Chapter 3

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.