Part 5
I glanced along the martial rows, And marked the soldiers’ eyeballs burn; Their eager faces hot and stern,-- The wrathful triumph on their brows.
The traitors saw; they reeled and fled: Fear-stricken, gray-clad multitudes Streamed wildly toward the covering woods, And left us victory and their dead.
Once more the march, the tiresome plain, The Father River fringed with dykes, Gray cypresses, palmetto spikes, Bayous and swamps and yellowing canes;
With here and there plantations rolled In flowers, bananas, orange groves, Where laugh the sauntering negro droves, Reposing from the task of old;
And rarer, half-deserted towns, Devoid of men, where women scowl, Avoiding us as lepers foul With sidling gait and flouting gowns.
Thibodeaux, La., March, 1863.
JOHN PELHAM.
BY JAMES R. RANDALL.
[In most of the collections this poem is printed under the title of “The Dead Cannoneer,” but the author assures the present editor that the only title he ever gave it is the name of the boy general, “John Pelham,” who was killed at Kelly’s Ford, Virginia, 17th March, 1863.--EDITOR.]
Just as the spring came laughing through the strife, With all its gorgeous cheer, In the bright April of historic life, Fell the great cannoneer.
The wondrous lulling of a hero’s breath His bleeding country weeps; Hushed in the alabaster arms of Death, Our young Marcellus sleeps.
Nobler and grander than the Child of Rome Curbing his chariot steeds, The knightly scion of a Southern home Dazzled the land with deeds.
Gentlest and bravest in the battle-brunt, The champion of the truth, He bore his banner to the very front Of our immortal youth.
A clang of sabres ’mid Virginian snow, The fiery pang of shells,-- And there’s a wail of immemorial woe In Alabama dells.
The pennon drops that led the sacred band Along the crimson field; The meteor blade sinks from the nerveless hand Over the spotless shield.
We gazed and gazed upon that beauteous face; While round the lips and eyes, Couched in their marble slumber, flashed the grace Of a divine surprise.
O mother of a blessed soul on high! Thy tears may soon be shed; Think of thy boy with princes of the sky, Among the Southern dead!
How must he smile on this dull world beneath, Fevered with swift renown,-- He, with the martyr’s amaranthine wreath Twining the victor’s crown!
[Southern.]
THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTON HARBOR.
(Bombardment of Fort Sumter by the fleet, 7th April, 1863.)
BY PAUL H. HAYNE.
I. Two hours, or more, beyond the prime of a blithe April day, The Northmen’s mailed “Invincibles” steamed up fair Charleston Bay; They came in sullen file and slow, low-breasted on the wave, Black as a midnight front of storm, and silent as the grave.
II. A thousand warrior-hearts beat high as those dread monsters drew More closely to the game of death across the breezeless blue, And twice ten thousand hearts of those who watched the scene afar, Thrill in the awful hush that bides the battle’s broadening star.
III. Each gunner, moveless by his gun, with rigid aspect stands, The ready lanyards firmly grasped in bold, untrembling hands, So moveless in their marbled calm, their stern heroic guise, They looked like forms of statued stone with burning human eyes!
IV. Our banners on the outmost walls, with stately rustling fold, Flash back from arch and parapet the sunlight’s ruddy gold,-- They mount to the deep roll of drums, and widely echoing cheers, And then--once more, dark, breathless, hushed, wait the grim cannoneers.
V. Onward--in sullen file and slow, low glooming on the wave, Near, nearer still, the haughty fleet glides silent as the grave, When sudden, shivering up the calm, o’er startled flood and shore, Burst from the sacred Island Fort the thunder-wrath of yore!
VI. Ha! brutal Corsairs! though ye come thrice-cased in iron mail, Beware the storm that’s opening now, God’s vengeance guides the hail! Ye strive, the ruffian types of Might, ’gainst law and truth and Right; Now quail beneath a sturdier Power, and own a mightier Might!
VII. No empty boast! for while we speak, more furious, wilder, higher, Dart from the circling batteries a hundred tongues of fire; The waves gleam red, the lurid vault of heaven seems rent above; Fight on, O knightly gentlemen! for faith and home and love!
VIII. There’s not in all that line of flame, one soul that would not rise To seize the victor’s wreath of blood, though death must give the prize-- There’s not in all this anxious crowd that throngs the ancient town A maid who does not yearn for power to strike one despot down.
IX. The strife grows fiercer! ship by ship the proud armada sweeps, Where hot from Sumter’s raging breast the volleyed lightning leaps; And ship by ship, raked, overborne, ere burned the sunset light, Crawls in the gloom of baffled hate beyond the field of fight!
X. O glorious Empress of the Main! from out thy storied spires Thou well mayst peal thy bells of joy, and light thy festal fires,-- Since Heaven this day hath striven for thee, hath nerved thy dauntless sons, And thou in clear-eyed faith hast seen God’s angels near the guns!
[Southern.]
RUNNING THE BATTERIES.
(As observed from the anchorage above Vicksburg, April, 1863.)
BY HERMAN MELVILLE.
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-- Gunboat 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 far 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 thread?” “Why, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego 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 boat’s 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.
KEENAN’S CHARGE
BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP.
By the shrouded gleam of the western skies, Brave Keenan looked in Pleasanton’s eyes For an instant--clear, and cool, and still; Then, with a smile, he said: “I will.”
“Cavalry, charge!” Not a man of them shrank; Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank, Rose joyously, with a willing breath-- Rose like a greeting hail to death. Then forward they sprang, and spurred, and clashed; Shouted the officers, crimson-sashed; Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow, In their faded coats of the blue and yellow; And above in the air, with an instinct true, Like a bird of war their pennon flew.
With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds, And blades that shine like sunlit reeds, And strong brown faces bravely pale, For fear their proud attempt shall fail, Three hundred Pennsylvanians close On twice ten thousand gallant foes.
Line after line the troopers came To the edge of the wood that was ring’d with flame; Rode in and sabred and shot--and fell: Nor came one back his wounds to tell. And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall In the gloom, like a martyr awaiting his fall, While the circle-stroke of his sabre, swung ’Round his head, like a halo there, luminous hung. Line after line, ay, whole platoons, Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons By the maddened horses were onward borne And into the vortex flung, trampled and torn; As Keenan fought with his men, side by side.
So they rode, till there were no more to ride.
But over them lying there, shattered and mute, What deep echo rolls? ’Tis a death salute From the cannon in place; for, heroes, you braved Your fate not in vain: the army was saved! Over them now--year following year-- Over their graves the pine-cones fall, And the whippoorwill chants his spectre-call; But they stir not again; they raise no cheer: They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease, Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace. The rush of their charge is resounding still, That saved the army at Chancellorsville.
DEATH OF STONEWALL JACKSON.
BY HARRY L. FLASH.
Not ’mid the lightning of the stormy fight, Not in the rush upon the vandal foe, Did kingly Death, with his resistless might, Lay the great leader low.
His warrior soul its earthly shackles broke In the full sunshine of a peaceful town; When all the storm was hushed, the trusty oak That propped our cause went down.
Though his alone the blood that flecks the ground, Recording all his grand, heroic deeds, Freedom herself is writhing with the wound, And all the country bleeds.
He entered not the Nation’s Promised Land At the red belching of the cannon’s mouth; But broke the House of Bondage with his hand-- The Moses of the South!
O gracious God! not gainless is the loss: A glorious sunbeam gilds thy sternest frown; And while his country staggers with the Cross, He rises with the Crown.
[Southern.]
UNDER THE SHADE OF THE TREES.
BY MARGARET J. PRESTON.
[The last words of Stonewall Jackson were: “Let us cross the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”--_Editor._]
What are the thoughts that are stirring his breast? What is the mystical vision he sees? --“Let us pass over the river, and rest Under the shade of the trees.”
Has he grown sick of his toils and his tasks? Sighs the worn spirit for respite or ease? Is it a moment’s cool halt that he asks Under the shade of the trees?
Is it the gurgle of waters whose flow Ofttime has come to him, borne on the breeze, Memory listens to, lapsing so low, Under the shade of the trees?
Nay--though the rasp of the flesh was so sore, Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these, Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore Under the shade of the trees;--
Caught the high psalms of ecstatic delight-- Heard the harps harping, like soundings of seas-- Watched earth’s assoilèd ones walking in white Under the shade of the trees.
Oh, was it strange he should pine for release, Touched to the soul with such transports as these,-- He who so needed the balsam of peace, Under the shade of the trees?
Yea, it was noblest for him--it was best (Questioning naught of our Father’s decrees), There to pass over the river and rest Under the shade of the trees!
[Southern.]
STONEWALL JACKSON.
(Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville, May, 1863.)
BY HERMAN MELVILLE.
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 Virginia’s bier, Because no wreath we owe.
The Black Regiment
BY GEORGE H. BOKER.
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, Trusted 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!
May 27, 1863.
LITTLE GIFFEN OF TENNESSEE.
BY FRANCIS O. TICKNOR.
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 we seldom see, Little Giffen of Tennessee!
“Take him--and welcome!” the surgeon said; “Much your doctor can help the dead!” And so we took him and brought him where The balm was sweet on the summer air; And we laid him down on a wholesome bed-- Utter Lazarus, heel to head!
Weary war with the bated breath, Skeleton boy against skeleton Death, Months of torture, how many such! Weary weeks of the stick and crutch! Still a glint in the steel-blue eye Spoke of the spirit that would not 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!”
“Johnston’s 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 a 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!
[Southern.]
GETTYSBURG
(July 1, 2, 3, 1863.)
BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
Wave, wave your glorious battle-flags, brave soldiers of the North, And from the fields your arms have won to-day go proudly forth! For now, O comrades dear and leal--from whom no ills could part, Through the long years of hopes and fears, the nation’s constant heart-- Men who have driven so oft the foe, so oft have striven in vain, Yet ever in the perilous hour have crossed his path again,-- At last we have our heart’s desire, from them we met have wrung A victory that round the world shall long be told and sung! It was the memory of the past that bore us through the fray, That gave the grand old army strength to conquer on this day!
Oh, now forget how dark and red Virginia’s rivers flow, The Rappahannock’s tangled wilds, the glory and the woe; The fever-hung encampments, where our dying knew full sore How sweet the north-wind to the cheek it soon shall cool no more; The fields we fought, and gained, and lost; the lowland sun and rain That wasted us, that bleached the bones of our unburied slain! There was no lack of foes to meet, of deaths to die no lack, And all the hawks of heaven learned to follow on our track; But henceforth, hovering southward, their flight shall mark afar The paths of yon retreating host that shun the northern star.
At night before the closing fray, when all the front was still, We lay in bivouac along the cannon-crested hill. Ours was the dauntless Second Corps; and many a soldier knew How sped the fight, and sternly thought of what was yet to do. Guarding the centre there, we lay, and talked with bated breath Of Buford’s stand beyond the town, of gallant Reynolds’ death, Of cruel retreats through pent-up streets by murderous volleys swept,-- How well the Stone, the Iron, brigades their bloody outposts kept: ’Twas for the Union, for the Flag, they perished, heroes all, And we swore to conquer in the end, or even like them to fall.
And passed from mouth to mouth the tale of what grim day just done, The fight by Round Top’s craggy spur--of all the deadliest one; It saved the left: but on the right they pressed us back too well, And like a field in spring the ground was ploughed with shot and shell. There was the ancient graveyard, its hummocks crushed and red. And there, between them, side by side, the wounded and the dead: The mangled corpses fallen above--the peaceful dead below, Laid in their graves, to slumber here, a score of years ago; It seemed their waking, wandering shades were asking of our slain, What brought such hideous tumult now where they so still had lain!
Bright rose the sun of Gettysburg that morrow morningtide, And call of trump and roll of drum from height to height replied. Hark! from the east already goes up the rattling din; The Twelfth Corps, winning back their ground, right well the day begin! They whirl fierce Ewell from their front! Now we of the Second pray, As right and left the brunt have borne, the centre might to-day. But all was still from hill to hill for many a breathless hour, While for the coming battle-shock Lee gathered in his power; And back and forth our leaders rode, who knew not rest or fear, And along the lines, where’er they came, went up the ringing cheer.
’Twas past the hour of nooning; the summer skies were blue; Behind the covering timber the foe was hid from view; So fair and sweet with waving wheat the pleasant valley lay, It brought to mind our Northern homes and meadows far away; When the whole western ridge at once was fringed with fire and smoke, Against our lines from seven-score guns the dreadful tempest broke! Then loud our batteries answer, and far along the crest, And to and fro the roaring bolts are driven east and west; Heavy and dark around us glooms the stifling sulphur-cloud, And the cries of mangled men and horse go up beneath its shroud.
The guns are still: the end is nigh: we grasp our arms anew; Oh, now let every heart be stanch and every aim be true! For look! from yonder wood that skirts the valley’s further marge, The flower of all the Southern host move to the final charge. By heaven! it is a fearful sight to see their double rank Come with a hundred battle-flags--a mile from flank to flank! Tramping the grain to earth, they come, ten thousand men abreast; Their standards wave--their hearts are brave--they hasten not, nor rest, But close the gaps our cannon make, and onward press, and nigher, And, yelling at our very front, again pour in their fire.