Ballads of American Bravery

In Time of Strife

1 — Paul Revere’s Ride

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said, “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in the village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
  And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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

2 — Mary Butler’s Ride

Ebenezer Eastman, of Gilmanton, is dead;—
  At least they had him buried full fifty years ago;—
The gray White Mountain granite they set above his head,
  With some graven words upon it, to let the neighbors know
  Precisely what it was that made the grasses grow
So wondrous rank and strong: How they rippled in the wind,
As if nobody ever died, nobody ever sinned!
To that old Bible name of his what eloquence was lent
When its owner marched to battle,—not a ration, not a tent,
Nor a promise nor a sign of a Continental cent!
Ho, Ebenezer Eastman! We’ll call the roll again,—
Ho, dead and gone Lieutenant of the old-time Minute-Men!

Plowing land for turnips, with awkward Buck and Bright,
  Was stout Lieutenant Eastman, one lovely day in June;
He “hawed” them to the left and he “geed” them to the right,
  And they slowly came about in the lazy summer noon,
  He humming to himself the fragment of a tune,
Which he would croon at night to the baby-boy who lay
In basswood trough becradled first, a week ago that day!
.......
All at a flying gallop a rider swings in sight,
  Pulls up beside the fallow and gives the view-halloo,—
His horse’s flanks are black, but his neck is foamy white:—
  “Turn out, Lieutenant Eastman! There’s something else to do!
  The redcoats are a-swarming! Your summer plowing’s through!”
No other word—away! And the rattling of the hoofs
Was like the rain from traveling clouds along the cabin roofs.
The plowman turned his cattle out; he saddled up the bay,
And he rallied out the wilderness upon that summer day,
And the Minute-Men of Gilmanton to Boston marched away.
About the mother? Well, she watched beside the cabin door,
And rocked the baby’s basswood boat upon the puncheon floor.

Days grew long in Gilmanton, and weeds among the corn;
  The quoiting ground was grassy, and louder rang the rill;
The wrestling match was over,—the smithy was forlorn,—
  The spiders in the empty door had swung their webs at will,—
  The champions had gone to Bunker’s smoky Hill,
To try the quaint old-fashioned “lock” they practiced on the Green,
And such a game of tough “square hold” the world has seldom seen!
About the father? Only this;—he fought in Stark’s brigade,
On Charlestown Neck, that dusty day. A splendid mark he made;
He never flinched a single inch when British cannon played,
But foddered up an old rail fence with Massachusetts hay,
Stood out the battle at the rack, and stoutly blazed away!
Lo, through the smoky glory, that human flower-deluce,
  The gray-eyed Mary Butler, Lieutenant Eastman’s wife!
Her pallid cheek and brow like a holy flag of truce,
  Her heart as sweet and red as a rose’s inner life,
  No murmur on her lips, nor sign of any strife.
Four days before the fight. Has the little woman heard
From anybody Boston way? Nobody—not a word!

Then up rose Mary Butler, and set her wheel at rest;
  She swept the puncheon floor, she washed the cottage pride,—
The cottage pride of three weeks old, and dressed him in his best,—
  She wound the clock that told the time her mother was a bride,
  And porringer and spoon she deftly laid aside;
She strung a clean white apron across the window panes,
And swung the kettle from the crane, for fear of rusting rains;
Then tossed her saddle on the bay and donned her linen gown,
And took the baby on before,—no looking round or down!
Full seventy miles to Cambridge town! Bring out your civic crown!
I think ’twill fit that brow of hers who sadly smiled and said:
“We’ll know about your father, boy, and who is hurt or dead!”
The maple woods that round her stand so solemn in the calm,
Up and down are swaying slowly, like a singing-master’s palm,
All together beating time,—not a soul to sing a psalm!
“There’s been a dreadful battle!”—that’s what the neighbors said,
“But when or where we cannot tell, nor who is hurt or dead.”

Rugged maples broke their ranks to let the rider by,
  Fell in behind her noiseless as falls the stealthy dew;
Such heavy folds of starless dark in double shadow lie,
  The slender bridle path she treads can only just show through,
  And buried in the leafy miles was all the world she knew.
By muffled drum of partridge and jaunty jay-bird’s fife,
That mother made her lonely march,—that Continental wife.
She never drew the bridle rein till forty miles were done,
And on her ended journey shone the second setting sun,
And round the Bay, like battle clock, tolled out the evening-gun.
Talk not of pomps and tournaments! If only you had seen
The royal ride from Gilmanton, the halt at Cambridge Green!

Dust-bedimmed and weary, with a look as though she smiled,
  She melted through the haze of the summer’s smoky gold!
Some master’s faded picture of Madonna and the Child,
  Born full a thousand years ago, and never growing old!
  She heard old Putnam’s kennel growl, the bells of Charlestown tolled;
She saw the golden day turn gray within an ashen shroud,
That showed the scarlet regulars like lightning through a cloud.
Forth from the furnace and the fire Lieutenant Eastman came,—
The smell of powder in his clothes and fragrance in his fame,—
And met her bravely waiting there, who bore his boy and name!—
She from the howling wilderness—he from the hell of men,
The little woman called the roll; he called it back again!

Then lightly to the pillion the gray-eyed wife he swung,
  A bundle on the saddlebow all tenderly he placed,
And, lost amid the leafy calms where cannon never rung,
  Away they rode to Gilmanton, her arm around his waist,
  No general’s sash of crimson silk so rarely could have graced!
Ah, Mary Butler cannot die, whatever sextons say,
While yet life’s azure pulses keep their old heroic play.
.......
A million men have lingered long, a million men have died,
Who never saw a deed so grand as Mary Butler’s ride!

Benjamin Franklin Taylor.

3 — The Surprise of Ticonderoga

’Twas May upon the mountains, and on the airy wing
Of every floating zephyr came pleasant sounds of spring,—
Of robins in the orchards, brooks running clear and warm,
Or chanticleer’s shrill challenge from busy farm to farm.

But, ranged in serried order, attent on sterner noise,
Stood stalwart Ethan Allen and his “Green Mountain Boys,”—
Two hundred patriots listening, as with the ears of one,
To the echo of the muskets that blazed at Lexington!

“My comrades,”—thus the leader spake to his gallant band,—
“The key of all the Canadas is in King George’s hand,
Yet, while his careless warders our slender armies mock,
Good Yankee swords—God willing—may pick his rusty lock!”

At every pass a sentinel was set to guard the way,
Lest the secret of their purpose some idle lip betray,
As on the rocky highway they marched with steady feet
To the rhythm of the brave hearts that in their bosoms beat.

The curtain of the darkness closed ’round them like a tent,
When, travel-worn and weary, yet not with courage spent,
They halted on the border of slumbering Champlain,
And saw the watch lights glimmer across the glassy plain.

O proud Ticonderoga, enthroned amid the hills!
O bastions of old Carillon, the “Fort of Chiming Rills!”
Well might your quiet garrison have trembled where they lay,
And, dreaming, grasped their sabres against the dawn of day!

In silence and in shadow the boats were pushed from shore,
Strong hands laid down the musket to ply the muffled oar;
The startled ripples whitened and whispered in their wake,
Then sank again, reposing, upon the peaceful lake.

Fourscore and three they landed, just as the morning gray
Gave warning on the hilltops to rest not or delay;
Behind, their comrades waited, the fortress frowned before,
And the voice of Ethan Allen was in their ears once more:

“Soldiers, so long united—dread scourge of lawless power!
Our country, torn and bleeding, calls to this desperate hour.
One choice alone is left us, who hear that high behest—
To quit our claims to valor, or put them to the test!

“I lead the storming column up yonder fateful hill,
Yet not a man shall follow save at his ready will!
There leads no pathway backward—’tis death or victory!
Poise each his trusty firelock, ye that will come with me!”

From man to man a tremor ran at their captain’s word,—
(Like the “going” in the mulberry-trees that once King David heard),—
While his eagle glances sweeping adown the triple line,
Saw, in the glowing twilight, each even barrel shine!

“Right face, my men, and forward!” Low-spoken, swift-obeyed!
They mount the slope unfaltering—they gain the esplanade!
A single drowsy sentry beside the wicket-gate,
Snapping his aimless fusil, shouts the alarm—too late!

They swarm before the barracks—the quaking guards take flight,
And such a shout exultant resounds along the height,
As rang from shore and headland scarce twenty years ago,
When brave Montcalm’s defenders charged on a British foe!

Leaps from his bed in terror the ill-starred Delaplace,
To meet across his threshold a wall he may not pass!
The bayonets’ lightning flashes athwart his dazzled eyes,
And, in tones of sudden thunder, “Surrender!” Allen cries.

“Then in whose name the summons?” the ashen lips reply.
The mountaineer’s stern visage turns proudly toward the sky,—
“In the name of great Jehovah!” he speaks with lifted sword,
“And the Continental Congress, who wait upon His word!”

Light clouds, like crimson banners, trailed bright across the east,
As the great sun rose in splendor above a conflict ceased,
Gilding the bloodless triumph for equal rights and laws,
As with the smile of heaven upon a holy cause.

Still, wave on wave of verdure, the emerald hills arise,
Where once were heroes mustered from men of common guise,
And still, on Freedom’s roster, through all her glorious years,
Shine the names of Ethan Allen and his bold volunteers!

Mary Anna Phinney Stansbury.

(By special permission of the author, and of The Youth’s Companion.)

4 — Montgomery at Quebec

Round Quebec’s embattled walls
  Moodily the patriots lay;
Dread disease within its thralls
  Drew them closer day by day;
Till from suffering man to man,
Mutinous, a murmur ran.

Footsore, they had wandered far,
  They had fasted, they had bled;
They had slept beneath the star
  With no pillow for the head;
Was it but to freeze to stone
In this cruel icy zone?

Yet their leader held his heart,
  Naught discouraged, naught dismayed;
Quelled with unobtrusive art
  Those that muttered; unafraid
Waited, watchful, for the hour
When his golden chance should flower.

’Twas the death-tide of the year;
  Night had passed its murky noon;
Through the bitter atmosphere
  Pierced nor ray of star nor moon;
But upon the bleak earth beat
Blinding arrows of the sleet.

While the trumpets of the storm
  Pealed the bastioned heights around,
Did the dauntless heroes form,
  Did the low, sharp order sound.
“Be the watchword Liberty!”

Cried the brave Montgomery.

Here, where he had won applause,
  When Wolfe faced the Gallic foe,
For a nobler, grander cause
  Would he strike the fearless blow,—
Smite at Wrong upon the throne,
At Injustice giant grown.

“Men, you will not fear to tread
  Where your general dares to lead!
On, my valiant boys!” he said,
  And his foot was first to speed;
Swiftly up the beetling steep,
Lion-hearted, did he leap.

Flashed a sudden blinding glare;
  Roared a fearsome battle-peal;
Rang the gloomy vasts of air;
  Seemed the earth to rock and reel;
While adown that fiery breath
Rode the hurtling bolts of death.

Woe for him, the valorous one,
  Now a silent clod of clay!
Nevermore for him the sun
  Would make glad the paths of day;
Yet ’twere better thus to die
Than to cringe to tyranny!—

Better thus the life to yield,
  Striking for the right and God,
Upon Freedom’s gory field,
  Than to kiss Oppression’s rod!
Honor, then, for all time be
To the brave Montgomery!

Clinton Scollard.

5 — The Maryland Battalion

Spruce Macaronis, and pretty to see,
Tidy and dapper and gallant were we;
Blooded fine gentlemen, proper and tall,
Bold in a fox-hunt and gay at a ball;
Prancing soldados so martial and bluff,
Billets for bullets, in scarlet and buff—
But our cockades were clasped with a mother’s low prayer,
And the sweethearts that braided the sword-knots were fair.

There was grummer of drums humming hoarse in the hills,
And the bugles sang fanfaron down by the mills.
By Flatbush the bagpipes were droning amain,
And keen cracked the rifles in Martense’s lane;
For the Hessians were flecking the hedges with red,
And the grenadiers’ tramp marked the roll of the dead.

Three to one, flank and rear, flashed the files of St. George,
The fierce gleam of their steel as the glow of a forge.
The brutal boom-boom of their swart cannoneers
Was sweet music compared with the taunt of their cheers—
For the brunt of their onset, our crippled array,
And the light of God’s leading gone out in the fray.

Oh, the rout on the left and the tug on the right!
The mad plunge of the charge and the wreck of the flight!
When the cohorts of Grant held stout Stirling at strain,
And the mongrels of Hesse went tearing the slain;
When at Freeke’s Mill the flumes and the sluices ran red,
And the dead choked the dike and the marsh choked the dead!

“Oh, Stirling, good Stirling, how long must we wait?
Shall the shout of your trumpet unleash us too late?
Have you never a dash for brave Mordecai Gist,
With his heart in his throat, and his blade in his fist?
Are we good for no more than to prance in a ball,
When the drums beat the charge and the clarions call?”

Tralára! Tralára! Now praise we the Lord
For the clang of His call and the flash of His sword!
Tralára! Tralára! Now forward to die;
For the banner, hurrah! and for sweethearts, good-by!
“Four hundred wild lads!” May be so. I’ll be bound
’Twill be easy to count us, face up, on the ground.
If we hold the road open, though Death take the toll,
We’ll be missed on parade when the States call the roll—
When the flags meet in peace and the guns are at rest,
And fair Freedom is singing Sweet Home in the West.

John Williamson Palmer.

(By special permission of the author.)

6 — Arnold at Stillwater

Ah, you mistake me, comrades, to think that my heart is steel!
Cased in a cold endurance, nor pleasure nor pain to feel;
Cold as I am in my manner, yet over these cheeks so seared
Teardrops have fallen in torrents, thrice since my chin grew beard.

Thrice since my chin was bearded I suffered the tears to fall;
Benedict Arnold, the traitor, he was the cause of them all!
Once, when he carried Stillwater, proud of his valor, I cried;
Then, with my rage at his treason—with pity when André died.

Benedict Arnold, the traitor, sank deep in the pit of shame,
Bartered for vengeance his honor, blackened for profit his fame;
Yet never a gallanter soldier, whatever his after crime,
Fought on the red field of honor than he in his early time.

Ah, I remember Stillwater, as it were yesterday!
Then first I shouldered a firelock, and set out the foemen to slay.
The country was up all around us, racing and chasing Burgoyne,
And I had gone out with my neighbors, Gates and his forces to join.

Marched we with Poor and with Learned, ready and eager to fight;
There stood the foemen before us, cannon and men on the height;
Onward we trod with no shouting, forbidden to fire till the word;
As silent their long line of scarlet—not one of them whispered or stirred.

Suddenly, then, from among them smoke rose and spread on the breeze;
Grapeshot flew over us sharply, cutting the limbs from the trees;
But onward we pressed till the order of Cilley fell full on the ear;
Then we leveled our pieces and fired them, and rushed up the slope with a cheer.

Fiercely we charged on their center, and beat back the stout grenadiers,
And wounded the brave Major Ackland, and grappled the swart cannoneers;
Five times we captured their cannons, and five times they took them again;
But the sixth time we had them we kept them, and with them a share of their men.

Our colonel who led us dismounted, high on a cannon he sprang;
Over the noise of our shouting clearly his joyous words rang;
“These are our own brazen beauties! Here to America’s cause
I dedicate each, and to freedom!—foes to King George and his laws!”

Worn as we were with the struggle, wounded and bleeding and sore,
Some stood all pale and exhausted; some lay there stiff in their gore;
And round through the mass went a murmur, that grew to a whispering clear,
And then to reproaches outspoken—“If General Arnold were here!”

For Gates, in his folly and envy, had given the chief no command,
And far in the rear some had seen him horseless and moodily stand,
Knitting his forehead in anger, gnawing his red lip in pain,
Fretting himself like a bloodhound held back from his prey by a chain.

Hark, at our right there is cheering! there is the ruffle of drums!
Here is the well-known brown charger! Spurring it madly he comes!
Learned’s brigade have espied him, rending the air with a cheer;
Woe to the terrified foeman, now that our leader is here!

Piercing the tumult behind him, Armstrong is out on his track;
Gates has dispatched his lieutenant to summon the fugitive back.
Armstrong might summon the tempest, order the whirlwind to stay,
Issue commands to the earthquake—would they the mandate obey?

Wounds, they were healed in a moment! weariness instantly gone!
Forward he pointed his sabre—led us, not ordered us on.
Down on the Hessians we thundered, he, like a madman ahead;
Vainly they strove to withstand us; raging, they shivered and fled.

On to their earthworks we drove them, shaking with ire and dismay;
There they made stand with a purpose to beat back the tide of the day.
Onward we followed, then faltered; deadly their balls whistled free.
Where was our death-daring leader? Arnold, our hope, where was he?

He? He was everywhere riding! hither and thither his form,
On the brown charger careering, showed us the path of the storm;
Over the roar of the cannon, over the musketry’s crash,
Sounded his voice, while his sabre lit up the way with its flash.

Throwing quick glances around him, reining a moment his steed—
“Brooks, that redoubt!” was his order; “let the rest follow my lead!
Mark where the smoke-cloud is parting! see where the gun-barrels glance!
Livingston, forward! On, Wesson, charge them! Let Morgan advance!”

“Forward!” he shouted, and, spurring on through the sally-port then,
Fell sword in hand on the Hessians, closely behind him our men.
Back shrank the foemen in terror; off went their forces pellmell,
Firing one Parthian volley; struck by it, Arnold, he fell.

Ours was the day. Up we raised him; spurted the blood from his knee—
“Take my cravat, boys, and bind it; I am not dead yet,” said he.
“What! did you follow me, Armstrong? Pray, do you think it quite right,
Leaving your duties out yonder, to risk your dear self in the fight?”

“General Gates sent his orders”—faltering the aid-de-camp spoke—
“You’re to return, lest some rashness—” Fiercely the speech Arnold broke:
“Rashness! Why, yes, tell the general the rashness he dreaded is done!
Tell him his kinsfolk are beaten! tell him the battle is won!”

Oh, that a soldier so glorious, ever victorious in fight,
Passed from a daylight of honor into the terrible night!—
Fell as the mighty archangel, ere the earth glowed in space, fell—
Fell from the patriot’s heaven down to the loyalist’s hell!

Thomas Dunn English.

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

7 — The Yankee Man-of-War

’Tis of a gallant Yankee ship that flew the Stripes and Stars,
And the whistling wind from the west-nor’-west blew through the pitch-pine spars,—
With her starboard tacks a-board, my boys, she hung upon the gale,
On an autumn night we raised the light on the old head of Kinsale.

It was a clear and cloudless night, and the wind blew steady and strong,
As gaily over the sparkling deep our good ship bowled along;
With the foaming seas beneath her bow the fiery waves she spread,
And bending low her bosom of snow, she buried her lee cathead.

There was no talk of shortening sail by him who walked the poop,
And under the press of her pondering jib, the boom bent like a hoop!
And the groaning waterways told the strain that held her stout main-tack,
But he only laughed as he glanced abaft at the white and silvery track.

The mid-tide meets in the channel waves that flow from shore to shore,
And the mist hung heavy upon the land from Featherstone to Dunmore;
And that sterling light on Tusker rock, where the old bell tolls the hour,
And the beacon light that shone so bright was quenched on Waterford tower.

The nightly robes our good ship wore were her three topsails set,
The spanker and her standing jib, the spanker being fast;
“Now, lay aloft, my heroes bold, let not a moment pass!”
And royals and topgallant sails were quickly on each mast.

What looms upon the starboard bow? What hangs upon the breeze?
’Tis time our good ship hauled her wind abreast the old Saltees;
For by her ponderous press of sail and by her consorts four
We saw our morning visitor was a British man-of-war.

Up spoke our noble captain then, as a shot ahead of us passed,
“Haul snug your flowing courses, lay your topsail to the mast!”
The Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs from the deck of their covered ark,
And we answered back by a solid broadside from the decks of our patriot bark.

“Out, booms! Out, booms!” our skipper cried, “Out, booms, and give her sheet!”
And the swiftest keel that ever was launched shot ahead of the British fleet.
And amidst a thundering shower of shot, with stunsails hoisting away,
Down the North Channel Paul Jones did steer, just at the break of day.

Anonymous.

8 — The Ride of Jennie M’Neal

Paul Revere was a rider bold—
Well has his valorous deed been told;
Sheridan’s ride was a glorious one—
Often has it been dwelt upon.
But why should men do all the deeds
On which the love of a patriot feeds?
Hearken to me, while I reveal
The dashing ride of Jennie M’Neal.

On a spot as pretty as might be found
In the dangerous length of the Neutral Ground,
In a cottage, cosy, and all their own,
She and her mother lived alone.
Safe were the two, with their frugal store,
From all of the many who passed their door;
For Jennie’s mother was strange to fears,
And Jennie was large for fifteen years;
With vim her eyes were glistening,
Her hair was the hue of the blackbird’s wing;
And while the friends who knew her well
The sweetness of her heart could tell,
A gun that hung on the kitchen wall
Looked solemnly quick to heed her call;
And they who were evil-minded knew
Her nerve was strong and her aim was true.
So all kind words and acts did deal
To generous, black-eyed Jennie M’Neal.

One night when the sun had crept to bed,
And rain clouds lingered overhead,
And sent their surly drops for proof
To drum a tune on the cottage roof,
Close after a knock at the outer door,
There entered a dozen dragoons or more.
Their red coats, stained by the muddy road,
That they were British soldiers showed;
The captain his hostess bent to greet,
Saying, “Madam, please give us a bit to eat;
We will pay you well, and, if may be,
This bright-eyed girl for pouring our tea;
Then we must dash ten miles ahead,
To catch a rebel colonel abed.
He is visiting home, as doth appear;
We will make his pleasure cost him dear.”
And they fell on the hasty supper with zeal,
Close-watched the while by Jennie M’Neal.

For the gray-haired colonel they hovered near
Had been her true friend, kind and dear;
And oft, in her younger days, had he
Right proudly perched her upon his knee,
And told her stories many a one
Concerning the French war lately done.
And oft together the two friends were,
And many the arts he had taught to her;
She had hunted by his fatherly side,
He had shown her how to fence and ride;
And once had said, “The time may be,
Your skill and courage may stand by me.”
So sorrow for him she could but feel,
Brave, grateful-hearted Jennie M’Neal.

With never a thought or a moment more,
Bare-headed she slipped from the cottage door,
Ran out where the horses were left to feed,
Unhitched and mounted the captain’s steed,
And down the hilly and rock-strewn way
She urged the fiery horse of gray.
Around her slender and cloakless form
Pattered and moaned the ceaseless storm;
Secure and tight, a gloveless hand
Grasped the reins with stern command;
And full and black her long hair streamed
Whenever the ragged lightning gleamed.
And on she rushed for the colonel’s weal,
Brave, lioness-hearted Jennie M’Neal.

Hark!—From the hills, a moment mute,
Came a clatter of hoofs in hot pursuit;
And a cry from the foremost trooper said,
“Halt, or your blood be on your head!”
She heeded it not, and not in vain
She lashed the horse with the bridle rein.
So into the night the gray horse strode;
His shoes hewed fire from the rocky road;
And the highborn courage that never dies
Flashed from the rider’s coal-black eyes.
The pebbles flew from that fearful race;
The raindrops grasped at her glowing face.
“On, on, brave beast!” with loud appeal,
Cried eager, resolute Jennie M’Neal.

“Halt!” once more came the voice of dread;
“Halt, or your blood be on your head!”
Then, no one answering to the calls,
Sped after her a volley of balls.
They passed her in their rapid flight,
They screamed to her left, they screamed to her right;
But, rushing o’er the slippery track,
She sent no token of answer back,
Except a silvery laughter-peal,
Brave, merry-hearted Jennie M’Neal.

So on she rushed, at her own good will,
Through wood and valley, o’er plain and hill;
The gray horse did his duty well,
Till all at once he stumbled and fell,
Himself escaping the nets of harm,
But flinging the girl with a broken arm.
Still undismayed by the numbing pain,
She clung to the horse’s bridle rein,
And gently bidding him to stand,
Petted him with her able hand;
Then sprung again to the saddlebow,
And shouted, “One more trial now!”
As if ashamed of the heedless fall
He gathered his strength once more for all,
And, galloping down a hillside steep,
Gained on the troopers at every leap;
No more the high-bred steed did reel,
But ran his best for Jennie M’Neal.

They were a furlong behind, or more,
When the girl burst through the colonel’s door,
Her poor arm hanging helpless with pain,
And she all drabbled and drenched with rain,
But her cheeks as red as firebrands are,
And her eyes as bright as a blazing star;
And shouted, “Quick, be quick, I say!
They come! they come!—away! away!”
Then sunk on the rude white floor of deal,
Poor, brave, exhausted Jennie M’Neal.

The startled colonel sprung, and pressed
The wife and children to his breast,
And turned away from his fireside bright,
And glided into the stormy night;
Then soon and safely made his way
To where the patriot army lay.
But first he bent, in the dim firelight,
And kissed the forehead broad and white,
And blessed the girl who had ridden so well
To keep him out of a prison cell.
The girl roused up at the martial din,
Just as the troopers came rushing in,
And laughed, e’en in the midst of a moan,
Saying, “Good sirs, your bird has flown.
’Tis I who have scared him from his nest;
So deal with me now as you think best.”
But the grand young captain bowed, and said,
“Never you hold a moment’s dread.
Of womankind I must crown you queen:
So brave a girl I have never seen.
Wear this gold ring as your valor’s due,
And when peace comes I will come for you.”
But Jennie’s face an arch smile wore,
As she said, “There’s a lad in Putnam’s corps
Who told me the same, long time ago;
You two would never agree, I know.
I promised my love to be true as steel,”
Said good, sure-hearted Jennie M’Neal.

Will Carleton.

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

9 — Song of Marion’s Men

Our band is few, but true and tried,
  Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
  When Marion’s name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
  Our tent the cypress tree;
We know the forest round us
  As seamen know the sea;
We know its walls of thorny vines,
  Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
  Within the dark morass.

Woe to the English soldiery
  That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
  A strange and sudden fear;
When, waking to their tents on fire,
  They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
  Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
  A mighty host behind,
And hear the tramp of thousands
  Upon the hollow wind.

Then sweet the hour that brings release
  From danger and from toil;
We talk the battle over,
  And share the battle’s spoil.
The woodland rings with laugh and shout
  As if a hunt were up,
And woodland flowers are gathered
  To crown the soldier’s cup.
With merry songs we mock the wind
  That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly
  On beds of oaken leaves.

Well knows the fair and friendly moon
  The band that Marion leads—
The glitter of their rifles,
  The scampering of their steeds.
’Tis life to guide the fiery barb
  Across the moonlight plain;
’Tis life to feel the night-wind
  That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp—
  A moment—and away,
Back to the pathless forest
  Before the peep of day.

Grave men there are by broad Santee,
  Grave men with hoary hairs;
Their hearts are all with Marion,
  For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band,
  With kindest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
  And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
  And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton
  Forever from our shore.

William Cullen Bryant.

10 — How We Burned the “Philadelphia”

By the beard of the Prophet the Bashaw swore
  He would scourge us from the seas;
Yankees should trouble his soul no more—
By the Prophet’s beard the Bashaw swore,
  Then lighted his hookah, and took his ease,
And troubled his soul no more.

The moon was dim in the western sky,
  And a mist fell soft on the sea,
As we slipped away from the Siren brig
  And headed for Tripoli.

Behind us the hulk of the Siren lay,
  Before us the empty night;
And when again we looked behind
  The Siren was gone from our sight.

Nothing behind us, and nothing before,
  Only the silence and rain,
As the jaws of the sea took hold of our bows
  And cast us up again.

Through the rain and the silence we stole along,
  Cautious and stealthy and slow,
For we knew the waters were full of those
  Who might challenge the Mastico.

But nothing we saw till we saw the ghost
  Of the ship we had come to see,
Her ghostly lights and her ghostly frame
  Rolling uneasily.

And as we looked, the mist drew up
  And the moon threw off her veil,
And we saw the ship in the pale moonlight,
  Ghostly and drear and pale.

Then spoke Decatur low and said:
  “To the bulwarks’ shadow all!
But the six who wear the Tripoli dress
  Shall answer the sentinel’s call.”

“What ship is that?” cried the sentinel.
  “No ship,” was the answer free;
“But only a Malta ketch in distress
  Wanting to moor in your lee.

“We have lost our anchor, and wait for day
  To sail into Tripoli town,
And the sea rolls fierce and high to-night,
  So cast a cable down.”

Then close to the frigate’s side we came,
  Made fast to her unforbid—
Six of us bold in the heathen dress,
  The rest of us lying hid.

But one who saw us hiding there
  “Americano!” cried.
Then straight we rose and made a rush
  Pellmell up the frigate’s side.

Less than a hundred men were we,
  And the heathen were twenty score;
But a Yankee sailor in those old days
  Liked odds of one to four.

And first we cleaned the quarter deck,
  And then from stern to stem
We charged into our enemies
  And quickly slaughtered them.

All around was the dreadful sound
  Of corpses striking the sea,
And the awful shrieks of dying men
  In their last agony.

The heathen fought like devils all,
  But one by one they fell,
Swept from the deck by our cutlasses
  To the water, and so to hell.

Some we found in the black of the hold,
  Some to the fo’c’s’le fled,
But all in vain; we sought them out
  And left them lying dead;
Till at last no soul but Christian souls
  Upon that ship was found;
The twenty score were dead, and we,
  The hundred, safe and sound.

And, stumbling over the tangled dead,
  The deck a crimson tide,
We fired the ship from keel to shrouds
  And tumbled over the side.

Then out to sea we sailed once more,
  With the world as light as day,
And the flames revealed a hundred sail
  Of the heathen there in the bay.

All suddenly the red light paled,
  And the rain rang out on the sea;
Then—a dazzling flash, a deafening roar,
  Between us and Tripoli!

Then, nothing behind us, and nothing before,
  Only the silence and rain;
And the jaws of the sea took hold of our bows
  And cast us up again.

By the beard of the Prophet the Bashaw swore
  He would scourge us from the seas;
Yankees should trouble his soul no more—
By the Prophet’s beard the Bashaw swore.
  Then lighted his hookah, and took his ease,
And troubled his soul no more.

Barrett Eastman.

(By special permission of the author.)

11 — The “Shannon” and the “Chesapeake”

The captain of the Shannon came sailing up the bay,
A reeling wind flung out behind his pennons bright and gay;
His cannon crashed a challenge; the smoke that hid the sea
Was driven hard to windward and drifted back to lee.

The captain of the Shannon sent word into the town:
Was Lawrence there, and would he dare to sail his frigate down
And meet him at the harbor’s mouth and fight him, gun to gun,
For honor’s sake, with pride at stake, until the fight was won?

Now, long the gallant Lawrence had scoured the bitter main;
With many a scar and wound of war his ship was home again;
His crew, relieved from service, were scattered far and wide,
And scarcely one, his duty done, had lingered by his side.

But to refuse the challenge? Could he outlive the shame?
Brave men and true, but deadly few, he gathered to his fame.
Once more the great ship Chesapeake prepared her for the fight,—
“I’ll bring the foe to town in tow,” he said, “before to-night!”

High on the hills of Hingham that overlook the shore,
To watch the fray and hope and pray, for they could do no more,
The children of the country watched the children of the sea
When the smoke drove hard to windward and drifted back to lee.

“How can he fight,” they whispered, “with only half a crew,
Though they be rare to do and dare, yet what can brave men do?”
But when the Chesapeake came down, the Stars and Stripes on high,
Stilled was each fear, and cheer on cheer resounded to the sky.

The captain of the Shannon, he swore both long and loud:
“This victory, where’er it be, shall make two nations proud!
Now onward to this victory or downward to defeat!
A sailor’s life is sweet with strife, a sailor’s death as sweet.”

And as when lightnings rend the sky and gloomy thunders roar,
And crashing surge plays devil’s dirge upon the stricken shore,
With thunder and with sheets of flame the two ships rang with shot,
And every gun burst forth a sun of iron crimson-hot.

And twice they lashed together and twice they tore apart,
And iron balls burst wooden walls and pierced each oaken heart.
Still from the hills of Hingham men watched with hopes and fears,
While all the bay was torn that day with shot that rained like tears.

The tall masts of the Chesapeake went groaning by the board;
The Shannon’s spars were weak with scars when Broke cast down his sword:
“Now woe,” he cried, “to England, and shame and woe to me!”
The smoke drove hard to windward and drifted back to lee.

“Give them one breaking broadside more,” he cried, “before we strike!”
But one grim ball that ruined all for hope and home alike
Laid Lawrence low in glory, yet from his pallid lip
Rang to the land his last command: “Boys, don’t give up the ship!”
.......
The wounded wept like women when they hauled her ensign down.
Men’s cheeks were pale as with the tale from Hingham to the town
They hurried swift in silence, while toward the eastern night
The victor bore away from shore and vanished out of sight.

Hail to the great ship Chesapeake! Hail to the hero brave
Who fought her fast, and loved her last, and shared her sudden grave!
And glory be to those that died, for all eternity;
They lie apart at the mother-heart of God’s eternal sea.

Thomas Tracy Bouvé.

(By special permission of the author, and of The Youth’s Companion.)

12 — The Fight of the “Armstrong” Privateer

      Tell the story to your sons
        Of the gallant days of yore,
      When the brig of seven guns
        Fought the fleet of seven score,
From the set of sun till morn, through the long September night—
Ninety men against two thousand, and the ninety won the fight
        In the harbor of Fayal the Azore.

Three lofty British ships came a-sailing to Fayal:
One was a line-of-battle ship, and two were frigates tall;
Nelson’s valiant men of war, brave as Britons ever are,
Manned the guns they served so well at Aboukir and Trafalgar.
Lord Dundonald and his fleet at Jamaica far away
Waited eager for their coming, fretted sore at their delay.
There was loot for British valor on the Mississippi coast
In the beauty and the booty that the Creole cities boast;
There were rebel knaves to swing, there were prisoners to bring
Home in fetters to old England for the glory of the King!

At the setting of the sun and the ebbing of the tide
Came the great ships one by one, with their portals opened wide,
And their cannon frowning down on the castle and the town
And the privateer that lay close inside;
Came the eighteen-gun Carnation, and the Rota, forty-four,
And the triple-decked Plantagenet an Admiral’s pennon bore;
And the privateer grew smaller as their topmasts towered taller,
And she bent her springs and anchored by the castle on the shore.

Spoke the noble Portuguese to the stranger: “Have no fear;
They are neutral waters these, and your ship is sacred here
As if fifty stout armadas stood to shelter you from harm,
For the honor of the Briton will defend you from his arm.”
But the privateersman said, “Well we know the Englishmen,
And their faith is written red in the Dartmoor slaughter-pen.
Come what fortune God may send, we will fight them to the end,
And the mercy of the sharks may spare us then.”

“Seize the pirate where she lies!” cried the English Admiral:
“If the Portuguese protect her, all the worse for Portugal!”
And four launches at his bidding leaped impatient for the fray,
Speeding shoreward where the Armstrong, grim and dark and ready, lay.
Twice she hailed and gave them warning; but the feeble menace scorning,
On they came in splendid silence, till a cable’s length away.
Then the Yankee pivot spoke; Pico’s thousand echoes woke;
And four baffled, beaten launches drifted helpless on the bay.

Then the wrath of Lloyd arose till the lion roared again,
And he called out all his launches and he called five hundred men;
And he gave the word “No quarter!” and he sent them forth to smite.
Heaven help the foe before him when the Briton comes in might!
Heaven helped the little Armstrong in her hour of bitter need;
God Almighty nerved the heart and guided well the arm of Reid.

Launches to port and starboard, launches forward and aft,
Fourteen launches together striking the little craft.
They hacked at the boarding-nettings, they swarmed above the rail;
But the Long Tom roared from his pivot and the grapeshot fell like hail;
Pike and pistol and cutlass, and hearts that knew not fear,
Bulwarks of brawn and mettle, guarded the privateer.
And ever where fight was fiercest the form of Reid was seen:
Ever where foes drew nearest, his quick sword fell between.
        Once in the deadly strife
          The boarder’s leader pressed
          Forward of all the rest
        Challenging life for life;
          But ere their blades had crossed
          A dying sailor tossed
        His pistol to Reid, and cried,
        “Now riddle the lubber’s hide!”
But the privateersman laughed, and flung the weapon aside,
And he drove his blade to the hilt, and the foeman gasped and died.
Then the boarders took to their launches, laden with hurt and dead,
But little with glory burdened, and out of the battle fled.

Now the tide was at flood again, and the night was almost done,
When the sloop-of-war came up with her odds of two to one,
And she opened fire; but the Armstrong answered her, gun for gun,
And the gay Carnation wilted in half an hour of sun.

Then the Armstrong, looking seaward, saw the mighty seventy-four,
With her triple tier of cannon, drawing slowly to the shore.
And the dauntless captain said: “Take our wounded and our dead,
Bear them tenderly to land, for the Armstrong’s days are o’er;
But no foe shall tread her deck, and no flag above it wave—
To the ship that saved our honor we will give a shipman’s grave.”
So they did as he commanded, and they bore their mates to land
With the figurehead of Armstrong and the good sword in his hand.
Then they turned the Long Tom downward, and they pierced her oaken side,
And they cheered her, and they blessed her, and they sunk her in the tide.
        Tell the story to your sons,
          When the haughty stranger boasts
        Of his mighty ships and guns
          And the muster of his hosts,
How the word of God was witnessed in the gallant days of yore
When the twenty fled from one ere the rising of the sun,
        In the harbor of Fayal the Azore!

James Jeffrey Roche.

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

13 — The Men of the Alamo

To Houston at Gonzales town, ride, Ranger, for your life,
Nor stop to say good-by to-day to home, or child, or wife;
But pass the word from ranch to ranch, to every Texan sword,
That fifty hundred Mexicans have crossed the Nueces ford,
With Castrillon and perjured Cos, Sesmá and Almontê,
And Santa Anna ravenous for vengeance and for prey!
They smite the land with fire and sword; the grass shall never grow
Where northward sweeps that locust horde on San Antonio!

Now who will bar the foeman’s path, to gain a breathing space,
Till Houston and his scattered men shall meet him face to face?
Who holds his life as less than naught when home and honor call,
And counts the guerdon full and fair for liberty to fall?
Oh, who but Barrett Travis, the bravest of them all!
With seven score of riflemen to play the rancher’s game,
And feed a counter-fire to halt the sweeping prairie flame;
For Bowie of the broken blade is there to cheer them on,
With Evans of Concepcion, who conquered Castrillon,
And o’er their heads the Lone Star flag defiant floats on high,
And no man thinks of yielding, and no man fears to die.

But ere the siege is held a week a cry is heard without,
A clash of arms, a rifle peal, the Ranger’s ringing shout,
And two-and-thirty beardless boys have bravely hewed their way
To die with Travis if they must, to conquer if they may.
Was ever valor held so cheap in Glory’s mart before
In all the days of chivalry, in all the deeds of war?
But once again the foemen gaze in wonderment and fear
To see a stranger break their lines and hear the Texans cheer.
God! how they cheered to welcome him, those spent and starving men!
For Davy Crockett by their side was worth an army then.
The wounded ones forgot their wounds; the dying drew a breath
To hail the king of border men, then turned to laugh at death.
For all knew Davy Crockett, blithe and generous as bold,
And strong and rugged as the quartz that hides its heart of gold.
His simple creed for word or deed true as the bullet sped,
And rung the target straight: “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead!”

And were they right who fought the fight for Texas by his side?
They questioned not; they faltered not; they only fought and died.
Who hath an enemy like these, God’s mercy slay him straight!—
A thousand Mexicans lay dead outside the convent gate,
And half a thousand more must die before the fortress falls,
And still the tide of war beats high around the leaguered walls.
At last the bloody breach is won; the weakened lines give way;
The wolves are swarming in the court; the lions stand at bay.
The leader meets them at the breach, and wins the soldier’s prize;
A foeman’s bosom sheathes his sword when gallant Travis dies.
Now let the victor feast at will until his crest be red—
We may not know what raptures fill the vulture with the dead.

Let Santa Anna’s valiant sword right bravely hew and hack
The senseless corse; its hands are cold; they will not strike him back.
Let Bowie die, but ’ware the hand that wields his deadly knife;
Four went to slay, and one comes back, so dear he sells his life.
And last of all let Crockett fall, too proud to sue for grace,
So grand in death the butcher dared not look upon his face.

But far on San Jacinto’s field the Texan toils are set,
And Alamo’s dread memory the Texan steel shall whet.
And Fame shall tell their deeds who fell till all the years be run.
“Thermopylæ left one alive—the Alamo left none.”

James Jeffrey Roche.

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

14 — The Fight at the San Jacinto

“Now for a brisk and a cheerful fight!”
  Said Harman, big and droll,
As he coaxed his flint and steel for a light,
  And puffed at his cold clay bowl;
“For we are a skulking lot,” says he,
  “Of land-thieves hereabout,
And the bold señores, two to one,
  Have come to smoke us out.”

Santa Anna and Castrillon,
  Almontê brave and gay,
Portilla red from Goliad,
  And Cos with his smart array.
Dulces and cigaritos,
  And the light guitar, ting-tum!
Sant’ Anna courts siesta—
  And Sam Houston taps his drum.

The buck stands still in the timber—
  “Is it patter of nuts that fall?”
The foal of the wild mare whinnies—
  “Did he hear the Comanche call?”
In the brake by the crawling bayou
  The slinking she-wolves howl,
And the mustang’s snort in the river sedge
  Has startled the paddling fowl.

A soft low tap, and a muffled tap,
  And a roll not loud nor long—
We would not break Sant’ Anna’s nap,
  Nor spoil Almontê’s song.
Saddles and knives and rifles!
  Lord! but the men were glad
When Deaf Smith muttered “Alamo!”
  And Karnes hissed “Goliad!”

The drummer tucked his sticks in his belt,
  And the fifer gripped his gun.
Oh, for one free, wild Texan yell,
  And we took the slope in a run!
But never a shout nor a shot we spent,
  Nor an oath nor a prayer that day,
Till we faced the bravos, eye to eye,
  And then we blazed away.

Then we knew the rapture of Ben Milam,
  And the glory that Travis made,
With Bowie’s lunge and Crockett’s shot,
  And Fannin’s dancing blade;
And the heart of the fighter, bounding free
  In his joy so hot and mad—
When Millard charged for Alamo,
  Lamar for Goliad.

Deaf Smith rode straight, with reeking spur,
  Into the shock and rout:
“I’ve hacked and burned the bayou bridge,
  There’s no sneak’s back-way out!”
Muzzle or butt for Goliad,
  Pistol and blade and fist!
Oh, for the knife that never glanced,
  And the gun that never missed!

Dulces and cigaritos,
  Song and the mandolin!
That gory swamp was a gruesome grove
  To dance fandangos in.
We bridged the bog with the sprawling herd
  That fell in that frantic rout;
We slew and slew till the sun set red,
  And the Texan star flashed out.

John Williamson Palmer.

(By special permission of the author, and of Herbert S. Stone and
Company.)

15 — Monterey

We were not many—we who stood
  Before the iron sleet that day;
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if he but could
  Have been with us at Monterey.

Now here, now there, the shot it hailed
  In deadly drifts of fiery spray,
Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades round them wailed
  Their dying shout at Monterey.

And on, still on, our column kept,
  Through walls of flame, its withering way;
Where fell the dead the living stept,
Still charging on the guns which swept
  The slippery streets of Monterey.

The foe himself recoiled aghast,
  When, striking where he strongest lay,
We swooped his flanking batteries past,
And, braving full their murderous blast,
  Stormed home the towers of Monterey.

Our banners on those turrets wave,
  And there our evening bugles play,
Where orange boughs above their grave
Keep green the memory of the brave
  Who fought and fell at Monterey.

We are not many—we who pressed
  Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us has not confessed
He’d rather share their warrior rest
  Than not have been at Monterey?

Charles Fenno Hoffman.

16 — The Defense of Lawrence

All night upon the guarded hill,
  Until the stars were low,
Wrapped round as with Jehovah’s will,
  We waited for the foe;
All night the silent sentinels
  Moved by like gliding ghosts;
All night the fancied warning bells
  Held all men to their posts.

We heard the sleeping prairies breathe,
  The forest’s human moans,
The hungry gnashing of the teeth
  Of wolves on bleaching bones;
We marked the roar of rushing fires,
  The neigh of frightened steeds,
The voices as of far-off lyres
  Among the river reeds.

We were but thirty-nine who lay
  Beside our rifles then;
We were but thirty-nine, and they
  Were twenty hundred men.
Our lean limbs shook and reeled about,
  Our feet were gashed and bare,
And all the breezes shredded out
  Our garments in the air.
.......
They came: the blessed Sabbath day,
  That soothed our swollen veins,
Like God’s sweet benediction, lay
  On all the singing plains;
The valleys shouted to the sun,
  The great woods clapped their hands,
And joy and glory seemed to run
  Like rivers through the lands.

And then our daughters and our wives,
  And men whose heads were white,
Rose sudden into kingly lives
  And walked forth to the fight;
And we drew aim along our guns
  And calmed our quickening breath,
Then, as is meet for Freedom’s sons,
  Shook loving hands with Death.

And when three hundred of the foe
  Rode up in scorn and pride,
Whoso had watched us then might know
  That God was on our side;
For all at once a mighty thrill
  Of grandeur through us swept,
And strong and swiftly down the hill
  Like Gideons we leapt.

And all throughout that Sabbath day
  A wall of fire we stood,
And held the baffled foe at bay,
  And streaked the ground with blood.
And when the sun was very low
  They wheeled their stricken flanks,
And passed on, wearily and slow,
  Beyond the river banks.

Beneath the everlasting stars
  We bended child-like knees,
And thanked God for the shining scars
  Of His large victories.
And some, who lingered, said they heard
  Such wondrous music pass
As though a seraph’s voice had stirred
  The pulses of the grass.

Richard Realf.

(From Poems, by Richard Realf. Copyright, Funk and Wagnalls
Company, 1898. By special permission.)

17 — Blood Is Thicker Than Water

Ebbed and flowed the muddy Pei-Ho by the Gulf of Pechi-Li,
  Near its waters swung the yellow dragon-flag;
Past the batteries of China, looking westward we could see
  Lazy junks along the lazy river lag;
Villagers in near-by Ta-Kou toiled beneath their humble star,
  On the flats the ugly mud-fort lay and dreamed;
While the Powhatan swung slowly at her station by the bar,
  While the Toey-Wan with Tattnall onward steamed.

Lazy East and lazy river, fort of mud in lazy June,
  English gunboats through the waters slowly fare,
With the dragon-flag scarce moving in the lazy afternoon
  O’er the mud-heap storing venom in the glare.
We were on our way to Pekin, to the Son of Heaven’s throne,
  White with peace was all our mission to his court;
Peaceful, too, the English vessels on the turbid waters strown,
  Seeking passage up to Pekin past the fort.

By the bar lay half the English, while the rest with gallant Hope
  Wrestled with the slipping ebb-tide up the stream;
They had cleared the Chinese irons, reached the doubled chain and rope
  Where the ugly mud-fort scowled upon their beam;—
Crash! the heavens split asunder with the thunder of the fight
  As the hateful dragon made its faith a mock;
Every cannon spat its perfidy, each casemate blazed its spite,
  Dashing down upon the English, shock on shock.

In his courage Rason perished, bold McKenna fought and fell,
  Scores were dying as they’d lived, like valiant men;
And the meteor flag that upward prayed to heaven from that hell
  Wept below for those who ne’er should weep again.
Far away the English launches near the Powhatan swung slow,
  All despairing, useless, out of reach of war,
Saw their comrades in the battle, saw them reel beneath the blow,
  Lying helpless ’gainst the ebb-tide by the bar.

On the Toey-Wan stood Tattnall, Stephen Trenchard at his side,—
  “Old Man” Tattnall, he who dared at Vera Cruz,—
Saw here, crippled by the cannon, saw there, throttled by the tide,
  Men of English blood and speech: Could he refuse?
“I’ll be damned,” says he to Trenchard, “if ‘Old’ Tattnall’s standing by
  Seeing white men butchered here by such a foe!
Where’s my barge? No side-arms, mind you! See the English fight and die!
  Blood is thicker, sir, than water. Let us go!”

Quick we man the barge, and quicker plunge into that devil’s-brew—
  “An official call,” and Tattnall went in state:
Trenchard’s hurt, our flag in ribbons, and the lunging boat shot through,
  Hart, our coxswain, dies beneath the Chinese hate;
But the cheers those English give us as we gain their Admiral’s ship
  Make the shattered barge and weary arms seem light—
Then the rare smile from “Old” Tattnall and Hope’s hearty word and grip,
  Bleeding though he was, and brave in hell’s despite.

Tattnall nods and we go forward, find a gun no longer fought—
  What is peace to us, when all its crew lie dead?
One bright English lad brings powder and a wounded man brings shot,
  And we scotch that Chinese dragon, tail and head.
Hands are shaken, faith is plighted, sounds our captain’s cheery call;
  In a borrowed boat we speed us fast and far,
And the Toey-Wan and Tattnall down the ebb-tide slide and fall
  To the launches lying moaning by the bar.

Eager for an English vengeance, battle light on every face,
  See, the Clustered Stars lead on the Triple Cross!
Cheering, swinging into action, valiant Hope takes heart of grace
  From the cannons’ cloudy roar, the lanyards’ toss.
How they fought, those fighting English! how they cheered the Toey-Wan,
  Cheered our sailors, cheered “Old” Tattnall, grim and gray!
And their cheers ring down the ages as they rang beneath the sun
  O’er those bubbling, troubled waters far away.

Ebbs and flows the muddy Pei-Ho by the Gulf of Pechi-Li,
  Idly floats beside the stream the dragon-flag;
Past the batteries of China, looking westward still you see
  Lazy junks along the lazy river lag.
Let the long, long years drop slowly on that lost and ancient land,
  Ever dear one scene to hearts of gallant men:
There’s a hand-clasp and a heart-throb, there’s a word we understand—
  “Blood is thicker, sir, than water,” now as then.

Wallace Rice.

(By special permission of the author.)

18 — Bethel

We mustered at midnight, in darkness we formed,
And the whisper went round of a fort to be stormed;
But no drum-beat had called us, no trumpet we heard,
And no voice of command but our colonel’s low word—
        “Column! Forward!”

And out, through the mist and the murk of the morn,
From the beaches of Hampton our barges were borne;
And we heard not a sound save the sweep of the oar,
Till the word of our colonel came up from the shore—
        “Column! Forward!”

With hearts bounding bravely and eyes all alight,
As ye dance to soft music, so trod we that night;
Through the aisles of the greenwood, with vines overarched,
Tossing dew-drops like gems from our feet, as we marched—
        “Column! Forward!”

As ye dance with the damsels to viol and flute,
So we skipped from the shadows and mocked their pursuit;
But the soft zephyrs chased us, with scents of the morn,
As we passed by the hayfields and green waving corn—
        “Column! Forward!”

For the leaves were all laden with fragrance of June,
And the flowers and the foliage with sweets were in tune;
And the air was so calm, and the forest so dumb,
That we heard our own heart-beats like taps of a drum—
        “Column! Forward!”

Till the lull of the lowlands was stirred by a breeze,
And the buskins of morn brushed the tops of the trees,
And the glintings of glory that slid from her track
By the sheen of our rifles were gayly flung back—
        “Column! Forward!”

And the woodlands grew purple with sunshiny mist,
And the blue-crested hill-tops with rose-light were kissed,
And the earth gave her prayers to the sun in perfumes,
Till we marched as through gardens, and trampled on blooms—
        “Column! Forward!”

Aye, trampled on blossoms, and seared the sweet breath
Of the greenwood with low-brooding vapors of death;
O’er the flowers and the corn we were borne like a blast,
And away to the forefront of battle we passed—
        “Column! Forward!”

For the cannon’s hoarse thunder roared out from the glades,
And the sun was like lightning on banners and blades,
When the long line of chanting Zouaves, like a flood,
From the green of the woodlands rolled, crimson as blood—
        “Column! Forward!”

While the sound of their song, like the surge of the seas,
With the Star Spangled Banner swelled over the leas;
And the sword of Duryea, like a torch, led the way,
Bearing down on the batteries of Bethel that day—
        “Column! Forward!”

Through green-tasseled cornfields our columns were thrown,
And like corn by the red scythe of fire we were mown;
While the cannon’s fierce plowings new-furrowed the plain,
That our blood might be planted for Liberty’s grain—
        “Column! Forward!”

Oh, the fields of fair June have no lack of sweet flowers,
But their rarest and best breathe no fragrance like ours!
And the sunshine of June, sprinkling gold on the corn,
Hath no harvest that ripeneth like Bethel’s red morn—
        “Column! Forward!”

When our heroes, like bridegrooms, with lips and with breath
Drank the first kiss of Danger and clasped her in death;
And the heart of brave Winthrop grew mute as his lyre,
When the plumes of his genius lay moulting in fire—
        “Column! Forward!”

Where he fell shall be sunshine as bright as his name,
And the grass where he slept shall be green as his fame;
For the gold of the pen and the steel of the sword
Write his deeds, in his blood, on the land he adored—
        “Column! Forward!”

And the soul of our comrade shall sweeten the air,
And the flowers and the grass-blades his memory up-bear;
While the breath of his genius, like music in leaves,
With the corn-tassels whispers, and sings in the sheaves—
        “Column! Forward!”

Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne.

19 — The Charge by the Ford

Eighty and nine, with their captain,
  Rode on the enemy’s track.
Rode in the gray of the morning—
  Nine of the ninety came back.

Slow rose the mist from the river,
  Lighter each moment the way;
Careless and tearless and fearless
  Galloped they on to the fray.

Singing in tune, how the scabbards
  Loud on the stirrup-irons rang!
Clinked as the men rose in saddle,
  Fell, as they sank, with a clang.

What is it moves by the river,
  Jaded, and weary, and weak?
Graybacks,—a cross on their banner,—
  Yonder the foe whom they seek.

Silence! they see not, they hear not,
  Tarrying there by the marge;
Forward! draw sabre! trot! gallop!
  Charge! like a hurricane—Charge!

Ah, ’twas a man-trap infernal!—
  Fire like the deep pit of hell!
Volley on volley to meet them,
  Mixed with the gray rebels’ yell.

Ninety had ridden to battle,
  Tracing the enemy’s track,—
Ninety had ridden to battle;
  Nine of the ninety came back.

Honor the name of the ninety!
  Honor the heroes who came
Scathless from five hundred muskets,
  Safe from the lead-bearing flame!

Eighty and one of the troopers
  Lie on the field of the slain,—
Lie on the red field of honor;
  Honor the nine who remain!

Cold are the dead there, and gory,
  There where their life-blood was spilt;
Back come the living, each sabre
  Red from the point to the hilt.

Up with three cheers and a “tiger!”
  Let the flags wave as they come!
Give them the blare of the trumpet!
  Give them the roll of the drum!

Thomas Dunn English.

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

20 — The Little Drummer

’Tis of a little drummer,
  The story I shall tell;
Of how he marched to battle,
  Of all that there befell.
Out in the west with Lyon
  (For once the name was true!)
For whom the little drummer beat
  His rat-tat-too.

Our army rose at midnight,
  Ten thousand men as one,
Each slinging off his knapsack
  And snatching up his gun.
“Forward!” and off they started,
  As all good soldiers do,
When the little drummer beats for them
  The rat-tat-too.

Across a rolling country,
  Where the mist began to rise;
Past many a blackened farmhouse,
  Till the sun was in the skies;
Then we met the rebel pickets,
  Who skirmished and withdrew,
While the little drummer beat, and beat
  The rat-tat-too.

Along the wooded hollows
  The line of battle ran,
Our center poured a volley,
  And the fight at once began;
For the rebels answered shouting,
  And a shower of bullets flew;
But still the little drummer beat
  His rat-tat-too.

He stood among his comrades,
  As they quickly formed the line,
And when they raised their muskets
  He watched the barrels shine.
When the volley rang, he started,
  For war to him was new;
But still the little drummer beat
  His rat-tat-too.

It was a sight to see them,
  That early autumn day,
Our soldiers in their blue coats,
  And the rebel ranks in gray;
The smoke that rolled between them,
  The balls that whistled through,
And the little drummer as he beat
  His rat-tat-too!

His comrades dropped around him,—
  By fives and tens they fell,
Some pierced by minie bullets,
  Some torn by shot and shell;
They played against our cannon,
  And a caisson’s splinters flew;
But still the little drummer beat
  His rat-tat-too!

The right, the left, the center,—
  The fight was everywhere;
They pushed us here,—we wavered,—
  We drove and broke them there.
The graybacks fixed their bayonets,
  And charged the coats of blue,
But still the little drummer beat
  His rat-tat-too!

“Where is our little drummer?”
  His nearest comrades say,
When the dreadful fight is over,
  And the smoke has cleared away.
As the rebel corps was scattering
  He urged them to pursue,
So furiously he beat, and beat
  The rat-tat-too!

He stood no more among them,
  For a bullet, as it sped,
Had glanced and struck his ankle,
  And stretched him with the dead!
He crawled behind a cannon,
  And pale and paler grew;
But still the little drummer beat
  His rat-tat-too!

They bore him to the surgeon,
  A busy man was he:
“A drummer boy—what ails him?”
  His comrades answered, “See!”
As they took him from the stretcher
  A heavy breath he drew,
And his little fingers strove to beat
  The rat-tat-too!

The ball had spent its fury:
  “A scratch!” the surgeon said,
As he wound the snowy bandage
  Which the lint was staining red.
“I must leave you now, old fellow!”
  “Oh, take me back with you,
For I know the men are missing me
  And the rat-tat-too!”

Upon his comrade’s shoulder
  They lifted him so grand,
With his dusty drum before him,
  And his drumsticks in his hand!
To the fiery front of battle,
  That nearer, nearer drew,—
And evermore he beat, and beat
  His rat-tat-too!

The wounded as he passed them
  Looked up and gave a cheer;
And one in dying blessed him,
  Between a smile and tear.
And the graybacks—they are flying
  Before the coats of blue,
For whom the little drummer beats
  His rat-tat-too.

When the west was red with sunset,
  The last pursuit was o’er;
Brave Lyon rode the foremost,
  And looked the name he bore.
And before him on his saddle,
  As a weary child would do,
Sat the little drummer, fast asleep,
  With his rat-tat-too.

Richard Henry Stoddard.

(By special permission of the author.)

21 — The Cumberland

At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
  On board of the Cumberland, sloop-of-war;
And at times from the fortress across the bay
    The alarum of drums swept past,
    Or a bugle blast
  From the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uprose
  A little feather of snow-white smoke,
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
    Was steadily steering its course
    To try the force
  Of our ribs of oak.

Down upon us heavily runs,
  Silent and sullen, the floating fort;
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,
    And leaps the terrible death,
    With fiery breath,
  From each open port.

We are not idle, but send her straight
  Defiance back in a full broadside!
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,
    Rebounds our heavier hail
    From each iron scale
  Of the monster’s hide.

“Strike your flag!” the rebel cries,
  In his arrogant old plantation strain.
“Never!” our gallant Morris replies;
    “It is better to sink than to yield!”
    And the whole air pealed
  With the cheers of our men.

Then, like a kraken huge and black,
  She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,
    With a sudden shudder of death,
    And the cannon’s breath
  For her dying gasp.

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,
  Still floated our flag at the mainmast head,
Lord, how beautiful was Thy day!
    Every waft of the air
    Was a whisper of prayer,
  Or a dirge for the dead.

Ho, brave hearts that went down in the seas!
  Ye are at peace in the troubled stream;
Ho, brave land, with hearts like these,
    Thy flag, that is rent in twain,
    Shall be one again,
  And without a seam!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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

22 — Johnston at Shiloh — A Confederate Soldier’s Story

’Mid dim and solemn forests, in the dawning chill and gray,
Over dank, unrustling leaves, or through stiff and sodden clay,
With never a fife or bugle, or mutter of rumbling drum,
With shivering forms and solemn souls the Southern soldiers come;
Their long lines vanishing in mist as onward they are sweeping,
With step as silent as the dawn’s, to where the foe is sleeping.
A challenge!—“Halt!”—The expected shot,—and then a dozen more,
Like pebbles pattering down the steep the avalanche before;
And then a rush, and then a yell, and then a blinding glare,
And then a crash to lift the feet resounding everywhere!
Now vanish chill and solemn thoughts, now burns the frenzied blood;
The tottering tents toss to and fro upon the driving flood,
And the campfires flash and darken fast beneath the masses’ tread—
Now smoke behind in scattered brands ’mid wounded men and dead.
And forward crowd the fugitives in panic-driven race;
In vain in bush, ravine, and brake they hunt a hiding-place;
For still that long line onward sweeps unbroken far and near,
As War himself, with pinions bowed, were screaming in their rear.

But far beyond the panic’s reach the foe is forming fast,
And in our path stands rank on rank of long battalions massed.
Now, Southern soldiers, nerve your hearts and gather up your strength,
The time of trial waited for is come to you at length!
A hundred pieces open, and their shrieking missiles pour,
While full ten thousand muskets flash and mingle in the roar,
Till the cannon’s boom is swallowed in the din of musketry,
As the booming of the ocean when the thunders crash on high.
But momently our laboring lines are charging o’er the field,
And forcing back the stubborn ranks that only inches yield;
For at every fence they rally and oppose our surging flood,
Till their dead lie heaped before us wherever they have stood.
A Southern regiment there is matched against a full brigade,
And not a hundred yards apart in open field arrayed;
A brook half way between them through a copse of willows glides,
There’s not a rock, fence, log, or tree to shelter ours besides.
But stubbornly, undauntedly, with ne’er a cheer or shout,
With hands too busy for their lips they deal their volleys out.

Again the battle gathers strength on yonder wooded hill,
Behind whose awful batteries fresh ranks are forming still;
A reeking veil of undergrowth divides the hostile lines,
But lurid through its tangled web the vivid lightning shines!
And so affrighting Death appears behind that dreadful pall,
The stoutest spirit hesitates and flinches from his call.
Now who will pierce that curtain dire and meet the battle’s brunt,
Before their armies gather there and burst upon our front?
Again the stern, portentous cry of “bayonets” is heard,
But not again the serried line springs forward at the word;
Behind the trees as skirmishers the cowering soldiers hide,
And from afar the harmless trade of musket balls is plied.
In vain, in vain their leaders shout, they cannot make them stir,
But perish singly in the lead with scarce a follower!

But hark, a sound of hoofs behind, a clang of sabres loud!
I see a squad of mighty men go by me like a cloud!
As the immortals rode to war when Hector fought for Troy,
These ride, as if immortals, too, inspired with awful joy.
Before them spurs their leader with a form that fills the air,
So does his bearing fill their eyes, as if a god were there!
Look how he goes to battle with a glory on his brow,
As if prophetic Victory held laurels o’er it now!
They are racing to the rescue: it is Johnston rides before;
God grant they be in time to turn the battle’s tide once more!
I hear their shoutings in the din; I hear the cries to “form,”
I see a stiffening battle-line take shape within the swarm;
And again the rank advances with an impetus of wrath,
Their chieftain’s rage in every heart impels them on their path.
A thousand rifles leveled low, but every rifle dumb,
The beating of a thousand feet upon a monster drum,
A surging of the war cloud as they disappear beneath,
A sickening of the spirit and a gasping of the breath;
Redoubled din—a lull—a cheer; I would the smoke would go!
Oh, see our swooping battle flags! Oh, see the fleeing foe!
Now glory to those gallant men! and Father, to Thy hand
To-morrow shall our praises ring throughout our stricken land!

But where is he who rallied them? I miss his charger there;
I see him now ’midst yonder three whose saddles all are bare;
And two men staggering with a load this side of them I see;
Oh, who is it they carry in their arms so tenderly?
They lay him gently on the leaves. Ah, well I know him now!
I know that lordly figure and that grand imperial brow!
’Tis he; but oh, how prostrate is that form which filled the air!
And his the pallid face; but look, the glory still is there!

Oh, ye daughters of Kentucky, ere your pæans are begun,
Your lips shall falter when they tell how Shiloh’s fight was won!
Your hands shall weave the victor crown of laurels, but in vain;
His marble brow shall never feel, nor pulse beat quick again.
Oh, South, be sure a heart so pure had never loved so well!
A country which had wronged him sore he pardoned ere he fell.

Fleming James.

23 — The River Fight

Would you hear of the river fight?
It was two of a soft spring night;
God’s stars looked down on all,
And all was clear and bright
But the low fog’s chilling breath;—
Up the River of Death
Sailed the great Admiral.

On our high poop-deck he stood,
And round him ranged the men
Who have made their birthright good
Of manhood once and again,—
Lords of helm and of sail,
Tried in tempest and gale.

Who could fail with him?
Who reckon of life or limb?
Not a pulse but beat the higher!
There had you seen, by the starlight dim
Five hundred faces strong and grim;
The Flag is going under fire!
Right up by the fort
With her helm hard aport,
The Hartford is going under fire!

First, as we answered their flash,
’Twas lightning and black eclipse,
With a bellowing roll and crash.
But soon upon either bow,
What with forts and fire-rafts and ships,
(The whole fleet was hard at it now,
All pounding away!) and Porter
Still thundering with shell and mortar,—
’Twas the mighty sound and form
Of an equatorial storm.

But, as we worked along higher,
Just where the river enlarges,
Down came a pyramid of fire,—
It was one of your long coal barges.
(We had oft had the like before!)
’Twas coming down to larboard,
Well in with the eastern shore.
And our pilot, to let it pass round,
(You may guess we never stopped to sound,)
Giving us a rank sheer to starboard,
Ran the Flag hard and fast aground!

’Twas nigh abreast of the upper fort,
And straightway a rascal ram
(She was shaped like the devil’s dam!)
Puffed away for us, with a snort,
And shoved it, with spiteful strength,
Right alongside of us, to port;—
It was all of our ship’s length,
A huge crackling cradle of the pit,
Pitch-pine knots to the brim,
Belching flame red and grim;—
What a roar came up from it!

In a twinkling the flames had risen
Half way to the main-top and mizzen,
Darting up the shrouds like snakes!
Ah, how we clanked at the brakes!
And the deep steam-pumps throbbed under,
Sending a ceaseless flow;—
Our top-men, a dauntless crowd,
Swarmed in rigging and shroud;—
There, (’twas a wonder!)
The burning ratlins and strands
They quenched with their bare hard hands;
But the great guns below
Never silenced their thunder!

At last, by backing and sounding,
When we were clear of grounding,
And under headway once more,
The whole rebel fleet came rounding
The point;—if we had it hot before,
’Twas now, from shore to shore,
One long, loud thundering roar,—
Such crashing, splintering, and pounding,
And smashing as you never heard before!
For all above was battle,
Broadside, and blaze, and rattle,
Smoke and thunder alone!—
(But, down in the sick-bay,
Where our wounded and dying lay,
There was scarce a sob or a moan.)

And at last, when the dim day broke,
And the sullen sun awoke,
Drearily blinking
O’er the haze and the cannon-smoke,
That ever such morning dulls,
There were thirteen hulls
On fire and sinking!

And on the dolorous strand,
To greet the victor-brave,
One flag did welcome wave,
Raised, ah, me! by a wretched hand,
All outworn on our cruel land,
The withered hand of a slave!

’Tis well to do and dare,—
But ever may grateful prayer
Follow, as aye it ought,
When the good fight is fought,
When the true deed is done!
Aloft in heaven’s pure light,
(Deep azure crossed on white)
Our fair church-pennant waves
O’er a thousand thankful braves,
Bareheaded in God’s bright sun.

Henry Howard Brownell.

24 — Kearny at Seven Pines

So that soldierly legend is still on its journey,—
  That story of Kearny who knew not to yield!
’Twas the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney,
  Against twenty thousand he rallied the field.
Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest,
  Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine,
Where the aim from the thicket was surest and nighest,—
  No charge like Phil Kearny’s along the whole line.

When the battle went ill, and the bravest were solemn,
  Near the dark Seven Pines, where we still held our ground,
He rode down the length of the withering column,
  And his heart at our war-cry leapt up with a bound;
He snuffed, like his charger, the wind of the powder,—
  His sword waved us on and we answered the sign:
Loud our cheer as we rushed, but his laugh rang the louder,
  “There’s the devil’s own fun, boys, along the whole line!”

How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten
  In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth!
He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten,
  But his soldier’s glance shot from his visor beneath.
Up came the reserves to the mellay infernal,
  Asking where to go in,—through the clearing or pine?
“Oh, anywhere! Forward! ’Tis all the same, Colonel:
  You’ll find lovely fighting along the whole line!”

Oh, evil the black shroud of night at Chantilly,
  That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried!
Foul, foul sped the bullet that clipped the white lily,
  The flower of our knighthood, the whole army’s pride!
Yet we dream that he still,—in that shadowy region
  Where the dead form their ranks at the wan drummer’s sign,—
Rides on, as of old, down the length of his legion,
  And the word still is “Forward!” along the whole line.

Edmund Clarence Stedman.

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

25 — An Unknown Hero

Sweet Malvern Hill is wreathed in flame,
  From serried ranks the steel is gleaming;
Our legions march to death and fame,
  Their battle flags right wildly streaming.
Each hero bares his manly breast,
  And gallant hearts are fiercely beating;
With steady tramp they line the crest
  O’er which an iron hail is sleeting.

Up loom the bastions grim and large
  Through battle smoke that’s lowering near them;
The little drummers roll the charge,
  And dying comrades raise to cheer them.
Twice forty guns with deadly aim
  Strike down our lines in tones of thunder;
Yet still they press, with eyes aflame,
  Till Valor’s self looks on in wonder.

But now the human tide rolls back,
  A ghastly remnant grim and gory;
And countless heroes mark the track
  Which led them up to heights of glory.
But one still presses on amain
  Where double-shotted guns are frowning,
Above, amidst the iron rain,
  He nobly wins a hero’s crowning.

Through all the battle smoke he’d seen
  The saintly forms of angels bearing
The laurel crowns forever green
  To wreathe the foreheads of the daring.
And eager for his priceless crown,—
  The bastions scarce a length before him,—
His stalwart form at length went down
  With Death and Honor bending o’er him.

Brave soldier of the Southern clime,
  No stately song nor brilliant story
Shall hand thy name to future time
  As one who gained immortal glory.
But Freedom, with her mailèd hand,
  Has paused to brush a tear of sorrow,
And placed thee with that chosen band
  Who freely pour their lifeblood for her.

And Valor, with her royal brow,
  And Honor, with her stately bearing,
Have surely felt a prouder glow
  When musing on thy peerless daring.
O gallant soldier, all unknown,
  Though noisy Fame, we know, shall never
Proclaim thy deeds through every zone,
  A hero’s crown is thine forever!

William Gordon McCabe.

26 — Barbara Frietchie

Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,

Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain wall,—

Over the mountains, winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind; the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,
“Stonewall” Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced: the old flag met his sight.

“Halt!”—the dust-brown ranks stood fast;
“Fire!”—out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at the woman’s deed and word:

“Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.

All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet;

All day long that free flag tossed
Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er,
And the rebel rides on his raids no more.

Honor to her! and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on “Stonewall’s” bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie’s grave,
Flag of freedom and union, wave!

Peace, and order, and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

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

27 — The Eagle of Corinth

Did you hear of the fight at Corinth,
How we whipped out Price and Van Dorn?
.......
A long and terrible day!
And at last, when night grew gray,
By the hundreds, there they lay,
(Heavy sleepers, you’d say,)
That wouldn’t wake on the morn.

Our staff was bare of a flag,
We didn’t carry a rag
In those brave marching days;—
Ah, no, but a finer thing!
With never a cord or string,
An eagle of ruffled wing,
And an eye of awful gaze.

The grape it rattled like hail,
The minies were dropping like rain,
The first of a thunder shower;
The wads were blowing like chaff,
(There was pounding like floor and flail,
All the front of our line!)
So we stood it hour after hour;
But our eagle, he felt fine!
’Twould have made you cheer and laugh,
To see, through that iron gale,
How the old fellow’d swoop and sail
Above the racket and roar,—
To right and to left he’d soar,
But ever came back, without fail,
And perched on his standard-staff.

All that day, I tell you true,
They had pressed us steady and fair,
Till we fought in street and square,—
(The affair, you might think, looked blue)
But we knew we had them there!
Our batteries were few,
Every gun, they’d have sworn, they knew,
But, you see, there were one or two
We had fixed for them, unaware.

On they came in solid column,
For once no whooping nor yell—
(Ah, I dare say they felt solemn!)
Front and flank, grape and shell,
Our batteries pounded away!
And the minies hummed to remind ’em
They had started on no child’s play!

Steady they kept a-going,
But a grim wake settled behind ’em
From the edge of the abattis,
(Where our dead and dying lay
Under fence and fallen tree,)
Up to Robinett, all the way
The dreadful swath kept growing!
’Twas butternut mixed with gray.

Ah, well—you know how it ended—
We did for them, there and then,
But their pluck throughout was splendid,
They stood to the last like men.
Red as blood, o’er the town,
The angry sun went down,
Firing flag-staff and vane;
And our eagle,—as for him,
There, all ruffled and grim,
He sat, o’erlooking the slain!

’Tis many a stormy day
Since, out of the cold bleak north,
Our great war-eagle sailed forth
To swoop o’er battle and fray.
Many and many a day
O’er charge and storm hath he wheeled,
Foray and foughten field,
Tramp, and volley, and rattle!—
Over crimson trench and turf,
Over climbing clouds of surf,
Through tempest and cannon-wrack,
Have his terrible pinions whirled;—
(A thousand fields of battle!
A million leagues of foam!)
But our bird shall yet come back,
He shall soar to his eyrie-home,
And his thunderous wings be furled,
In the gaze of a gladdened world,
On the nation’s loftiest dome.

Henry Howard Brownell.

28 — Ready

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phœbe Cary.

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

29 — Battle of Charleston Harbor

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.

A thousand warrior-hearts beat high as these dread monsters drew
More closely to the game of death across the breezeless blue;
And twice ten thousand hearts of those who watch the scene afar
Thrill in the awful hush that bides the battle’s broadening star.

Each gunner, moveless by his gun, with rigid aspect stands,
The ready linstocks firmly grasped in bold, untrembling hands;
So moveless in their marble calm, their stern, heroic guise,
They look like forms of statued stone with burning human eyes!

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.

Onward, in sullen file, and slow, low-glooming on the wave,
Near, nearer still, the haughty fleet glides silent as the grave,
When, shivering the portentous calm o’er startled flood and shore,
Broke from the sacred Island Fort the thunder wrath of yore!

The storm has burst! and, 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!

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 foeman down!

The conflict deepens! Ship by ship the proud Armada sweeps
Where fierce 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!

Paul Hamilton Hayne.

(By special permission of William Hamilton Hayne, and of The
Lothrop Publishing Company.)

30 — Keenan’s Charge

The sun had set;
The leaves with dew were wet,—
Down fell a bloody dusk
Where “Stonewall’s” corps, like a beast of prey,
Tore through with angry tusk.

“They’ve trapped us, boys!”
Rose from our flank a voice.
With rush of steel and smoke
On came the rebels straight,
Eager as love, and wild as hate;
And our line reeled and broke;

Broke and fled.
Not one stayed,—but the dead!
With curses, shrieks, and cries,
Horses, and wagons, and men
Tumbled back through the shuddering glen,
And above us the fading skies.

There’s some hope, still,—
Those batteries parked on the hill!
“Battery, wheel” (’mid the roar),
“Pass pieces; fix prolonge to fire
Retiring. Trot!” In the panic dire
A bugle rings “Trot!”—and no more.

The horses plunged,
The cannon lurched and lunged,
To join the hopeless rout.
But suddenly rose a form
Calmly in front of the human storm.
With a stern commanding shout:

“Align those guns!”
(We knew it was Pleasanton’s.)
The cannoneers bent to obey,
And worked with a will at his word,
And the black guns moved as if they had heard.
But, ah, the dread delay!

“To wait is crime;
O God, for ten minutes’ time!”
The general looked around.
There Keenan sat, like a stone,
With his three hundred horse alone,
Less shaken than the ground.

“Major, your men?”
“Are soldiers, general.” “Then,
Charge, major! Do your best;
Hold the enemy back, at all cost,
Till my guns are placed;—else the army is lost.
You die to save the rest!”

By the shrouded gleam of the western skies
Brave Keenan looked into 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 scabbard, 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 woods that was ringed 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, aye, 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.

And 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.

George Parsons Lathrop.

(From Dreams and Days; Copyright, 1892, Charles Scribner’s Sons.
By special permission.)

31 — The Hero of the Gun

The captain galloped to the front,
  The foam upon his rein;
And, as he urged his swerving steed
  Across a pile of slain,

He hailed the gunner at his post:
  “Ho, Fergus! pour your shell
Straight in the face of yon stout line
  That holds the height so well,

“And never slack your raking fire—
  No, not to cool your gun;
For if we break those stubborn ranks,
  I think the day is won.”

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.

Heroes without hands to waver, heroes without hearts to quail,
There they sank the bulky collier ’mid the hurtling Spanish hail;
Long shall float our starry banner if such lads beneath it sail!

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!

Clinton Scollard.

52 — The Charge at Santiago

With shot and shell, like a loosened hell,
  Smiting them left and right,
They rise or fall on the sloping wall
  Of beetling bush and height!
They do not shrink at the awful brink
  Of the rifle’s hurtling breath,
But onward press, as their ranks grow less,
  To the open arms of death!

Through a storm of lead, o’er maimed and dead,
  Onward and up they go,
Till hand to hand the unflinching band
  Grapple the stubborn foe.
O’er men that reel, ’mid glint of steel,
  Bellow or boom of gun,
They leap and shout over each redoubt
  Till the final trench is won!

O charge sublime! Over dust and grime
  Each hero hurls his name
In shot or shell, like a molten hell,
  To the topmost heights of fame!
And prone or stiff, under bush and cliff,
  Wounded or dead men lie,
While the tropic sun on a grand deed done
  Looks with his piercing eye!

William Hamilton Hayne.

(By special permission of the author.)

53 — Spain’s Last Armada

    They fling their flags upon the morn,
    Their safety’s held a thing for scorn,
As to the fray the Spaniards on the wings of war are borne;
    Their sullen smoke-clouds writhe and reel,
    And sullen are their ships of steel,
All ready, cannon, lanyards, from the fighting-tops to keel.

    They cast upon the golden air
    One glancing, helpless, hopeless prayer,
To ask that swift and thorough be the victory falling there;
    Then giants with a cheer and sigh
    Burst forth to battle and to die
Beneath the walls of Morro on that morning in July.

    The Teresa heads the haughty train,
    To bear the Admiral of Spain,
She rushes, hurtling, whitening, like the summer hurricane;
    El Morro glowers in his might;
    Socapa crimsons with the fight;
The Oquendo’s lunging lightning blazes through her somber night.

    In desperate and eager dash
    The Vizcaya hurls her vivid flash,
As wild upon the waters her enormous batteries crash;
    Like spindrift scuds the fleet Colon,
    And, on her bubbling wake bestrown,
Lurch, hungry for the slaughter, El Furor and El Pluton.

    Round Santiago’s armored crest,
    Serene, in their gray valor dressed,
Our behemoths lie quiet, watching well from south and west;
    Their keen eyes spy the harbor-reek;
    The signals dance, the signals speak;
Then breaks the blasting riot as our broadsides storm and shriek!

    Quick, poising on her eagle-wings,
    The Brooklyn into battle swings;
The wide sea falls and wonders as the titan Texas springs;
    The Iowa in monster-leaps
    Goes bellowing above the deeps;
The Indiana thunders as her terror onward sweeps.

    And, hovering near and hovering low
    Until the moment strikes to go,
In gallantry the Gloucester swoops down on her double foe;
    She volleys—the Furor falls lame;
    Again—and the Pluton’s aflame;
Hurrah, on high she’s tossed her! Gone the grim destroyers’ fame!

    And louder yet and louder roar
    The Oregon’s black cannon o’er
The clangor and the booming all along the Cuban shore.
    She’s swifting down her valkyr-path,
    Her sword sharp for the aftermath,
With levin in her glooming, like Jehovah in His wrath.

    Great ensigns snap and shine in air
    Above the furious onslaught where
Our sailors cheer the battle, danger but a thing to dare;
    Our gunners speed, as oft they’ve sped,
    Their hail of shrilling, shattering lead,
Swift-sure our rifles rattle, and the foeman’s decks are red.

    Like baying bloodhounds lope our ships,
    Adrip with fire their cannons’ lips;
We scourge the fleeing Spanish, whistling weals from scorpion-whips;
    Till, livid in the ghastly glare,
    They tremble on in dread despair,
And thoughts of victory vanish in the carnage they must bear.

    Where Cuban coasts in beauty bloom,
    Where Cuban breakers swirl and boom,
The Teresa’s onset slackens in a scarlet spray of doom;
    Near Nimanima’s greening hill
    The streaming flames cry down her will,
Her vast hull blows and blackens, prey to every mortal ill.

    On Juan Gonzales’ foaming strand
    The Oquendo plunges ’neath our hand,
Her armaments all strangled, and her hope a showering brand;
    She strikes and grinds upon the reef,
    And, shuddering there in utter grief,
In misery and mangled, wastes away beside her chief.

    The Vizcaya nevermore shall ride
    From out Aserradero’s tide,
With hate upon her forehead ne’er again she’ll pass in pride;
    Beneath our fearful battle-spell
    She moaned and struggled, flared and fell,
To lie agleam and horrid, while the piling fires swell.

    Thence from the wreck of Spain alone
    Tears on the terrified Colon,
In bitter anguish crying, like a storm-bird forth she’s flown;
    Her throbbing engines creak and thrum;
    She sees abeam the Brooklyn come,
For life she’s gasping, flying; for the combat is she dumb.

    Till then the man behind the gun
    Had wrought whatever must be done—
Here, now, beside our boilers is the fight fought out and won;
    Where great machines pulse on and beat,
    A-swelter in the humming heat
The Nation’s nameless toilers make her mastery complete.

    The Cape o’ the Cross casts out a stone
    Against the course of the Colon,
Despairing and inglorious on the wind her white flag’s thrown;
    Spain’s last Armada, lost and wan,
    Lies where Tarquino’s stream rolls on,
As round the world, victorious, looms the dreadnought Oregon.

    The sparkling daybeams softly flow
    To glint the twilight afterglow,
The banner sinks in splendor that in battle ne’er was low;
    The music of our country’s hymn
    Rings out like song of seraphim,
Fond memories and tender fill the evening fair and dim;

    Our huge ships ride in majesty
    Unchallenged o’er the glittering sea,
Above them white stars cluster, mighty emblem of the free;
    And all adown the long sea-lane
    The fitful bale-fires wax and wane
To shed their lurid lustre on the empire that was Spain.

Wallace Rice.

(By special permission of the author.)

54 — Ballad of Paco Town

In Paco town and in Paco tower,
At the height of the tropic noonday hour,
Some Tagal riflemen, half a score,
Watched the length of the highway o’er,
And when to the front the troopers spurred,
Whiz-z! whiz-z! how the Mausers whirred!

From the opposite walls, through crevice and crack,
Volley on volley went ringing back
Where a band of regulars tried to drive
The stinging rebels out of their hive;
“Wait till our cannon come, and then,”
Cried a captain, striding among his men,
“We’ll settle that bothersome buzz and drone
With a merry little tune of our own!”

The sweltering breezes seemed to swoon,
And down the calle the thickening flames
Licked the roofs in the tropic noon.
Then through the crackle and glare and heat,
And the smoke and the answering acclaims
Of the rifles, far up the village street
Was heard the clatter of horses’ feet,
And a band of signal-men swung in sight,
Hasting back from the ebbing fight
That had swept away to the left and right.

“Ride!” yelled the regulars, all aghast,
And over the heads of the signal-men,
As they whirled in desperate gallop past,
The bullets a vicious music made,
Like the whistle and whine of the midnight blast
On the weltering wastes of the ocean when
The breast of the deep is scourged and flayed.

It chanced in the line of the fiercest fire
A rebel bullet had clipped the wire
That led, from the front and the fighting, down
To those that stayed in Manila town;
This gap arrested the watchful eye
Of one of the signal-men galloping by,
And straightway, out of the plunge and press,
He reined his horse with a swift caress
And a word in the ear of the rushing steed;
Then back with never a halt nor heed
Of the swarming bullets he rode, his goal
The parted wire and the slender pole
That stood where the deadly tower looked down
On the rack and ruin of Paco town.

Out of his saddle he sprang as gay
As a schoolboy taking a holiday;
Wire in hand up the pole he went
With never a glance at the tower, intent
Only on that which he saw appear
As the line of his duty plain and clear.
To the very crest he climbed, and there,
While the bullets buzzed in the scorching air,
Clipped his clothing, and scored and stung
The slender pole-top to which he clung,
Made the wire that was severed sound,
Slipped in his careless way to the ground,
Sprang to the back of his horse, and then
Was off, this bravest of signal-men.
Cheers for the hero! While such as he,
Heedless alike of wounds and scars,
Fight for the dear old Stripes and Stars,
Down through the years to us shall be
Ever and ever the victory!

Clinton Scollard.