloody face!

They fell, who lifted up a hand
And bade the sun in heaven to stand!
They smote and fell, who set the bars
Against the progress of the stars,
And stayed the march of Motherland!

They stood, who saw the future come
On through the fight’s delirium!
They smote and stood, who held the hope
Of nations on that slippery slope
Amid the cheers of Christendom!

God lives! He forged the iron will
That clutched and held that trembling hill.
God lives and reigns! He built and lent
The heights for Freedom’s battlement
Where floats her flag in triumph still!

Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules. Her gentler purpose runs,
A mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!

WILL HENRY THOMPSON.

(By special permission of the author, and of The Century Company.)

37

THOMAS AT CHICKAMAUGA

It was that fierce contested field when Chickamauga lay
Beneath the wild tornado that swept her pride away;
Her dimpling dales and circling hills dyed crimson with the flood
That had its sources in the springs that throb with human blood.

“_Go say to General Hooker to reinforce his right!_”
Said Thomas to his aide-de-camp, when wildly went the fight;
In front the battle thundered, it roared both right and left,
But like a rock “Pap” Thomas stood upon the crested cleft.

“_Where will I find you, General, when I return?_” The aide
Leaned on his bridle rein to wait the answer Thomas made;
The old chief like a lion turned, his pale lips set and sere,
And shook his mane, and stamped his foot, and fiercely answered, “_Here!_”

The floodtide of fraternal strife rolled upward to his feet,
And like the breakers on the shore the thunderous clamors beat;
The sad earth rocked and reeled with woe, the woodland shrieked in pain,
And hill and vale were groaning with the burden of the slain.

Who does not mind that sturdy form, that steady heart and hand,
That calm repose and gallant mien, that courage high and grand?--
O God, who givest nations men to meet their lofty needs,
Vouchsafe another Thomas when our country prostrate bleeds!

They fought with all the fortitude of earnest men and true--
The men who wore the rebel gray, the men who wore the blue;
And those, they fought most valiantly for petty state and clan,
And these, for truer Union and the brotherhood of man.

They come, those hurling legions, with banners crimson-splashed,
Against our stubborn columns their rushing ranks are dashed,
Till ’neath the blistering iron hail the shy and frightened deer
Go scurrying from their forest haunts to plunge in wilder fear.

Beyond, our lines are broken; and now in frenzied rout
The flower of the Cumberland has swiftly faced about;
And horse and foot and color-guard are reeling, rear and van,
And in the awful panic man forgets he is a man.

Now Bragg, with pride exultant above our broken wings,
The might of all his army against “Pap” Thomas brings;
They’re massing to the right of him, they’re massing to the left,
Ah, God be with our hero, who holds the crested cleft!

Blow, blow, ye echoing bugles! give answer, screaming shell!
Go, belch your murderous fury, ye batteries of hell!
Ring out, O impious musket! spin on, O shattering shot,--
Our smoke-encircled hero, he hears but heeds ye not!

Now steady, men! now steady! make one more valiant stand,
For gallant Steedman’s coming, his forces well in hand!
Close up your shattered columns, take steady aim and true,
The chief who loves you as his life will live or die with you!

By solid columns, on they come; by columns they are hurled,
As down the eddying rapids the storm-swept booms are whirled;
And when the ammunition fails--O moment drear and dread--
The heroes load their blackened guns from rounds of soldiers dead.

God never set His signet on the hearts of braver men,
Or fixed the goal of victory on higher heights than then;
With bayonets and muskets clubbed, they close the rush and roar;
Their stepping-stones to glory are their comrades gone before.

O vanished majesty of days not all forgotten yet,
We consecrate unto thy praise one hour of deep regret;
One hour to them whose days were years of glory that shall flood
The Nation’s sombre night of tears, of carnage, and of blood!

* * * * *

O vanished majesty of days! Rise, type and mold to-day,
And teach our sons to follow on where duty leads the way;
That whatsoever trial comes, defying doubt and fear,
They in the thickest fight shall stand and proudly answer, “_Here!_”

KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD.

(By special permission of the author.)

38

THE SMALLEST OF THE DRUMS

When the opulence of summer unto wood and meadow comes,
And within the tangled graveyard riot old-time spice and bloom,
Then dear Nature brings her tribute to “the smallest of the drums,”
Spreads the sweetest of her blossoms on the little soldier’s tomb.

In the quiet country village, still they tell you how he died;
And the story moves you strangely, more than other tales of war.
Thrice heroic seems the hero, if he be a child beside,
And the wound that tears his bosom is more sad than others far.

In the ranks of Sherman’s army none so young and small as he,
With his face so soft and dimpled, and his innocent blue eyes.
Yet of all the Union drummers he could drum most skillfully,
With a spirit--said his colonel--fit to make the dead arise!

In the charge at Chickamauga (so, beside his little grave,
You may learn the hero’s story of some villager, perchance),
When his regiment sank, broken, from the rampart, like a wave,
Thrice the clangor of his drum-beat rallied to a fresh advance.

There he stood upon the hillside, capless, with his shining hair
Blown about his childish forehead like the bright silk of the corn;
And the men looked up, and saw him standing brave and scathless there,
As an angel on a hilltop, in the drifting mist ofmorn.

Thrice they rallied at his drum-beat,--then the tattered flag went down!
Some one caught it, waved it skyward for a moment, and then fell.
In the dust, and gore, and drabble, all the stars of freedom’s crown,
And the soldiers beaten backward from the emblem loved so well!

Then our drummer boy, our hero, from his neck the drum-cord flung,
And amid the hail of bullets to the fallen banner sped.
Quick he raised it from dishonor; quick before them all he sprung,
And in fearless, proud defiance, waved the old flag o’er his head!

For a minute’s space the cheering, louder than the singing balls,
And the soldiers pressing forward, closing up their broken line!
Then the child’s bright head, death-stricken, on his throbbing bosom falls,
And the brave eyes that God lighted cease with life and soul to shine.

In the flag he saved they wrapped him; in that starry shroud he lies,
And the roses, and the lilacs, and the daisies seem to know;
For in all that peaceful acre, sleeping ’neath the summer skies,
There is neither mound nor tablet that is wreathed and guarded so!

JAMES BUCKHAM.

(By special permission of the author.)

39

LITTLE GIFFEN

Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire;
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and _he_ sixteen!)
Spectre, such as you seldom see!--
Little Giffen of Tennessee!

“Take him and welcome!” the surgeons said;
Little the doctor can help the dead!
So we took him; and brought him where
The balm was sweet in the summer air;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed--
Utter Lazarus, heel to head!

And we watched the war with bated breath,--
Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death.
Months of torture, how many such?
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch;
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye
Told of a spirit that wouldn’t die,

And didn’t. Nay, more! in death’s despite
The crippled skeleton “learned to write.”
“_Dear Mother_,” at first, of course; and then
“_Dear Captain_,” inquiring about the men.
Captain’s answer: “Of eighty-and-five,
Giffen and I are left alive.”

Word of gloom from the war, one day;
Johnson pressed at the front, they say.
Little Giffen was up and away;
A tear--his first--as he bade good-by,
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
“I’ll write, if spared!” There was news of the fight;
But none of Giffen.--He did not write.

I sometimes fancy that, were I king
Of the princely Knights of the Golden Ring,
With the song of the minstrel in mine ear,
And the tender legend that trembles here,
I’d give the best on his bended knee,
The whitest soul of my chivalry,
For “Little Giffen” of Tennessee.

FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR.

(By special permission of Mrs. Rosa N. Ticknor.)

40

ULRIC DAHLGREN

A flash of light across the night,
An eager face, an eye afire!
O lad so true, you yet may rue
The courage of your deep desire!

“Nay, tempt me not; the way is plain--
’Tis but the coward checks his rein;
For there they lie,
And there they cry,
For whose dear sake ’twere joy to die!”

He bends unto his saddlebow,
The steeds they follow two and two;
Their flanks are wet with foam and sweat,
Their rider’s locks are damp with dew.

“O comrades, haste! the way is long,
The dirge it drowns the battle-song;
The hunger preys,
The famine slays,
An awful horror veils our ways!”

Beneath the pall of prison wall
The rush of hoofs they seem to hear;
From loathsome guise they lift their eyes,
And beat their bars and bend their ear.

“Ah, God be thanked! our friends are nigh;
He wills it not that thus we die;
O fiends accurst
Of Want and Thirst,
Our comrades gather,--do your worst!”

A sharp affright runs through the night,
An ambush stirred, a column reined;
The hurrying steed has checked his speed,
His smoking flanks are crimson stained.

O noble son of noble sire,
Thine ears are deaf to our desire!
O knightly grace
Of valiant race,
The grave is honor’s trysting-place!

O life so pure! O faith so sure!
O heart so brave, and true, and strong!
With tips of flame is writ your name,
In annaled deed and storied song!

It flares across the solemn night,
It glitters in the radiant light;
A jewel set,
Unnumbered yet,
In our Republic’s coronet!

KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD.

(By special permission of the author.)

41

FARRAGUT

Farragut, Farragut,
Old Heart of Oak,
Daring Dave Farragut,
Thunderbolt stroke,
Watches the hoary mist
Lift from the bay,
Till his flag, glory-kissed,
Greets the young day.

Far, by gray Morgan’s walls,
Looms the black fleet.
Hark, deck to rampart calls
With the drums’ beat!
Buoy your chains overboard,
While the steam hums;
Men, to the battlement!
Farragut comes.

See, as the hurricane
Hurtles in wrath
Squadrons of clouds amain
Back from its path,
Back to the parapet,
To the guns’ lips,
Thunderbolt Farragut
Hurls the black ships!

Now through the battle’s roar
Clear the boy sings,
“By the mark fathoms four,”
While the lead swings.
Steady the wheelmen five
“Nor’ by East keep her”;
“Steady,” but two alive:
How the shells sweep her!

Lashed to the mast that sways
Over red decks,
Over the flame that plays
Round the torn wrecks,
Over the dying lips
Framed for a cheer,
Farragut leads his ships,
Guides the line clear.

On by heights cannon-browed,
While the spars quiver;
Onward still flames the cloud
Where the hulks shiver.
See, yon fort’s star is set,
Storm and fire past!
Cheer him, lads--Farragut
Lashed to the mast!

Oh, while Atlantic’s breast
Bears a white sail,
While the Gulf’s towering crest
Tops a green vale,
Men thy bold deeds shall tell,
Old Heart of Oak,
Daring Dave Farragut,
Thunderbolt stroke!

WILLIAM TUCKEY MEREDITH.

(By special permission of The Century Company.)

42

LEE TO THE REAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOHN RANDOLPH THOMPSON.

43

CRAVEN

Over the turret, shut in his ironclad tower,
Craven was conning his ship through smoke and flame;
Gun to gun he had battered the fort for an hour,
Now was the time for a charge to end the game.

There lay the narrowing channel, smooth and grim,
A hundred deaths beneath it, and never a sign;
There lay the enemy’s ships, and sink or swim
The flag was flying, and he was head of the line.

The fleet behind was jamming: the monitor hung
Beating the stream; the roar for a moment hushed;
Craven spoke to the pilot; slow she swung;
Again he spoke, and right for the foe she rushed

Into the narrowing channel, between the shore
And the sunk torpedoes lying in treacherous rank;
She turned but a yard too short; a muffled roar,
A mountainous wave, and she rolled, righted, and sank.

Over the manhole, up in the ironclad tower,
Pilot and captain met as they turned to fly:
The hundredth part of a moment seemed an hour,
For one could pass to be saved, and one must die.

They stood like men in a dream; Craven spoke,--
Spoke as he lived and fought, with a captain’s pride:
“After you, Pilot.” The pilot woke,
Down the ladder he went, and Craven died.

All men praise the deed and the manner; but we--
We set it apart from the pride that stoops to the proud,
The strength that is supple to serve the strong and free,
The grace of the empty hands and promises loud;

Sidney thirsting a humbler need to slake,
Nelson waiting his turn for the surgeon’s hand,
Lucas crushed with chains for a comrade’s sake,
Outram coveting right before command,

These were paladins, these were Craven’s peers,
These with him shall be crowned in story and song,
Crowned with the glitter of steel and the glimmer of tears,
Princes of courtesy, merciful, proud, and strong.

HENRY NEWBOLT.

(By special permission of Houghton, Mifflin and Company, and of
John Lane.)

44

GRACIE OF ALABAMA

On, sons of mighty stature,
And souls that match the best!
When nations name their jewels
Let Alabama rest.

Gracie of Alabama!
’Twas on that dreadful day
When howling hounds were fiercest
With Petersburg at bay.

Gracie of Alabama
Walked down the lines with Lee,
Marking through mists of gunshot
The clouds of enemy.

Thrice Alabama’s warning
Fell on a heedless ear,
While the relentless lead-storm,
Converging, hurtled near;

Till, straight before his chieftain,
Without a word or sign,
He stood, a shield the grandest,
Against the Union line.

And then the glass was lowered,
And voice that faltered not
Said, in its measured cadence,
“Why, Gracie, you’ll be shot!”

And Alabama answered,--
“The South will pardon me
If the ball that goes through Gracie
Comes short of Robert Lee!”

Swept a swift flash of crimson
Athwart the chieftain’s cheek,
And the eyes whose glance was knighthood
Spake as no king could speak.

And side by side with Gracie
He turned from shot and flame,--
Side by side with Gracie
Up the grand aisle of Fame!

FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR.

(By special permission of Mrs. Rosa N. Ticknor.)

45

THE BALLAD OF A LITTLE FUN

I rode a horse, a dappled bay,
Coal-black his mane and tail,--
A horse who never needed spur,
Nor curb, nor martingale.

And by my side three others rode,
Sun-tanned, long-haired, and grim,
Wild men led on by Edmondson,
Jim Polk, you’ve heard of him.

Behind us galloped, four by four,
A swarthy, mottled band
Of reckless fellows, chosen from
The bravest in the land.

Whither away on that fair day?
Oh, just a dash for fun.
To speed our horses, and keep up
With Jim Polk Edmondson.

Behind our backs we left the hills;
We crossed the Salliquoy;
My right-hand comrade smiled and said,
“I fished here when a boy.”

Then from the rise at Hogan’s house,
I saw, as in a dream,
Reed-fringed, and silver-blue, and deep,
The Coosawattee gleam.

A shot rang out! A bullet split
The air so close to me
I felt the keen hot puff; and then
A roar of musketry.

A wind of lead blew from the wood;
We took it at a run:
We sped so fast along the lane
The worm-fence panels spun.

A horse went down, a dying face
Scowled darkly at the sky;
A bullet clipped my comrade’s hat
And lopped the brim awry.

“Come, boys; come on!” our leader cried.
Pellmell we struck the line;
My comrade’s pistol spat its balls,
And likewise so did mine.

A swirl of smoke, with rifts of fire,
Enveloped friend and foe;
Death, so embarrassed, hardly knew
Which way his strokes must go.

The fight closed in on every side,
And tore one spot of ground;
There was not room to swing an arm,
Or turn your horse around.

A moment thus, and then we broke
The circle of our foes.
Old Hogan, in his doorway, heard
The crunching of our blows,
The while we used our pistol-butts,
As swords, on many a head;
And yet, and yet, down in that wood
We left our leader,--dead.

So, now you know just how it was
We had our little fun,
Speeding our horses to keep up
With Jim Polk Edmondson.

MAURICE THOMPSON.

(By special permission of the author, and of The Century Company.)

46

SHERIDAN’S RIDE

Up from the south, at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste to the chieftain’s door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon’s bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
With Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good broad highway leading down:
And there, through the flush of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight;
As if he knew the terrible need,
He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south,
The dust like smoke from the cannon’s mouth,
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.
But, lo, he is nearing his heart’s desire!
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

The first that the general saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was done? what to do? a glance told him both.
Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath,
He dashed down the line, ’mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat checked its course there because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and the red nostril’s play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say:
“I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down to save the day.”

Hurrah, hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah, hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldier’s Temple of Fame,
There with the glorious general’s name
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright:
“Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester,--twenty miles away!”

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

(By special permission of J. B. Lippincott Company.)

47

DOWN THE LITTLE BIG HORN

Down the Little Big Horn,
(O troop forlorn!)
Right into the camp of the Sioux,
(What was the muster?)
Two hundred and sixty-two
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer,
Went out at a breath,
Staunch to the death!
Just from the canyon emerging,
Saw they the braves of Sitting Bull surging,
Two thousand and more,
Painted and feathered, thirsting for gore,
Did they shrink and turn back,
(Hear how the rifles crack!)
Did they pause for a life,
For a sweetheart or wife?

And one in that savage throng,
(His revenge had waited long,)
Pomped with porcupine quills,
His deerskins beaded and fringed,
An eagle’s plume in his long black hair,
His tall lance fluttering in the air,
Glanced at the circling hills--
His cheeks flushed with a keen surmise,
A demon’s hate in his eyes
Remembering the hour when he cringed,
A prisoner thonged,
Chief Rain-in-the-Face
(There was a sachem wronged!)
Saw his enemy’s heart laid bare,
Feasted in thought like a beast in his lair.

Cavalry, cavalry,
(Tramp of the hoof, champ of the bit,)
Horses prancing, cavorting,
Shying and snorting,
Accoutrements rattling,
(Children at home are prattling,)
Gallantly, gallantly,
“Company dismount!”
From the saddle they swing,
With their steeds form a ring,
(Hear how the bullets sing!)
Who can their courage recount?

Do you blanch at their fate?
(Who would hesitate?)
Two hundred and sixty-two
Immortals in blue,
Standing shoulder to shoulder,
Like some granite boulder
You must blast to displace--
(Were they of a valiant race?)
Two hundred and sixty-two,
And never a man to say,
“I rode with Custer that day.”
Give the savage his triumph and bluster,
Give the hero to perish with Custer,
To his God and his comrades true.

Closing and closing,
Nearer the redskins creep;
With cunning disposing,
With yell and with whoop,
(There are women shall weep!)
They gather and swoop,
They come like a flood,
Maddened with blood,
They shriek, plying the knife,
(Was there one begged for his life?)
Where but a moment ago
Stood serried and sternly the foe,
Now fallen, mangled below.

Down the Little Big Horn,
(Tramp of hoof, champ of the bit,)
A single steed in the morn,
Comanche, seven times hit,
Comes to the river to drink;
Lists for the sabre’s clink,
Lists for the voice of his master,
(O glorious disaster!)
Comes, sniffing the air,
Gazing, lifts his head,
But his master lies dead,
(Who but the dead were there?)
But stay, what was the muster?
Two hundred and sixty-two
(Two thousand and more the Sioux!)
Went into the fight with Custer,
Went out of the fight with Custer;
For never a man can say,
“I rode with Custer that day--”
Went out like a taper,
Blown by a sudden vapor,
Went out at a breath,
True to the death!

FRANCIS BROOKS.

(By special permission of Dr. Almon Brooks.)

48

THE BOND OF BLOOD

The words of a rebel old and battered,
Who will care to remember them?
Under the Lost Flag, battle-tattered,
I was a comrade of Allan Memm.

Who was Allan, that I should name him
Bravest of all the brave who bled?
Why should a soldier’s song proclaim him
First of a hundred thousand dead?

An angel of battle, with fair hair curling
By brown cheeks shrunken and wan with want;
A living missile that Lee was hurling
Straight on the iron front of Grant;

A war-child born of the Old South’s passion,
Trained in the camp of the cavaliers;
A spirit wrought in the antique fashion
Of Glory’s martial morning years.

His young wife’s laugh and his baby’s prattle
He bore through the roar of the hungry guns--
Through the yell of shell in the rage of battle,
And the moan that under the thunder runs.

His was the voice that cried the warning
At the shattered gate of the slaughter-pen,
When Hancock rushed in the gray of morning
Over our doomed and desperate men.

His was the hand that held the standard--
A flaring torch on a crumbling shore--
’Mid the billows of blue by the storm blown landward,
And his call we heard through the ocean roar:

Ere the flag should shrink to a lost hope’s token,
Ere the glow of its glory be low and dim,
Ere its stars should fade and its bars be broken,
Calling his comrades to come to him.

And these, at the order of Hill or Gordon,--
God keep their ashes! I knew them well,--
Would have smashed the ranks of the devil’s cordon,
Or charged through the flames that roar in hell.

But none could stand where the storm was beating,
Never a comrade could reach his side;
In the spume of flame where the tides were meeting,
He, of a thousand, stood and died.

And the foe, in the old heroic manner,
Tenderly laid his form to rest,
The splintered staff and the riddled banner
Hiding the horror upon his breast.

* * * * *

Gone is the cot in the Georgia wildwood,
Gone is the blossom-strangled porch;
The roof that sheltered a soldier’s childhood
Vainly pleaded with Sherman’s torch.

Gone are the years, and far and feeble
Ever the old wild echoes die;
Hark to the voice of a great, glad people
Hailing the one flag under the sky!

And the monstrous heart of the storm receding
Fainter and farther throbs and jars;
And the new storm bursts, and the brave are bleeding
Under the cruel alien stars.

And Allan’s wife in the grave is lying
Under the old scorched vine and pine,
While Allan’s child in the isles is dying
Far on the foremost fighting line.

Cheer for the flag with the old stars spangled!
Shake out its folds to the wind’s caress,
Over the hearts by the war-hounds mangled,
Down in the tangled Wilderness!

To wave o’er the grave of the brave forever;
For the Gray has sealed, in the bond of blood,
His faith to the Blue, and the brave shall never
Question the brave in the sight of God.

WILL HENRY THOMPSON.

(By special permission of the author, and of The Century Company.)

49

A BALLAD OF MANILA BAY

Your threats how vain, Corregidor;
Your rampired batteries, feared no more;
Your frowning guard at Manila gate,--
When our Captain went before!

Lights out. Into the unknown gloom
From the windy, glimmering, wide sea-room,
Challenging fate in that dark strait
We dared the hidden doom.

But the death in the deep awoke not then;
Mine and torpedo they spoke not then;
From the heights that loomed on our passing line
The thunders broke not then.

Safe through the perilous dark we sped,
Quiet each ship as the quiet dead,
Till the guns of El Fraile roared--too late,
And the steel prows forged ahead.

Mute each ship as the mute-mouth grave,
A ghost leviathan cleaving the wave;
But deep in its heart the great fires throb,
The travailing engines rave.

The ponderous pistons urge like fate,
The red-throat furnaces roar elate,
And the sweating stokers stagger and swoon
In a heat more fierce than hate.

So through the dark we stole our way
Past the grim warders and into the bay,
Past Kalibuyo, and past Salinas,--
And came at the break of day

Where strong Cavité stood to oppose,--
Where, from a sheen of silver and rose,
A thronging of masts, a soaring of towers,
The beautiful city arose.

How fine and fair! But the shining air
With a thousand shattered thunders there
Flapped and reeled. For the fighting foe--
We had caught him in his lair.

Surprised, unready, his proud ships lay
Idly at anchor in Bakor Bay:--
Unready, surprised, but proudly bold,
Which was ever the Spaniard’s way.

Then soon on his pride the dread doom fell,
Red doom,--for the ruin of shot and shell
Lit every vomiting, bursting hulk
With a crimson reek of hell.

But to the brave though beaten, hail!
All hail to them that dare and fail!
To the dauntless boat that charged our fleet
And sank in the iron hail!

* * * * *

Manila Bay! Manila Bay!
How proud the song on our lips to-day!
A brave old song of the true and strong,
And the will that has its way;

Of the blood that told in the days of Drake
When the fight was good for the fighting’s sake!
For the blood that fathered Farragut
Is the blood that fathered Blake;

And the pride of the blood will not be undone
While war’s in the world and a fight to be won.
For the master now, as the master of old,
Is “the man behind the gun.”

The dominant blood that daunts the foe,
That laughs at odds, and leaps to the blow,--
It is Dewey’s glory to-day, as Nelson’s
A hundred years ago!

CHARLES GEORGE DOUGLAS ROBERTS.

(By special permission of the author, and of Harper and Brothers.)

50

DEWEY AT MANILA

’Twas the very verge of May
When the bold _Olympia_ led
Into Bocagrande gray
Dewey’s squadron, dark and dread,--
Creeping past Corregidor,
Guardian of Manila’s shore.

Do they sleep who wait the fray?
Is the moon so dazzling bright
That our cruisers’ battle-gray
Melts into the misty light?...
Ah! the rockets flash and soar!
Wakes at last Corregidor!

All too late their screaming shell
Tears the silence with its track;
This is but the _gate_ of hell,
We’ve no leisure to turn back.
Answer, _Boston_--then once more
Slumber on, Corregidor!

And as, like a slowing tide,
Onward still the vessels creep,
Dewey, watching, falcon-eyed,
Orders--“Let the gunners sleep;
For we meet a foe at four
Fiercer than Corregidor.”

Well they slept, for well they knew
What the morrow taught us all--
He was wise (as well as true)
Thus upon the foe to fall.
Long shall Spain the day deplore
Dewey ran Corregidor.

May is dancing into light
As the Spanish Admiral
From a dream of phantom fight
Wakens at his sentry’s call.
Shall he leave Cavité’s lee,
Hunt the Yankee fleet at sea?

O Montojo, to thy deck,
That to-day shall float its last!
Quick! To quarters! Yonder speck
Grows a hull of portent vast.
Hither, toward Cavité’s lee
Comes the Yankee hunting thee!

Not for fear of hidden mine
Halts our doughty Commodore.
He, of old heroic line,
Follows Farragut once more,
Hazards all on victory,
Here within Cavité’s lee.

If he loses, all is gone;
He will win because he must.
And the shafts of yonder dawn
Are not quicker than his thrust.
Soon, Montojo, he shall be
With thee in Cavité’s lee.

Now, Manila, to the fray!
Show the hated Yankee host
This is not a holiday--
Spanish blood is more than boast.
Fleet and mine and battery,
Crush him in Cavité’s lee!

Lo, hell’s geysers at our fore
Pierce the plotted path--in vain,
Nerving every man the more
With the memory of the _Maine_!
Now at last our guns are free
Here within Cavité’s lee.

“Gridley,” says the Commodore,
“You may fire when ready.” Then
Long and loud, like lions’ roar
When a rival dares the den,
Breaks the awful cannonry
Full across Cavité’s lee.

Who shall tell the daring tale
Of Our Thunderbolt’s attack,
Finding, when the chart should fail,
By the lead his dubious track,
Five ships following faithfully
Five times o’er Cavité’s lee;

Of our gunners’ deadly aim;
Of the gallant foe and brave
Who, unconquered, faced with flame,
Seek the mercy of the wave--
Choosing honor in the sea
Underneath Cavité’s lee!

Let the meed the victors gain
Be the measure of their task.
Less of flinching, stouter strain,
Fiercer combat--who could ask?
And “surrender”--’twas a word
That Cavité ne’er had heard.

Noon--the woful work is done!
Not a Spanish ship remains;
But, of their eleven, none
Ever was so truly Spain’s!
Which is prouder, they or we,
Thinking of Cavité’s lee?

ENVOY

But remember, when we’ve ceased
Giving praise and reckoning odds,
Man shares courage with the beast,
Wisdom cometh from the gods.
Who would win, on land or wave,
Must be wise as well as brave.

ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON.

(By special permission of the author.)

51

THE MEN OF THE “MERRIMAC”

_Hail to Hobson! hail to Hobson! hail to all the valiant set!_
_Clausen, Kelly, Deignan, Phillips, Murphy, Montagu, Charette!_
_Howsoe’er we laud and laurel we shall be their debtors yet!_
_Shame upon us, shame upon us, should the nation e’er forget!_

Though the tale be worn with telling, let the daring deed be sung!
Surely never brighter valor, since this wheeling world was young,
Thrilled men’s souls to more than wonder, till praise leaped from every tongue!

Trapped at last the Spanish sea-fox in the hill-locked harbor lay;
Spake the Admiral from his flagship, rocking off the hidden bay,
“We must close yon open portal lest he slip by night away!”

“Volunteers!” the signal lifted; rippling through the fleet it ran;
Was there ever deadlier venture? was there ever bolder plan?
Yet the gallant sailors answered, answered wellnigh to a man!

Ere the dawn’s first rose-flush kindled, swiftly sped the chosen eight
Toward the batteries grimly frowning o’er the harbor’s narrow gate;
Sooth, he holds his life but lightly who thus gives the dare to Fate!

They had passed the outer portal where the guns grinned, tier o’er tier,
When portentous Morro thundered, and Socapa echoed clear,
And Estrella joined a chorus pandemoniac to hear.