Civil War Short Stories and Poems

Howe (1819–1910) wrote the most famous marching poem in American history in 1861 and published it in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. The “Hallelujah” chorus was subsequently added in April when the verses were accompanied by music.

As many as 150,000 Irish natives and descendents fought for the Union in the Civil War. (“Erin go Bragh!” is a vow of “Ireland forever!”)

This rallying poem, one of many encouraging enlistment, was published in Chester County’s Philadelphia Press.

Hurrah! the boys are moving—the fife and drum speak war;

A Quaker’s son is captain, and numbers up his score.

And harvest past, right well we know, he’ll drill his eighty more.

For it must be done, the people say;

It must be done, and now’s the day;

It must be done, and this the way—

Come list, my boys, enlist.

The fields stand rough in stubble, the wheat is under roof;

What are you made of, country boys? come, give your mother proof:

Your comrades fight, and cowards you if you shall stand aloof.

For it must be done, the people say, etc.

Up change the rake for rife—the companies recruit;

Come, out with arms all brawn, and learn the secret how to shoot;

Your sisters, in the cider-time, will gather in the fruit.

For it must be done, the people say, etc.

Good tidings for the telegraph, swift let the message run:

Old Chester sends her greeting proud along to Washington;

Each farm-house pours its treasures free, and consecrates a son.

For it must be done, the people say, etc.

Hurrah I hurrah! old farmer, shout from your brown-tanned throat;

Pish! for each home-found man, today, who wears moustache or goat;

For every male who well might go, but stays, a petticoat.

For it must be done, the people say, etc.

Hurrah! hurrah! old farmer’s wife, you’ll see the whole thing done;

The maidens will be weaving it—you’ll see the worsted spun;

The coward’s be the petticoat—but it will not be your son.

For it must be done, the people say;

It must be done, and now’s the day;

It must be done, and this the way—

Come list, my boys, enlist.

Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894), was a doctor and well-known author who published this prayer in 1862. His son served in the Union Army and later became a Supreme Court Justice.

The Confederacy’s ironclad Merrimack (known also as the Virginia) rammed and destroyed the blockading U.S.S. Cumberland in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 7, 1862, but not before the Cumberland inflicted some damage on the ironclad. (On March 9, the Union sent out its ironclad, the Monitor, to battle the Merrimack.)

“Stand to your guns, men!” Morris cried.

Small need to pass the word;

Our men at quarters ranged themselves,

Before the drum was heard.

And then began the sailors’ jests:

“What thing is that, I say?”

“A long-shore meeting-house adrift

Is standing down the bay!”

A frown came over Morris’ face;

The strange, dark craft he knew;

“That is the iron Merrimac,

Manned by a Rebel crew.

“So shot your guns, and point them straight;

Before this day goes by,

We’ll try of what her metal’s made.”

A cheer was our reply.

“Remember, boys, this flag of ours

Has seldom left its place;

And where it falls, the deck it strikes

Is covered with disgrace.

“I ask but this: or sink or swim,

Or live or nobly die,

My last sight upon earth may be

To see that ensign fly!”

Meanwhile the shapeless iron mass

Came moving o’er the wave,

As gloomy as a passing hearse,

As silent as the grave.

Her ports were closed; from stem to stern

No sign of life appeared.

We wondered, questioned, strained our eyes,

Joked—everything but feared.

She reached our range. Our broadside rang,

Our heavy pivots roared;

And shot and shell, a fire of hell,

Against her sides we poured.

God’s mercy! from her sloping roof

The iron tempest glanced,

As hail bounds from a cottage-thatch,

And round her leaped and danced;

Or when against her dusky hull

We struck a fair, full blow,

The mighty, solid iron globes

Were crumbled up like snow.

On, on, with fast increasing speed,

The silent monster came;

Though all our starboard battery

Was one long line of flame.

She heeded not, no gun she fired,

Straight on our bow she bore;

Through riving plank and crashing frame

Her furious way she tore.

Alas! our beautiful keen bow,

That in the fiercest blast

So gently folded back the seas,

They hardly felt we passed!

Alas! alas! my Cumberland,

That ne’er knew grief before,

To be so gored, to feel so deep

The tusk of that sea-boar!

Once more she backward drew a space,

Once more our side she rent;

Then, in the wantonness of hate,

Her broadside through us sent.

The dead and dying round us lay,

But our foemen lay abeam;

Her open portholes maddened us;

We fired with shout and scream.

We felt our vessel settling fast,

We knew our time was brief,

“The pumps, the pumps!” But they who pumped,

And fought not, wept with grief.

“Oh! keep us but an hour afloat!

Oh! give us only time

To be the instruments of Heaven

Against the traitors’ crime!”

From captain down to powder-boy,

No hand was idle then;

Two soldiers, but by chance aboard,

Fought on like sailor-men.

And when a gun’s crew lost a hand,

Some bold marine stepped out,

And jerked his braided jacket off,

And hauled the gun about.

Our forward magazine was drowned;

And up from the sick bay

Crawled out the wounded, red with blood,

And round us gasping lay.

Yes, cheering, calling us by name,

Struggling with failing breath,

To keep their shipmates at the post

Where glory strove with death.

With decks afloat, and powder gone,

The last broadside we gave

From the guns’ heated iron-lips

Burst out beneath the wave.

So sponges, rammers, and handspikes—

As men-of-war’s-men should—

We placed within their proper racks,

And at our quarters stood.

“Up to the spar-deck! save yourselves!”

Cried Selfridge. “Up, my men!

God grant that some of us may live

To fight yon ship again!”

We turned—we did not like to go;

Yet staying seemed but vain,

Knee-deep in water; so we left;

Some swore, some groaned with pain.

We reached the deck. There Randall stood:

“Another turn, men—so!”

Calmly he aimed his pivot-gun:

“Now, Tenny, let her go!”

It did our sore hearts good to hear

The song our pivot sang,

As rushing on from wave to wave

The whirring bomb-shell sprang.

Brave Randall leaped upon the gun,

And waved his cap in sport; “Well done!

well aimed! I saw that shell

Go through an open port.”

It was our last, our deadliest shot;

The deck was overflown;

The poor ship staggered, lurched to port,

And gave a living groan.

Down, down, as headlong through the waves

Our gallant vessel rushed,

A thousand gurgling, watery sounds

Around my senses gushed.

Then I remember little more;

One look to heaven I gave,

Where, like an angel’s wing, I saw

Our spotless ensign wave.

I tried to cheer. I cannot say

Whether I swam or sank;

A blue mist closed around my eyes,

And everything was blank.

When I awoke, a soldier-lad,

All dripping from the sea,

With two great tears upon his cheeks,

Was bending over me.

I tried to speak. He understood

The wish I could not speak.

He turned me. There, thank God! the flag

Still fluttered at the peak!

And there, while thread shall hang to thread,

Oh! let that ensign fly!

The noblest constellation set

Against our northern sky.

A sign that we who live may claim

The peerage of the brave;

A monument, that needs no scroll,

For those beneath the wave!

This poem makes light of the Confederacy’s terribly destructive Merrimack (the Virginia). See Boker’s “On Board the Cumberland,” above.

Caesar, afloat with his fortunes!

And all the world agog,

Straining its eyes

At a thing that lies

In the water, like a log!

It’s a weasel! a whale!

I see its tail!

It’s a porpoise! a polywog!

Tarnation! it’s a turtle!

And blast my bones and skin,

My hearties, sink her,

Or else you’ll think her

A regular terror—pin!

The frigate poured a broadside!

The bombs they whistled well,

But—hit old Nick

With a sugar stick!

It didn’t phase her shell!

Piff, from the creature’s larboard—

And dipping along the water

A bullet hissed

From a wreath of mist

Into a Doodle’s quarter!

Raff, from the creature’s starboard—

Rip, from his ugly snorter,

And the Congress and

The Cumberland

Sunk, and nothing—shorter.

Now, here’s to you, Virginia,

And you are bound to win!

By your rate of bobbing round

And your way of pitchin’ in—

For you are a cross

Of the old sea-horse

And a regular terror—pin.

“These verses were found written on a small piece of paper, all stained with blood, in the bosom of a dead soldier of the old Stonewall Brigade, after one of Jackson’s battles in the Shenandoah Valley,” writes editor H. M. Wharton. More believably, Wharton adds: “It is well known that [Jackson] was a man of prayer. His servant man, a faithful negro, would sometimes go out early in the morning to the officer’s camp and say: ‘Gentleman, there’s gwine to be hard fightin’ today; Mars Tom was on his knees praying all night long.’ “

Come, men, stack arms! Pile on the rails—

Stir up the camp-fire bright;

No matter if the canteen fails.

We’ll make a roaring night

Here Shenandoah crawls along,

Here burly Blue Ridge echoes strong,

To swell the brigade’s rousing song,

Of “Stonewall Jackson’s way.”

We see him now—the old slouched hat,

Cocked o’er his eye askew—

The shrewd, dry smile—the speech so pat,

So calm, so blunt, so true,

The “Blue Light Elder” knows ’em well;

Says he, “That’s Banks, he’s fond of shell;

Lord save his soul! we’ll give him—” Well!

That’s “Stonewall Jackson’s way.”

Silence! ground arms! kneel all! caps off!

Old Blue Light’s going to pray;

Strangle the fool that dares to scoff!

Attention! It’s his way!

Appealing from his native sod,

“Hear us, Almighty God!

Lay bare thine arm, stretch forth thy rod,

Amen!” That’s Stonewall Jackson’s way.

He’s in the saddle now! Fall in!

Steady! The whole brigade!

Hill’s at the ford, cut off; we’ll win

His way out, ball and blade.

What matter if our shoes are worn?

What matter if our feet are torn?

Quick step! we’re with him ere the dawn!

That’s Stonewall Jackson’s way.

The sun’s bright lances rout the mists

Of morning—and, by George!

Here’s Longstreet struggling in the lists,

Hemmed in an ugly gorge.

Pope and his Yankees, whipped before,

“Bayonets and grape!” hear Stonewall roar.

“Charge, Stuart! pay off Ashby’s score,”

Is Stonewall Jackson’s way.”

Ah! maiden, wait, and watch, and yearn,

For news of Stonewall’s band!

Ah! widow, read with eyes that burn,

That ring upon thy hand!

Ah! wife, sew on, pray on, hope, and pray!

Thy life shall not be all forlorn;

The foe had better ne’er been born

That gets in Stonewall’s way.

When called the fife and drum at morn

The soldier from his rest,

And those to higher honors born

With softer couches blest,

There came, a captain brave to seek,

Deep in her mourning clad,

By loss made sad, and journeying weak,

A mother and a lad—

And they had come from Tennessee,

Waiting the beat of reveille.

But, penniless and widowed,

Her story soon she told:

The hand of traitor had not spared

Her husband’s life nor gold;

And now she brought her only son

To fill the drummer’s place;

Thus young his daily bread to earn,

His country’s foes to face:

For he had learned, in Tennessee,

To beat the call of reveille!

The boy upturned his eager gaze,

And, with a beating heart,

He read upon the captain’s face

Both kindliness and doubt;

For he had marked his tender years,

His little fragile form—

“Don’t be afraid,” he boldly cried,

“For, captain, I can drum!

And I have come from Tennessee,

To sound for you the reveille!”

“Well, call the fifer!—bring the drum,

To test this noble youth!”

And well his part he did perform,

A “drummer-boy,” in truth!

“Yes, madam, I will take your boy,”

The captain kindly said.

“Oh! bring him back,” her quick reply,

“Unnumbered with the dead!

And Eddie Lee, of Tennessee,

Shall play for you the reveille!”

’Twas many a weary march was made,

To sound of drum and fife,

And well the “drummer-boy” essayed

To play the march of life;

Each soldier loved and sought to share

Their part of good with him;

The fifer on his back did bear

Across each swollen stream

This “drummer-boy” from Tennessee,

Who beat with him the reveille!

But came the battle-shock, and doom

Of one great “Lyon” heart,

The victor’s shout—the victim’s groan,

Fulfilled their fearful part!

And, on that blood-stained field of woe

The darkness threw its pall!

The morning dawned on flying foe;

When, list!—the “morning call!”

Our “drummer-boy” from Tennessee,

Beating for help the reveille!

Upon the valley sod he lay

Beside a lifeless foe,

Whose dying hand had sought to stay

The life-blood’s ebbing flow:

The quivering drum yet echoing

The beating of his heart—

The encamping angel beckoning

From drum and fife to part!

And Eddie Lee, of Tennessee,

Awaits the final reveille!

And the fifer with his fife and the drummer with his drum, Were heard above the strife and the bursting of the bomb;

In that hurricane of flame, and the thunder of the bomb! Braid the laurel-wreath of flame for the hero of the drum.

Frank Moore writes: “A Rebel soldier, after burying a Federal who had been killed during one of those sanguinary engagements which terminated in the retreat of the Union army from before Richmond, fixed a shingle over the grave, bearing this inscription”:

This rueful and comic poem was attributed to a soldier in a New Haven hospital who had lost his leg at the battle of Fair Oaks (May 31, 1862).

Wolcott (1840–1908) served in the Tenth Illinois regiment from Sangamon County. The young man’s comically narrated story was published in September 1862 in The Continental Monthly.

“An’ the Star-Spangle’ Banger in triump’ shall wave O! the lan dov the free-e-e, an’ the ho mov the brave.” Thus sang Hopeful Tackett, as he sat on his little bench in the little shop of Herr Kordwaner, the village shoemaker. Thus he sang, not artistically, but with much fervor and unction, keeping time with his hammer, as he hammered away at an immense “stoga.” And as he sang, the prophetic words rose upon the air, and were wafted, together with an odor of new leather and paste-pot, out of the window, and fell upon the ear of a ragged urchin with an armful of handbills.

“Would you lose a leg for it, Hope?” he asked, bringing to bear upon Hopeful a pair of crossed eyes, a full complement of white teeth, and a face promiscuously spotted with its kindred dust.

“For the Banger?” replied Hopeful; “guess I would. Both on ’em— an’ a head, too.”

Hopeful laid aside his hammer and his work, and picked up the hand-bill; and while he is reading it, let us briefly describe him. Hopeful is not a beauty, and he knows it; and though some of the rustic wits call him “Beaut,” he is well aware that they intend it for irony. His countenance runs too much to nose—rude, amorphous nose at that—to be classic, and is withal rugged in general outline and pimply in spots. His hair is decidedly too dingy a red to be called, even by the utmost stretch of courtesy, auburn; dry, coarse, and pertinaciously obstinate in its resistance to the civilizing efforts of comb and brush. But there is a great deal of big bone and muscle in him, and he may yet work out a noble destiny. Let us see.

By the time he had spelled out the hand-bill, and found that Lieutenant was in town and wished to enlist recruits for Company —, — Regiment, it was nearly sunset; and he took of his apron, washed his hands, looked at himself in the piece of looking-glass that stuck in the window—a defiant look, that said that he was not afraid of all that nose—took his hat down from its peg behind the door, and in spite of the bristling resistance of his hair, crowded it down over his head, and started for his supper. And as he walked he mused aloud, as was his custom, addressing himself in the second person. “Hopeful, what do you think of it? They want more soldiers, eh? Guess them fights at Donelson and Pittsburg Lannen ‘bout used up some o’ them ridgiments. By Jing!” (Hopeful had been piously brought up, and his emphatic exclamations took a mild form.) “Hopeful, ’xpect you’ll have to go an’ stan’ in some poor feller’s shoes. ’Twon’t do for them there blasted Seceshers to be killin’ of our boys, an’ no one there to pay ’em back. It’s time this here thing was busted! Hopeful, you an’t pretty, an’ you an’t smart; but you used to be a mighty nasty hand with a shotgun. Guess you’ll have to try your hand on old Borey’s (Beauregard’s) chaps; an’ if you ever git a bead on one, he’ll enter his land mighty shortly. What do you say to goin’? You wanted to go last year, but mother was sick, an’ you couldn’t; and now mother’s gone to glory, why, show your grit an’ go. Think about it, anyhow.”

And Hopeful did think about it—thought till late at night of the insulted flag, of the fierce fights and glorious victories, of the dead and the dying lying out in the pitiless storm, of the dastardly outrages of rebel fiends—thought of all this, with his great warm heart overflowing with love for the dear old “Banger,” and resolved to go. The next morning, he notified his “boss” of his intention to quit his service for that of Uncle Sam. The old fellow only opened his eyes very wide, grunted, brought out the stocking, (a striped relic of the departed Frau Kordwaner,) and from it counted out and paid Hopeful every cent that was due him. But there was one thing that sat heavily upon Hopeful’s mind. He was in a predicament that all of us are liable to fall into—he was in love, and with Christina, Herr Kordwaner’s daughter. Christina was a plump maiden, with a round, rosy face, an extensive latitude of shoulders, and a general plentitude and solidity of figure. All these she had; but what had captivated Hopeful’s eye was her trim ankle, as it had appeared to him one morning, encased in a warm white yarn stocking of her own knitting. From this small beginning, his great heart had taken in the whole of her, and now he was desperately in love. Two or three times he had essayed to tell her of his proposed departure; but every time that the words were coming to his lips, something rushed up into his throat ahead of them, and he couldn’t speak. At last, after walking home from church with her on Sunday evening, he held out his hand and blurted out:

Christina didn’t faint. She didn’t take out her delicate and daintily perfumed mouchoir to hide the tears that were not there. She looked at him for a moment, while two great real tears rolled down her cheeks, and then—precipitated all her charms right into his arms. Hopeful stood it manfully—rather liked it, in fact. But this is a tableau that we’ve no right to be looking at; so let us pass by how they parted— with what tears and embraces, and extravagant protestations of undying affection, and wild promises of eternal remembrance; there is no need of telling, for we all know how foolish young people will be under such circumstances. We older heads know all about such little matters, and what they amount to. Oh! yes, certainly we do.

The next morning found Hopeful, with a dozen others, in charge of the lieutenant, and on their way to join the regiment. Hopeful’s first experience of camp-life was not a singular one. He, like the rest of us, at first exhibited the most energetic awkwardness in drilling. Like the rest of us, he had occasional attacks of home-sickness; and as he stood at his post on picket in the silent night-watches, while the camps lay quietly sleeping in the moonlight, his thoughts would go back to his far-away home, and the little shop, and the plentiful charms of the fair-haired Christina. So he went on, dreaming sweet dreams of home, but ever active and alert, eager to learn and earnest to do his duty, silencing all selfish suggestions of his heart with the simple logic of a pure patriotism.

“Hopeful,” he would say, “the Banger’s took care o’ you all your life, an’ now you’re here to take care of it. See that you do it the best you know how.”

It would be more thrilling and interesting, and would read better, if we could take our hero to glory amid the roar of cannon and muskets, through a storm of shot and shell, over a serried line of glistening bayonets. But strict truth—a matter of which newspaper correspondents, and sensational writers, generally seem to have a very misty conception—forbids it.

It was only a skirmish—a bushwhacking fight for the possession of a swamp. A few companies were deployed as skirmishers, to drive out the rebels.

“Now, boys,” shouted the captain, “after ’em! Shoot to kill, not to scare ’em!”

On they went, crouching among the bushes, creeping along under the banks of the brook, cautiously peering from behind trees in search of “butternuts.”

Hopeful was in the advance; his hat was lost, and his hair more defiantly bristling than ever. Firmly grasping his rile, he pushed on, carefully watching every tree and bush. A rebel sharpshooter started to run from one tree to another, when, quick as thought, Hopeful’s rifle was at his shoulder, a puff of blue smoke rose from its mouth, and the rebel sprang into the air and fell back—dead. Almost at the same instant, as Hopeful leaned forward to see the effect of his shot, he felt a sudden shock, a sharp, burning pain, grasped at a bush, reeled, and sank to the ground.

“Are you hurt much, Hope?” asked one of his comrades, kneeling beside him and staunching the blood that flowed from his wounded leg.

“Yes, I expect I am; but that red wamus over yonder’s redder’n ever now. That feller won’t need a pension.”

They carried him back to the hospital, and the old surgeon looked at the wound, shook his head, and briefly made his prognosis.

“Bone shattered—vessels injured—bad leg—have to come of. Good constitution, though; he’ll stand it.”

And he did stand it; always cheerful, never complaining, only regretting that he must be discharged—that he was no longer able to serve his country.

And now Hopeful is again sitting on his little bench in Mynheer Kordwaner’s little shop, pegging away at the coarse boots, singing the same glorious prophecy that we first heard him singing. He has had but two troubles since his return. One is the lingering regret and restlessness that attends a civil life after an experience of the rough, independent life in camp. The other trouble was when he first saw Christina after his return. The loving warmth with which she greeted him pained him; and when the worthy Herr considerately went out of the room, leaving them alone, he relapsed into gloomy silence. At length, speaking rapidly, and with choked utterance, he began:

“Christie, you know I love you now, as I always have, better’n all the world. But I’m a cripple now—no account to nobody—just a dead weight—an’ I don’t want you, ‘cause o’ your promise before I went away, to tie yourself to a load that’ll be a drag on you all your life. That contract—ah—promises—an’t—is—is hereby repealed! There!” And he leaned his head upon his hands and wept bitter tears, wrung by a great agony from his loving heart.

Christie gently laid her hand upon his shoulder, and spoke, slowly and calmly: “Hopeful, your soul was not in that leg, was it?”

It would seem as if Hopeful had always thought that such was the case, and was just receiving new light upon the subject, he started up so suddenly.

“By jing! Christie!” And he grasped her hand, and—but that is another of those scenes that don’t concern us at all. And Christie has promised next Christmas to take the name, as she already has the heart, of Tackett. Herr Kordwaner, too, has come to the conclusion that he wants a partner, and on the day of the wedding a new sign is to be put up over a new and larger shop, on which “Co.” will mean Hopeful Tackett. In the mean time, Hopeful hammers away lustily, merrily whistling, and singing the praises of the “Banger.” Occasionally, when he is resting, he will tenderly embrace his stump of a leg, gently patting and stroking it, and talking to it as to a pet. If a stranger is in the shop, he will hold it out admiringly, and ask:

“Do you know what I call that? I call that ‘Hopeful Tackett—his mark.’ “

And it is a mark—a mark of distinction—a badge of honor, worn by many a brave fellow who has gone forth, borne and upheld by a love for the dear old flag, to fight, to suffer, to die if need be, for it; won in the fierce contest, amid the clashing strokes of the steel and the wild whistling of bullets; won by unflinching nerve and unyielding muscle; worn as a badge of the proudest distinction an American can reach. If these lines come to one of those that have thus fought and suffered—though his scars were received in some unnoticed, unpublished skirmish, though official bulletins spoke not of him, “though fame shall never know his story”—let them come as a tribute to him; as a token that he is not forgotten; that those that have been with him through the trials and the triumphs of the field, remember him and the heroic courage that won for him those honorable scars; and that while life is left to them they will work and fight in the same cause, cheerfully making the same sacrifices, seeking no higher reward than to take him by the hand and call him “comrade,” and to share with him the proud consciousness of duty done. Shoulder-straps and stars may bring renown; but he is no less a real hero who, with rifle and bayonet, throws himself into the breach, and, uninspired by hope of official notice, battles manfully for the right.

“An abolitionist, Gibbons’s poem was written in response to Lincoln’s call in July 1862 for 300,000 volunteers to enlist in the Union Army. The poem was quickly set to music by several composers, the most famous version being by L. O. Emerson” writes Paul Negri.

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.

From Mississippi’s winding stream and from New England’s shore;

We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and children dear.

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear;

We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before:

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

If you look across the hill-tops that meet the northern sky,

Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry;

And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,

And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride,

And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour:

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

If you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests shine,

You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line;

And children from their mother’s knees are pulling at the weeds,

And learning how to reap and sow against their country’s needs;

And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door:

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

You have called us, and we’re coming, by Richmond’s bloody tide

To lay us down, for Freedom’s sake, our brothers’ bones beside,

Or from foul treason’s savage grasp to wrench the murderous blade,

And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.

Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before:

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

The editor Frank Moore says this poem was “found in a bundle of socks, sent by a ‘Lively Old Lady,’ in Amherst, N. H., to the U. S. Hospital, corner of Broad and Cherry streets, Philadelphia.”

By the fireside, cosily seated,

With spectacles riding her nose,

The lively old lady is knitting

A wonderful pair of hose.

She pities the shivering soldier,

Who is out in the pelting storm;

And busily plies her needles,

To keep him hearty and warm.

Her eyes are reading the embers,

But her heart is off to the war,

For she knows what those brave fellows

Are gallantly fighting for.

Her fingers as well as her fancy

Are cheering them on their way,

Who, under the good old banner,

Are saving their Country today.

She ponders, how in her childhood,

Her grandmother used to tell—

The story of barefoot soldiers,

Who fought so long and well.

And the men of the Revolution

Are nearer to her than us;

And that perhaps is the reason

Why she is toiling thus.

She cannot shoulder a musket,

Nor ride with cavalry crew,

But nevertheless she is ready

To work for the boys who do.

And yet in “official despatches,”

That come from the army or fleet,

Her feats may have never a notice,

Though ever so mighty the feet!

So prithee, proud owner of muscle,

Or purse-proud owner of stocks,

Don’t sneer at the labors of woman,

Or smile at her bundle of socks.

Her heart may be larger and braver

Than his who is tallest of all,

The work of her hands as important

As cash that buys powder and ball.

And thus while her quiet performance

Is being recorded in rhyme,

The tools in her tremulous fingers

Are running a race with Time.

Strange that four needles can form

A perfect triangular bound;

And equally strange that their antics

Result in perfecting “the round.”

And now, while beginning “to narrow,”

She thinks of the Maryland mud,

And wonders if ever the stocking

Will wade to the ankle in blood.

And now she is “shaping the heel,”

And now she ready is “to bind,”

And hopes if the soldier is wounded,

It never will be from behind.

And now she is “raising the instep,”

Now “narrowing of at the toe,”

And prays that this end of the worsted

May ever be turned to the foe.

She “gathers” the last of the stitches,

As if a new laurel were won,

And placing the ball in the basket,

Announces the stocking as “done.”

Ye men who are fighting our battles,

Away from the comforts of life,

Who thoughtfully muse by your camp-fires,

On sweetheart, or sister, or wife;

Just think of their elders a little,

And pray for the grandmothers too,

Who, patiently sitting in corners,

Are knitting the stockings for you.

Union General Kearny was killed after Second Bull Run at the Battle of Chantilly on September 1, 1862.

Close his eyes; his work is done!

What to him is friend or foeman,

Rise of moon, or set of sun,

Hand of man, or kiss of woman?

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!

What cares he? he cannot know:

Lay him low!

As man may, he fought his fight,

Proved his truth by his endeavor;

Let him sleep in solemn night,

Sleep forever and forever.

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!

What cares he? he cannot know:

Lay him low!

Fold him in his country’s stars,

Roll the drum and fire the volley!

What to him are all our wars,

What but death bemocking folly?

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!

What cares he? he cannot know:

Lay him low!

Leave him to God’s watching eye,

Trust him to the hand that made him.

Mortal love weeps idly by:

God alone has power to aid him.

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!

What cares he? he cannot know:

Lay him low!

We wait beneath the furnace-blast

The pangs of transformation;

Not painlessly doth God recast

And mould anew the nation.

Hot burns the fire

Where wrongs expire;

Nor spares the hand

That from the land

Uproots the ancient evil.

The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared

Its bloody rain is dropping;

The poison plant the fathers spared

All else is overtopping.

East, West, South, North,

It curses the earth;

All justice dies,

And fraud and lies

Live only in its shadow.

What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?

What points the rebel cannon?

What sets the roaring rabble’s heel

On the old star-spangled pennon?

What breaks the oath

Of the men o’ the South?

What whets the knife

For the Union’s life?—

Hark to the answer: Slavery!

Then waste no blows on lesser foes

In strife unworthy freemen.

God lifts today the vail, and shows

The features of the demon!

O North and South,

Its victims both,

Can ye not cry,

“Let slavery die!”

And union find in freedom?

What though the cast-out spirit tear

The nation in his going?

We who have shared the guilt must share

The pang of his o’erthrowing!

Whate’er the loss,

Whate’er the cross,

Shall they complain

Of present pain

Who trust in God’s hereafter?

For who that leans on His right arm

Was ever yet forsaken?

What righteous cause can suffer harm

If He its part has taken?

Though wild and loud

And dark the cloud

Behind its folds

His hand upholds

The calm sky of tomorrow!

Above the maddening cry for blood,

Above the wild war-drumming,

Let Freedom’s voice be heard, with good

The evil overcoming.

Give prayer and purse

To stay the Curse Whose wrong we share,

Whose shame we bear,

Whose end shall gladden Heaven!

In vain the bells of war shall ring

Of triumphs and revenges,

While still is spared the evil thing

That severs and estranges.

But blest the ear

That yet shall hear

The jubilant bell

That rings the knell

Of Slavery forever!

Then let the selfish lip be dumb,

And hushed the breath of sighing;

Before the joy of peace must come

The pains of purifying.

God give us grace

Each in his place

To bear his lot,

And, murmuring not,

Endure and wait and labor!

The author was a doctor in Virginia. The last of the Seven Days Battles, the Battle of Malvern Hill, where “Tom” lost his arm, took place on July 1, 1862.

Tom, old fellow, I grieve to see

The sleeve hanging loose at your side;

The arm you lost was worth to me

Every Yankee that ever died,

But you don’t mind it at all,

You swear you’ve a beautiful stump,

And laugh at that damnable ball—

Tom, I knew you were always a trump.

A good right arm, a nervy hand,

A wrist as strong as a sapling oak,

Buried deep in the Malvern sand—

To laugh at that is a sorry joke.

Never again your iron grip

Shall I feel in my shrinking palm—

Tom, Tom, I see your trembling lip;

All within is not calm.

Well! the arm is gone, it is true;

But the one that is nearest the heart

Is left—and that’s as good as two;

Tom, old fellow, what makes you start?

Why, man, she thinks that empty sleeve

A badge of honor; so do I,

And all of us—I do believe

The fellow is going to cry!

“She deserves a perfect man,” you say;

“You were not worth her in your prime;”

Tom! the arm that has turned to clay,

Your whole body has made sublime;

For you have placed in the Malvern earth

The proof and pledge of a noble life—

And the rest, henceforward of higher worth

Will be dearer than all to your wife,

I see the people in the street

Look at your sleeve with kindling eyes;

And you know, Tom, there’s naught so sweet

As homage shown in mute surmise.

Bravely your arm in battle strove,

Freely for Freedom’s sake you gave it;

It has perished—but a nation’s love

In proud remembrance will save it.

Go to your sweetheart, then, forthwith—

You’re a fool for staying so long—

Woman’s love you’ll find no myth,

But a truth—living, tender, strong.

And when around her slender belt

Your left is clasped in fond embrace,

Your right will thrill, as if it felt,

In its grave, the usurper’s place.

As I look through the coming years,

I see a one-armed married man;

A little woman, with smiles and tears,

Is helping as hard as she can

To put on his coat, to pin his sleeve,

Tie his cravat, and cut his food;

And I say, as these fancies I weave,

“That is Tom, and the woman he wooed.”

The years roll on, and then I see

A wedding picture, bright and fair;

I look closer, and it’s plain to me

That is Tom with the silver hair.

He gives away the lovely bride,

And the guests linger, loth to leave

The house of him in whom they pride—

“Brave old Tom with the empty sleeve.”

In his Rebellion Record, Frank Moore published this very short heroic story from “a correspondent, writing from the hospitals of Alexandria, Va.” The very bloody battle of Antietam Creek, at Sharpsburg, Maryland, took place on September 17, 1862.

Joe enlisted in the First Maryland regiment, and was plainly a “rough” originally. As we passed along the hall we first saw him crouched near an open window, lustily singing, “I’m a bold soldier boy,” and observing the broad bandage over his eyes, I said: “What’s your name, my good fellow?”

“Joe, sir,” he answered, “Joe Parsons.” “And what is the matter with you?” “Blind, sir, blind as a bat.” “In battle?”

Poor Joe was in the front, at Antietam Creek, and a Minie ball had passed directly through his eyes, across his face, destroying his sight forever. He was but twenty years old, but he was as happy as a lark! “It is dreadful,” I said.

“I’m very thankful I’m alive, sir. It might ha’ been worse, yer see,” he continued.

“I was hit,” he said, “and it knocked me down. I lay there all night, and the next day the fight was renewed. I could stand the pain, yer see, but the balls was flyin’ all round, and I wanted to get away. I couldn’t see nothin,’, though. So I waited and listened; and at last I heard a feller groanin’ beyond me.

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘you’re a rebel, but will you do me a little favor?’

“Then I says: ‘Well, ole butternut, I can’t see nothin.’ My eyes is knocked out; but I ken walk. Come over yere. Let’s git out o’ this. You p’int the way, an’ I’ll tote yer off the field on my back.’

“And so we managed to git together. We shook hands on it. I took a wink out o’ his canteen, and he got on to my shoulders.

“I did the walkin’ for both, an’ he did the navigatin’. An’ ef he didn’t make me carry him straight into a rebel colonel’s tent, a mile away, I’m a liar! Hows’ever, the colonel came up, an’ says he, ‘Whar d’yer come from? who be yer?’ I told him. He said I was done for, and couldn’t do no more shoot’n; an’ he sent me over to our lines. So, after three days, I came down here with the wounded boys, where we’re doin’ pretty well, all things considered.”

“But you will never see the light again, my poor fellow,” I suggested, sympathetically.

“That’s so,” he answered, glibly, “but I can’t help it, you notice. I did my dooty—got shot, pop in the eye—an’ that’s my misfort’n, not my fault—as the old man said of his blind hoss. But—’I’m a bold soldier boy,’ “he continued, cheerily renewing his song; and we left him in his singular merriment.

Kemper, a Confederate veteran, published his story in October 1873 in Southern Magazine.

To our great surprise and commensurate gratification, the Sergeant was less reticent than usual, and seemed to be growing even auto-biological. He was not a painfully handsome man: that odd-looking cavern, or sunken scar, in his leathery cheek was plainly not a dimple, nor could it in a spirit of the most elastic courtesy be regarded as a beauty-spot. The Sergeant sat next the decanter.

“Well, ’twas touch and go—a snap for him, a snap-shot for me; but the luck was mine. After catching the horse—a troublesome business—I went up to the man and inquired how he felt. He was lying on his face and made no answer. I turned him over. He seemed to be a fine-looking fellow, as well as I could judge in the deepening twilight, and about my own age. My ball had struck plumb-center, a little above the line of his eyebrows; but as he’d fallen and bled face downward, he was not much disfigured. No time was lost in going through his pockets and haversack; the ford being not more than half a mile away, I was afraid they might have a double picket there, in which case they’d like enough be sending presently to see what the shot meant. Finding nothing about his person worth conveying, save his official dispatches, I hurriedly crammed them into my haversack along with a lot of late Washington and New York papers that I had got for General Lee’s amusement from a lady friend near Frederick, then mounted the horse—a fine tight-built trotter, apparently of Morgan blood— and moved slowly and warily down toward the river. Two hundred yards from the ford I drew rein and listened. Everything seemed quiet. A solitary light shone in an upper window of the house at the canal bridge —you ought to remember the house, Captain S ——The roaring of the water among the rocks ahead was the only sound that broke the silence of the night, until presently a big owl began his melancholy laughter in the wood behind me. Having been born in the woods, I didn’t allow the solemn old cuss to frighten me, though I did wish he’d shut up, that’s a fact. Dismounting, I pulled the horse up a steep bank into the dense shadows of the woods skirting the roadside, hitched him securely to a swinging limb, and limped along as best I might afoot to reconnoitre the ford. The coast was clear. This important discovery I effected by a simple little stratagem which had served my purpose on a previous occasion: without going dangerously near, or even crossing the canal, I merely brought my school-boy skill at yerking into play, and dropped a stone, like a shell from a miniature mortar, just where the vidette would be standing if about there at all. Having repeated the experiment without eliciting so much as a cuss-word in response, I advanced with confidence. The river was considerably lower than I had expected to find it. Groping along the water’s edge I found a place where the mud was stiff enough to sit upon, then shucked my boots and peeled of my socks, bringing several square inches of blistered skin with them, and paddled my feet in the cool water. Dead beat as I was, the delightful sensation of relief from long agony almost sent me to sleep in spite of myself; but I thought of Uncle Bob’s impatience, my own great danger, the importance of the dispatch I bore, the rest and refreshment and well-earned praise that awaited me at headquarters; in truth, I was thinking of too many things, and was nodding once more, but with a sudden exertion of will I straightened up like a Jack-in-the-box and drew on my boots, without socks, despite the pain, and limped back toward where I’d left the horse, resolved to get across the river at once. I found him all right; but that ominous old owl had taken advantage of my absence to come and perch himself in a tree right over him, where he was tohoo-hooing at a great rate. Before mounting I thought of a good plan to secure the dispatch; for you must understand I didn’t more than half like the outlook: things were a little too quiet. Somehow I began to fear that a rough road and danger still lay between me and camp. I took a little air-tight India-rubber bag in which I carried ‘fine-cut’ (when I had any) and put the dispatch, neatly folded, inside of that; then I poked the bag down the neck of my canteen, blew it up with my breath as tight as I could, and tied a string around the neck so as to keep the air in and the water out, or whiskey, as the case might be. You will observe now that by keeping the canteen about half-lull of water, or whiskey, as I said before, the bag would ff oat always out of sight, keeping always on top, no matter which way the canteen might be held, while it would make no noise if shaken.

“When mounted, I felt better, and struck into a brisk trot for the river. My feet stopped paining me for one thing, and on reaching the ford I was so gay and imprudent as to let of a rousing war-whoop which reverberated for a mile around. I instantly sobered down, regretting the senseless act on finding that I got no answer from the Virginia shore save the startling echo of my own voice; for I had hoped to find there a picket of Fitz Lee’s or Hampton’s men. If there, they were afraid to answer my challenge. I didn’t comprehend the situation; in fact, I hardly had sense enough left to comprehend anything: I was emphatically a used-up man, so weary and sleepy that I swayed in the saddle like a drunken man as I forced the horse down the bank and into the river. Owing to my stupid condition, or the darkness of the night, for the clouds hung low and heavy, I missed the proper line of ford and struck too low down stream. Before getting forty feet from the bank the horse stumbled and scrambled over a large slippery rock, nearly pitching me out of the saddle, then plunged head down into almost swimming water, soaking the little round button on top of my Scotch cap and waking me up. Three or four plunges and desperate struggles brought us out to a little island—I reckon some of you recollect it?—about thirty-five or forty yards from the Maryland shore. It was covered with willow trees and thick undergrowth quite down to the water’s edge, except on the Maryland side and around the lower end, where there was a strip of clean sandy beach some ten or fifteen feet in width. ‘Humph!’ says I,’ here’s a nice berth for a fox-nap! Buck me! but I’ll risk forty winks anyhow!’

“The fact is, gentlemen, human endurance has limits. I had now been on the trot for over two days and nights, and not even a sense of danger would make me hold up longer. So I rolled of the horse—leaving the saddle on him, but removing the bit from his mouth—fastened him to a willow-branch, crept round under cover of the thickest foliage at the lower point of the little island, and lay down to rest, using my well-stuffed haversack for a pillow. It was a dangerous chance I was taking. I knew it; but the night was so still, and everything seemed inviting me to snatch an hour’s rest before continuing a perilous journey, the worst of which, for all I knew, might be still before me. Not a sound was to be heard betokening approach of danger—nothing save the rush and gurgle of the inky waters, the crunching of my horse’s teeth leisurely chewing the willow leaves, and the far-of whistle of the whippoor-will away up the river. Just before losing all sense in heavy slumber I noticed dreamily that the clouds broke away in the east, and I caught a glimpse of the crescent moon hanging by one horn in the top of a tall dead pine tree high up on the Maryland bluff. It swung to and fro like a binnacle-light, and I remember thinking in a drowsy sort of way that if it wasn’t careful it would drop of the limb and get broken. Just then the old owl opened again; only it seemed to me he had changed his base, and was now perched upon a leafless limb overhanging the roadside on the hill, and was talking to the poor fellow stretched out beneath, lying there so still and ghastly, the white face upturned to the moonlight, the wide-staring eyes, the purple spot in the pale forehead where the bullet went in and life came out. I seemed to be standing over him again, it was all so plain. Well, well, such is war—as the scout must wage it. There’s no denying the fact though, it does make a man feel worse—more like a wild beast, like our elder brother Cain—to be obliged to slay his foe under such circumstances: alone, with no witness but his own conscience and the All-seeing Eye that pierces through the gathering gloom of night on the lonely forest road. But why it should be really worse than to do the same thing with the roar and crash and rattle of wholesale murder around you, I confess is not so plain to my mind. To single out your men—men not even aiming at you, neither—and pick ’em off one at a time, as some of us here have done, for an hour or two, that now appears to me—I beg pardon; where was I? Let’s licker.”

“I must have slept like a Mississippi sawyer for I don’t know how long, two or three hours perhaps, when spi-yow! zweep!—a shot from the Virginia shore, then three or four more in quick succession, answered by a rattling fusillade from the Maryland side. I was on my feet of course ere the second shot was fired and about to spring to saddle, but too late. The ford was crowded with Federal cavalry, cursing, yelling, stumbling and spurring furiously across the river, where our boys (a small picket from Hampton’s command, as I afterwards learned) didn’t stay to swop horses, as indeed there would have been no sense in doing; though why in thunder they didn’t answer my challenge I never could discover. Now indeed I found myself entrapped and entangled in the meshes woven by my own folly. Although, as you remember, the island is not exactly in the line of ford, being some twenty-five or thirty yards down stream, it was impossible for my horse to long escape notice, standing, or rather plunging impatiently, in the full light of the moon, now high in the heavens. Luckily for me I was in deep shadow cast by overhanging willows, and had time to beat the assembly, so to speak, to collect my startled faculties and make them fall in line. My first thought was for the dispatch. Having gone through purgatory to get it and fetch it so far, you may safely bet I hadn’t any notion of lightly losing it. Raising the canteen to my lips, I drained it of the last swallow of “blue ruin,” somewhat improved by the flavor of India-rubber; then stooping down, I cautiously refilled it about half-way with Potomac water and corked it tightly. By this time they had seen the horse; and some had stopped and were pointing toward him, but seemed rather shy about coming down. An officer ordered ‘three or four’ of them to ‘ride down there and see what it meant.’ While they hesitated I took advantage of their timidity and delay to cast about for a chance of escape, and make a few little arrangements, such as strapping my belt outside of my haversack and canteen cords, so’s to keep ’em down to my side in case I took water. And that same I meant to do too; for I had already discovered from their talk that they’d found the dead courier, and I knew mighty well what to expect if they found me too. I have been in and got out of some pretty rasping scrapes, but this was the only occasion save one during the entire war when I remember to have made up my mind deliberately to die rather than be caught. Bitterly I cursed my stupidity in not concealing the courier’s body; and then, by way of change, I believe I tried my hand at praying, but couldn’t get any further than ‘now I lay me down to sleep,’ when I remembered what a blamed fool I’d been to do that very thing, and that set me to cussin’ again. Fact is, it was a little too late for either cussin’ or prayin’, and I soon came to that conclusion. Dropping silently on my hands and knees, I crept along under the willow-branches close to the water’s edge and listened. Noticing just ahead of where I was, on the western side of the island, a long drooping branch of willow hung out almost touching the surface of what looked like pretty deep water, on the instant a vague undefined plan or hope of escape began to shape itself in my mind.

“By this time two or three of ’em had got round the horse on the other side of the bushes, talking. ‘Why, how is this? What’s this here on the saddle now?’ ‘Feels sorter wet and sticky, don’t—’ ‘Blood, by jingo!’ cries another. ‘Can’t you smell it, corp’ral?’ Then the corporal yells out, ‘Ride down here, Kurnel! Dang me if this here ain’t the courier’s horse!’ ‘What the should the horse be doing thar without a rider?’ growled back a deep hoarse voice like the mate’s of a three-master. ‘Look alive there, blast yer blockheads, and ye’ll mebby find the chap that rode him!’

“The devils now commenced shooting into the willow thicket, one of the balls grazing my right elbow: must get out of that some way. Sliding down into the water like a skilpot off a log, I found to my great joy that it was deep enough for my purpose; and so I lay low right under the overhanging limb, just keeping eyes, nose and ears out of water. Had hardly got settled comfortably (our ideas of comfort, you know, as of all else, are entirely relative) before the big Colonel himself was there, knocking, ripping and snorting around, poking his five-foot sabre into the bushes wherever he thought he spied something, and popping away every now and then with his revolver. Twice or three times the blamed officious old blunderbore came nigh hitting me, and I was getting right mad, when what should he do but come and stand on the limb, so’s it pushed my head clean under water. Being taken unawares (I thought of course he was going to step over the limb, as anybody but a cussed old fool like him would have done), I couldn’t help spluttering a little as my mouth went under. ‘Aha!’ says he, ‘what’s that?’ I had worked my mouth and nose out, and was trying to draw my breath easy, but the strain on my lungs was terrible. He wasn’t at all sure he had heard anything, but just out of downright deviltry and officiousness he gave point in tierce right down through the willow. Instinctively I ducked; but for all that I got the point of his confounded sabre through my cheek here, and have been trying ever since to digest a couple of big jaw-teeth. In making the thrust he lost his balance and came within an ace of piling in atop of me. That was all that saved me: by the time he had gathered himself up I also had recovered in some degree my desperate composure, and was breathing as softly and steadily as a sleeping bull-frog. The limb knocked my cap off when he stumbled, and it was nearly floating out from under the willow; but I caught it in time and drew it down beneath me. I could feel that I was bleeding like a stuck pig, but it was no time for squealing. By this time a dozen or so, mostly officers, were crowding down to the island to see what the row was about; but the Colonel—God bless the old pudding-head!—ordered ’em all back, and away they went and he with them. Just as the last man was turning the corner, almost out of sight, he stopped, faced about, and I caught the click-click as he cocked his revolver. Says he, ‘Thar’s a big fish under that limb, and I knows it.’ Down went my devoted head deep as I could get it. I heard no report; but the peculiar metallic ripping sound of the ball as it cut the water just above my ear I shall not soon forget. It sounded like tearing sheet-iron.

“That appeared to satisfy them. When I ventured to raise my head and look about me, they had taken my horse and were hurrying on to overtake their command. The long line of horsemen, riding by twos, still stumbled and splashed and clattered across the moonlit river, and plunging up the steep bank, disappeared in the silent shadows beyond. How long I remained in the water I cannot tell; it seemed to me many hours. I was growing sensibly weaker from the loss of blood, while the water chilled me to the very marrow; yet still I kept my position, kneeling in the water beneath the sheltering willow. At length, as the moon forged slowly down the western skies, fleecy clouds began to gather and obscure her light once more. At length too the cavalry had all passed by; some ambulances and a light wagon or two followed, and I was just crawling out from my hiding-place, bracing my resolution for a bold push toward the old Virginia shore, when the head of a column of light artillery appeared. Here was a go! I had seen some crossing of artillery at this ford before: easy enough going in, but the very old Tommy to get out if it should chance to be a large battalion, at all commensurate with the force of cavalry which had preceded it, there was very great probability that they wouldn’t get over till long after daylight, in which event, you will understand, it was likely to be quite interesting for me. Pass the decanter, if you please.

“Still I felt quite confident of getting out of the trap in some way, particularly since the moon now shed so feeble a light that I could venture to stand up and shake myself—a very primitive, Newfoundland mode of making the toilette, but quite refreshing and satisfactory under some circumstances. Well, just as I feared, the leading carriage stalled at the steep and slippery bank on the Virginia side. No use to hitch in more horses: only a certain number—not more than four— had room to pull to advantage. Hearing the word passed back for picks and shovels and axes, I knew well what was to be done: while some were grading the ascent, others would be set to work cutting branches to throw under the horses’ feet. To leave the island at the lower end and attempt to make the Virginia shore by wading and swimming in the rapids among the big boulders below the ford, I felt would be sheer madness in my exhausted condition. I was so wrapped in thought, striving to strike out some plan of escape from the perils thickening around me, that I failed to notice two men who had left the column near the Maryland side and were riding down toward the island, till the foremost one was nearly upon me. I drew back farther behind the willows, crouched, watched, listened. Never dog with hydrophobia dreaded water more than I did then; but I slowly edged of toward my former hiding-place, ready to take another plunge if it should prove necessary. The leading man was plainly drunk in the first degree, and when the other joined him there was a pair of ’em. From their thick-tongued talk about wagons, chests and such matters, it seemed they belonged to the bomb-proof departments. There was a rattling of canteens; the first comer handed his companion a key which he swore ‘was the one t’ th’ blue ch-chist, ‘n’ the d-dimijohn was the one in th’ lef’-han’ corner.’ He enjoined upon him to ‘fill both canteens ch-chuck-fulli ‘n’ not to g-guzzle it ‘fore he g-got back, neither’; meantime he (the speaker) would ‘knock it off’ there. While giving his directions he had managed to roll of the saddle and fasten his horse to the very limb which I had used for the same purpose. The other chap rode of toward the rear, declaring he ‘wouldn’t be gone more’n half an hour.’ My man then staggered to the lower end of the island, worked himself out of his overcoat, bundled it up awkwardly for a pillow, and laid himself out to ‘knock it off.’ Here was my chance: I was saved! Stealthily and slowly I grasped the handle of my trusty bowie-knife—the only friend I could depend on now, and the better for being a silent one, not given to noisy demonstrations—and drew him gently from the modest retirement and obscurity of my dexter boot-leg, where be had so long lain perdu, biding his time. Stand by me now, if ever, old ‘Buck-Horn,’ friend and mess-mate! Let but this one stroke be straight, sure and deadly, and never again shall thy glittering blade be condemned and degraded to the ignominious office of slicing mess-pork! A sword, a battle-axe, and perchance a razor shalt thou be all the days of thy—life I was going to say, but changed my mind and substituted existence, as being more correct.”

“You did, did you?” here broke in Sammy G——, a pert young nephew of the Sergeant, who believed in “turning things around and looking at ’em both ways,” as he said. Then I put in. “Sergeant,” said I, “you should remember that you are not telling this story for publication in the Scribblers Scrap-Book. Do you mean to assert that you really were going to murder that person in cold blood, and that you really did apostrophise your bowie-knife in those terrible, awe-inspiring words, or words to that effect?”

“Sir,” said he, with dignity slightly marred by a manifestation of temper, “I don’t wish to be criticized in this way. If I didn’t use precisely those words, ‘those words,’ as you style them, would have admirably expressed my sentiments, and would have been appropriate to the occasion. That should suffice. As to murdering people in cold blood, you should consider that I was about as cold and bloody as a man can well be, and laboring under heavy provocation besides; but if any of you gentlemen think you can tell the story, that is to say if you imagine that you can narrate the circumstances better than I can, why just push ahead and do it.”

Here Sammy thought it high time for him to say something again, and he cried out: “That’s all in my eye! Them cavalry was Hampton’s men, an’ I heard Kurnel Toliver say ‘at he ketched Uncle Tom (that’s the Sergeant) on a island, and all wet, and give him a drink, I did!”

“O you be durned!” said the Sergeant, and immediately proposed a game of euchre.

The poem was published in New York, December 17, 1862, immediately after the Battle of Fredericksburg, in Virginia, when Union General Burnside unsuccessfully attempted to break through Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army to attack Richmond.

Eighteen hundred and sixty-two—

That is the number of wounded men

Who, if the telegraph’s tale be true,

Reached Washington City but yester e’en,

And it is but a handful, the telegrams add,

To those who are coming by boats and by cars;

Weary and wounded, dying and sad;

Covered—but only in front—with scars.

Some are wounded by Minie shot,

Others are torn by the hissing shell,

As it burst upon them as fierce and as hot

As a demon spawned in a traitor’s hell.

Some are pierced by the sharp bayonet,

Others are crushed by the horses’ hoof;

Or fell ‘neath the shower of iron which met

Them as hail beats down on an open roof.

Shall I tell what they did to meet this fate?

Why was this living death their doom—

Why did they fall to this piteous state

‘Neath the rifle’s crack and the cannon’s boom?

Orders arrived, and the river they crossed—

Built the bridge in the enemy’s face—

No matter how many were shot and lost,

And floated—sad corpses—away from the place.

Orders they heard, and they scaled the height,

Climbing right “into the jaws of death;”

Each man grasping his rifle-piece tight—

Scarcely pausing to draw his breath.

Sudden flashed on them a sheet of flame

From hidden fence and from ambuscade;

A moment more—(they say this is fame) —

A thousand dead men on the grass were laid.

Fifteen thousand in wounded and killed,

At least, is “our loss,” the newspapers say.

This loss to our army must surely be filled

Against another great battle-day.

“Our loss!” Whose loss? Let demagogues say

That the Cabinet, President, all are in wrong.

What do the orphans and widows pray?

What is the burden of their sad song?

’Tis their loss! But the tears in their weeping eyes

Hide Cabinet, President, Generals—all;

And they only can see a cold form that lies

On the hillside slope, by that fatal wall.

They cannot discriminate men or means—

They only demand that this blundering cease.

In their frenzied grief they would end such scenes,

Though that end be—even with traitors—peace.

Is thy face from thy people turned, O God?

Is thy arm for the Nation no longer strong?

We cry from our homes—the dead cry from the sod—

How long, O our righteous God! how long?

This is one of the several stories Alcott (1832–1888) wrote and published in 1863 based on her personal experiences as a nurse in Washington. The future author of Little Women arrived in the capital at the end of December 1862, in time to aid the wounded soldiers from Fredericksburg.

This sudden summons in the gray dawn was somewhat startling to a three days’ nurse like myself, and, as the thundering knock came at our door, I sprang up in my bed, prepared

if necessary; but my roommate took it more coolly, and, as she began a rapid toilet, answered my bewildered question,—

“Bless you, no child; it’s the wounded from Fredericksburg; forty ambulances are at the door, and we shall have our hands full in fifteen minutes.”

“Wash, dress, feed, warm and nurse them for the next three months, I dare say. Eighty beds are ready, and we were getting impatient for the men to come. Now you will begin to see hospital life in earnest, for you won’t probably find time to sit down all day, and may think yourself fortunate if you get to bed by midnight. Come to me in the ballroom when you are ready; the worst cases are always carried there, and I shall need your help.”

So saying, the energetic little woman twirled her hair into a button at the back of her head, in a “cleared for action” sort of style, and vanished, wrestling her way into a feminine kind of pea-jacket as she went.

I am free to confess that I had a realizing sense of the fact that my hospital bed was not a bed of roses just then, or the prospect before me one of unmingled rapture. My three days’ experiences had begun with a death, and, owing to the defalcation of another nurse, a somewhat abrupt plunge into the superintendence of a ward containing forty beds, where I spent my shining hours washing faces, serving rations, giving medicine, and sitting in a very hard chair, with pneumonia on one side, diptheria on the other, two typhoids opposite, and a dozen dilapidated patriots, hopping, lying, and lounging about, all staring more or less at the new “nuss,” who suffered untold agonies, but concealed them under as matronly an aspect as a spinster could assume, and blundered through her trying labors with a Spartan firmness, which I hope they appreciated, but am afraid they didn’t. (Having a taste for “ghastliness,” I had rather longed for the wounded to arrive, for rheumatism wasn’t heroic, neither was liver complaint, or measles; even fever had lost its charms since “bathing burning brows” had been used up in romances, real and ideal. But when I peeped into the dusky street lined with what I at first had innocently called market carts, now unloading their sad freight at our door, I recalled sundry reminiscences I had heard from nurses of longer standing, my ardor experienced a sadden chill, and I indulged in a most unpatriotic wish that I was safe at home again, with a quiet day before me, and no necessity for being hustled up, as if I were a hen and had only to hop of my roost, give my plumage a peck, and be ready for action. A second bang at the door sent this recreant desire to the right about, as a little woolly head popped in, and Joey, (a six years’ old contraband,) announced—

“Miss Blank is jes’ wild fer ye, and says fly round right away. They’s comin’ in, I tell yer, heaps on ’em—one was took out dead, and I see him,—hi! warn’t he a goner!”

With which cheerful intelligence the imp scuttled away, singing like a blackbird, and I followed, feeling that Richard was not himself again, and wouldn’t be for a long time to come.

The first thing I met was a regiment of the vilest odors that ever assaulted the human nose, and took it by storm. Cologne, with its seven and seventy evil savors, was a posy-bed to it; and the worst of this affliction was, everyone had assured me that it was a chronic weakness of all hospitals, and I must bear it. I did, armed with lavender water, with which I so besprinkled myself and premises, that I was soon known among my patients as “the nurse with the bottle.” Having been run over by three excited surgeons, bumped against by migratory coal-hods, water-pails, and small boys, nearly scalded by an avalanche of newly filled tea-pots, and hopelessly entangled in a knot of colored sisters coming to wash, I progressed by slow stages up stairs and down, till the main hall was reached, and I paused to take breath and a survey. There they were! “our brave boys,” as the papers justly call them, for cowards could hardly have been so riddled with shot and shell, so torn and shattered, nor have borne suffering for which we have no name, with an uncomplaining fortitude, which made one glad to cherish each like a brother. In they came, some on stretchers, some in men’s arms, some feebly staggering along propped on rude crutches, and one lay stark and still with covered face, as a comrade gave his name to be recorded before they carried him away to the dead house. All was hurry and confusion; the hall was full of these wrecks of humanity, for the most exhausted could not reach a bed till duly ticketed and registered; the walls were lined with rows of such as could sit, the floor covered with the more disabled, the steps and doorways filled with helpers and lookers on; the sound of many feet and voices made that usually quiet hour as noisy as noon; and, in the midst of it all, the matron’s motherly face brought more comfort to many a poor soul, than the cordial draughts she administered, or the cheery words that welcomed all, making of the hospital a home.

The sight of several stretchers, each with its legless, armless, or desperately wounded occupant, entering my ward, admonished me that I was there to work, not to wonder or weep; so I corked up my feelings, and returned to the path of duty, which was rather “a hard road to travel” just then. The house had been a hotel before hospitals were needed, and many of the doors still bore their old names; some not so inappropriate as might be imagined, for that ward was in truth a ballroom, if gunshot wounds could christen it. Forty beds were prepared, many already tenanted by tired men who fell down anywhere, and drowsed till the smell of food roused them. Round the great stove was gathered the dreariest group I ever saw—ragged, gaunt and pale, mud to the knees, with bloody bandages untouched since put on days before; many bundled up in blankets, coats being lost or useless; and all wearing that disheartened look which proclaimed defeat, more plainly than any telegram of the Burnside blunder. I pitied them so much, I dared not speak to them, though, remembering all they had been through since the fight at Fredericksburg, I yearned to serve the dreariest of them all. Presently, Miss Blank tore me from my refuge behind piles of one-sleeved shirts, odd socks, bandages and lint; put basin, sponge, towels, and a block of brown soap into my hands, with these appalling directions:

“Come, my dear, begin to wash as fast as you can. Tell them to take of socks, coats and shirts, scrub them well, put on clean shirts, and the attendants will finish them off, and lay them in bed.”

If she had requested me to shave them all, or dance a hornpipe on the stove funnel, I should have been less staggered; but to scrub some

However, there was no time for nonsense, and, having resolved when I came to do everything I was bid, I drowned my scruples in my washbowl, clutched my soap manfully, and, assuming a businesslike air, made a dab at the first dirty specimen I saw, bent on performing my task vi et armis if necessary. I chanced to light on a withered old Irishman, wounded in the head, which caused that portion of his frame to be tastefully laid out like a garden, the bandages being the walks, his hair the shrubbery. He was so overpowered by the honor of having a lady wash him, as he expressed it, that he did nothing but roll up his eyes, and bless me, in an irresistible style which was too much for my sense of the ludicrous; so we laughed together, and when I knelt down to take of his shoes, he “flopped” also, and wouldn’t hear of my touching “them dirty craters. May your bed above be aisy darlin’, for the day’s work ye are doon!—Whoosh I there ye are, and bedad, it’s hard tellin’ which is the dirtiest, the fat or the shoe.” It was; and if he hadn’t been to the fore, I should have gone on pulling, under the impression that the “fut” was a boot, for trousers, socks, shoes and legs were a mass of mud. This comical tableau produced a general grin, at which propitious beginning I took heart and scrubbed away like any tidy parent on a Saturday night. Some of them took the performance like sleepy children, leaning their tired heads against me as I worked, others looked grimly scandalized, and several of the roughest colored like bashful girls. One wore a soiled little bag about his neck, and, as I moved it, to bathe his wounded breast, I said,

“Well, I reckon it did, marm, for that shot would a gone a couple a inches deeper but for my old mammy’s camphor bag,” answered the cheerful philosopher.

Another, with a gunshot wound through the cheek, asked for a looking-glass, and when I brought one, regarded his swollen face with a dolorous expression, as he muttered—

“I vow to gosh, that’s too bad! I warn’t a bad looking chap before, and now I’m done for; won’t there be a thunderin’ scar? and what on earth will Josephine Skinner say?”

He looked up at me with his one eye so appealingly, that I controlled my risibles, and assured him that if Josephine was a girl of sense, she would admire the honorable scar, as a lasting proof that he had faced the enemy, for all women thought a wound the best decoration a brave soldier could wear. I hope Miss Skinner verified the good opinion I so rashly expressed of her, but I shall never know.

The next scrubbee was a nice-looking lad, with a curly brown mane, honest blue eyes, and a merry mouth. He lay on a bed, with one leg gone, and the right arm so shattered that it must evidently follow: yet the little sergeant was as merry as if his afflictions were not worth lamenting over; and when a drop or two of salt water mingled with my suds at the sight of this strong young body, so marred and maimed, the boy looked up, with a brave smile, though there was a little quiver of the lips, as he said,

“Now don’t you fret yourself about me, miss; I’m first rate here, for it’s nuts to lie still on this bed, after knocking about in those confounded ambulances, that shake what there is left of a fellow to jelly. I never was in one of these places before, and think this cleaning up a jolly thing for us, though I’m afraid it isn’t for you ladies.”

“No, miss; I’ve been in six scrimmages, and never got a scratch till this last one; but it’s done the business pretty thoroughly for me, I should say. Lord! what a scramble there’ll be for arms and legs, when we old boys come out of our graves, on the Judgtnent Day: wonder if we shall get our own again? If we do, my leg will have to tramp from Fredericksburg, my arm from here, I suppose, and meet my body, wherever it may be.”

The fancy seemed to tickle him mightily, for he laughed blithely, and so did I; which, no doubt, caused the new nurse to be regarded as a light-minded sinner by the Chaplain, who roamed vaguely about, with his hands in his pockets, preaching resignation to cold, hungry, wounded men, and evidently feeling himself, what he certainly was, the wrong man in the wrong place.

“I say, Mrs.!” called a voice behind me; and, turning, I saw a rough Michigander, with an arm blown off at the shoulder, and two or three bullets still in him—as he afterwards mentioned, as carelessly as if gentlemen were in the habit of carrying such trifles about with them. I went to him, and, while administering a dose of soap and water, he whispered, irefully:

“That red-headed devil, over yonder, is a reb, hang him! He’s got shet of a foot, or he’d a cut like the rest of the lot. Don’t you wash him, nor feed him, but jest let him holler till he’s tired. It’s a blasted shame to fetch them fellers in here, along side of us; and so I’ll tell the chap that bosses this concern; cuss me if I don’t.”

I regret to say that I did not deliver a moral sermon upon the duty of forgiving our enemies, and the sin of profanity, then and there; but, being a red-hot Abolitionist, stared fixedly at the tall rebel, who was a copperhead, in every sense of the word, and privately resolved to put soap in his eyes, rub his nose the wrong way, and exooriate his cuticle generally, if I had the washing of him.

My amiable intentions, however, were frustrated; for, when I approached, with as Christian an expression as my principles would allow, and asked the question—”Shall I try to make you more comfortable, sir?” all I got for my pains was a gruff—

“Here’s your Southern chivalry, with a witness,” thought I, dumping the basin down before him, thereby quenching a strong desire to give him a summary baptism, in return for his ungraciousness; for my angry passions rose, at this rebuff, in a way that would have scandalized good Dr. Watts. He was a disappointment in all respects, (the rebel, not the blessed Doctor,) for he was neither fiendish, romantic, pathetic, or anything interesting; but a long, fat man, with a head like a burning bush, and a perfectly expressionless face: so I could dislike him without the slightest drawback, and ignored his existence from that day forth. One redeeming trait he certainly did possess, as the floor speedily testified; for his ablutions were so vigorously performed, that his bed soon stood like an isolated island, in a sea of soap-suds, and he resembled a dripping merman, suffering from the loss of a fin. If cleanliness is a near neighbor to godliness, then was the big rebel the godliest man in my ward that day.

Having done up our human wash, and laid it out to dry, the second syllable of our version of the word War-fare was enacted with much success. Great trays of bread, meat, soup and coffee appeared; and both nurses and attendants turned waiters, serving bountiful rations to all who could eat. I can call my pinafore to testify to my good will in the work, for in ten minutes it was reduced to a perambulating bill of fare, presenting samples of all the refreshments going or gone. It was a lively scene; the long room lined with rows of beds, each filled by an occupant, whom water, shears, and clean raiment had transformed from a dismal ragamuffin into a recumbent hero, with a cropped head. To and fro rushed matrons, maids, and convalescent “boys,” skirmishing with knives and forks; retreating with empty plates; marching and countermarching, with unvaried success, while the clash of busy spoons made most inspiring music for the charge of our Light Brigade:

Very welcome seemed the generous meal, after a week of suffering, exposure, and short commons; soon the brown faces began to smile, as food, warmth, and rest, did their pleasant work; and the grateful “Thankee’s” were followed by more graphic accounts of the battle and retreat, than any paid reporter could have given us. Curious contrasts of the tragic and comic met one everywhere; and some touching as well as ludicrous episodes, might have been recorded that day. A six-foot New Hampshire man, with a leg broken and perforated by a piece of shell, so large that, had I not seen the wound, I should have regarded the story as a Munchausenism, beckoned me to come and help him, as he could not sit up, and both his bed and beard were getting plentifully anointed with soup. As I fed my big nestling with corresponding mouthfuls, I asked him how he felt during the battle.

“Well, ’twas my fust, you see, so I aint ashamed to say I was a trifle flustered in the beginnin’, there was such an all-fired racket; for ef there’s anything I do spleen agin, it’s noise. But when my mate, Eph Sylvester, fell, with a bullet through his head, I got mad, and pitched in, licketty cut. Our part of the fight didn’t last long; so a lot of us larked round Fredericksburg, and give some of them houses a pretty consid’able of a rummage, till we was ordered out of the mess. Some of our fellows cut like time; but I warn’t a-goin to run for nobody; and, fust thing I knew, a shell bust, right in front of us, and I keeled over, feelin’ as if I was blowed higher’n a kite. I sung out, and the boys come back for me, double quick; but the way they chucked me over them fences was a caution, I tell you. Next day I was most as black as that darkey yonder, lickin’ plates on the sly. This is bully coffee, ain’t it? Give us another pull at it, and I’ll be obleeged to you.”

I did; and, as the last gulp subsided, he said, with a rub of his old handkerchief over eyes as well as mouth:

“Look a here; I’ve got a pair a earbobs and a handkercher pin I’m a goin’ to give you, if you’ll have them; for you’re the very moral o’ Lizy Sylvester, poor Eph’s wife: that’s why I signalled you to come over here. They aint much, I guess, but they’ll do to memorize the rebs by.”

Burrowing under his pillow, he produced a little bundle of what he called “truck,” and gallantly presented me with a pair of earrings, each representing a cluster of corpulent grapes, and the pin a basket of astonishing fruit, the whole large and coppery enough for a small warming-pan. Feeling delicate about depriving him of such valuable relics, I accepted the earrings alone, and was obliged to depart, somewhat abruptly, when my friend stuck the warming-pan in the bosom of his night-gown, viewing it with much complacency, and, perhaps, some tender memory, in that rough heart of his, for the comrade he had lost.

Observing that the man next him had left his meal untouched, I offered the same service I had performed for his neighbor, but he shook his head.

“Thank you, ma’am; I don’t think I’ll ever eat again, for I’m shot in the stomach. But I’d like a drink of water, if you aint too busy.”

I rushed away, but the water-pails were gone to be refilled, and it was some time before they reappeared. I did not forget my patient patient, meanwhile, and, with the first mugful, hurried back to him. He seemed asleep; but something in the tired white face caused me to listen at his lips for a breath. None came. I touched his forehead; it was cold: and then I knew that, while he waited, a better nurse than I had given him a cooler draught, and healed him with a touch. I laid the sheet over the quiet sleeper, whom no noise could now disturb; and, half an hour later, the bed was empty. It seemed a poor requital for all he had sacrificed and suffered,—that hospital bed, lonely even in a crowd; for there was no familiar face for him to look his last upon; no friendly voice to say, Goodbye; no hand to lead him gently down into the Valley of the Shadow; and he vanished, like a drop in that red sea upon whose shores so many women stand lamenting. For a moment I felt bitterly indignant at this seeming carelessness of the value of life, the sanctity of death; then consoled myself with the thought that, when the great muster roll was called, these nameless men might be promoted above many whose tall monuments record the barren honors they have won.

All having eaten, drank, and rested, the surgeons began their rounds; and I took my first lesson in the art of dressing wounds. It wasn’t a festive scene, by any means; for Dr. P., whose aide I constituted myself, fell to work with a vigor which soon convinced me that I was a weaker vessel, though nothing would have induced me to confess it then. He had served in the Crimea, and seemed to regard a dilapidated body very much as I should have regarded a damaged garment; and, turning up his cuffs, whipped out a very unpleasant looking housewife, cutting, sawing, patching and piecing, with the enthusiasm of an accomplished surgical seamstress; explaining the process, in scientific terms, to the patient, meantime; which, of course, was immensely cheering and comfortable. There was an uncanny sort of fascination in watching him, as he peered and probed into the mechanism of those wonderful bodies, whose mysteries he understood so well. The more intricate the wound, the better he liked it. A poor private, with both legs off, and shot through the lungs, possessed more attractions for him than a dozen generals, slightly scratched in some “masterly retreat”; and had anyone appeared in small pieces, requesting to be put together again, he would have considered it a special dispensation.

The amputations were reserved till the morrow, and the merciful magic of ether was not thought necessary that day, so the poor souls had to bear their pains as best they might. It is all very well to talk of the patience of woman; and far be it from me to pluck that feather from her cap, for, heaven knows, she isn’t allowed to wear many; but the patient endurance of these men, under trials of the flesh, was truly wonderful. Their fortitude seemed contagious, and scarcely a cry escaped them, though I often longed to groan for them, when pride kept their white lips shut, while great drops stood upon their foreheads, and the bed shook with the irrepressible tremor of their tortured bodies. One or two Irishmen anathematized the doctors with the frankness of their nation, and ordered the Virgin to stand by them, as if she had been the wedded Biddy to whom they could administer the poker, if she didn’t; but, as a general thing, the work went on in silence, broken only by some quiet request for roller, instruments, or plaster, a sigh from the patient, or a sympathizing murmur from the nurse.

It was long past noon before these repairs were even partially made; and, having got the bodies of my boys into something like order, the next task was to minister to their minds, by writing letters to the anxious souls at home; answering questions, reading papers, taking possession of money and valuables; for the eighth commandment was reduced to a very fragmentary condition, both by the blacks and whites, who ornamented our hospital with their presence. Pocket books, purses, miniatures, and watches, were sealed up, labelled, and handed over to the matron, till such times as the owners thereof were ready to depart homeward or campward again. The letters dictated to me, and revised by me, that afternoon, would have made an excellent chapter for some future history of the war; for, like that which Thackeray’s “Ensign Spooney” wrote his mother just before Waterloo, they were “full of affection, pluck, and bad spelling”; nearly all giving lively accounts of the battle, and ending with a somewhat sudden plunge from patriotism to provender, desiring “Marm,” “Mary Ann,” or “Aunt Peters,” to send along some pies, pickles, sweet stuff, and apples, “to yourn in haste,” Joe, Sam, or Ned, as the case might be.

My little Sergeant insisted on trying to scribble something with his left hand, and patiently accomplished some half dozen lines of hieroglyphics, which he gave me to fold and direct, with a boyish blush, that rendered a glimpse of “My Dearest Jane,” unnecessary, to assure me that the heroic lad had been more successful in the service of Commander-in-Chief Cupid than that of Gen. Mars; and a charming little romance blossomed instanter in Nurse Periwinkle’s romantic fancy, though no further confidences were made that day, for Sergeant fell asleep, and, judging from his tranquil face, visited his absent sweetheart in the pleasant land of dreams.

At five o’clock a great bell rang, and the attendants few, not to arms, but to their trays, to bring up supper, when a second uproar announced that it was ready. The newcomers woke at the sound; and I presently discovered that it took a very bad wound to incapacitate the defenders of the faith for the consumption of their rations; the amount that some of them sequestered was amazing; but when I suggested the probability of a famine hereafter, to the matron, that motherly lady cried out: “Bless their hearts, why shouldn’t they eat? It’s their only amusement; so fill everyone, and, if there’s not enough ready tonight, I’ll lend my share to the Lord by giving it to the boys.” And, whipping up her coffee-pot and plate of toast, she gladdened the eyes and stomachs of two or three dissatisfied heroes, by serving them with a liberal hand; and I haven’t the slightest doubt that, having cast her bread upon the waters, it came back buttered, as another large-hearted old lady was wont to say.

Then came the doctor’s evening visit; the administration of medicines; washing feverish faces; smoothing tumbled beds; wetting wounds; singing lullabies; and preparations for the night. By twelve, the last labor of love was done; the last “goodnight” spoken; and, if any needed a reward for that day’s work, they surely received it, in the silent eloquence of those long lines of faces, showing pale and peaceful in the shaded rooms, as we quitted them, followed by grateful glances that lighted us to bed, where rest, the sweetest, made our pillows soft, while Night and Nature took our places, filling that great house of pain with the healing miracles of Sleep, and his diviner brother, Death.

We will not raise, O God! the formal prayer

Of broken heart and shattered nerve;

Thou know’st our griefs, our wants, and whatsoe’er

Is best for those who serve.

Before thy feet, in silence and in awe,

We open lay our cause and need;

As brave men may, the patriot sword we draw,

But thine must be the deed.

We have no pageantry to please thy eye,

Save marshaled men, who marching come

Beneath thy gaze in armed panoply;

No music save the drum.

We have no altar builded in thy sight,

From which the fragrant offerings rise,

Save this wild field of hot and bloody fight;

These dead our sacrifice.

To this great cause the force of prayer is given,

The wordless prayer of righteous will,

Before whose strength the ivory gates of heaven

Fall open, and are still.

For we believe, within our inmost souls,

That what men do with spirit sad,

To thee in one vast cloud of worship rolls—

Rolls up, and makes thee glad.

O God! if reason may presume so far,

We say our cause is also thine;

We read its truth in every flashing star,

In every sacred line.

By thy commission freedom first was sent,

To hold the tyrant’s force at bay;

The chain that broke in Egypt was not meant

To bind our shining day.

Freedom to all! in Thy great name we cry,

And lift to heaven thy bloody sword;

Too long have we been blind in heart and eye

To thy outspoken word.

Before the terrors of that battle-call,

As flax before the gusty flame,

Down, down, the vanquished enemy shall fall,

Stricken with endless shame!

Here let division cease. Join hand with hand,

Join voice with voice; a general shout

Shall, like a whirlwind, sweep our native land,

And purge the traitors out!

Fear not or faint not. God, who ruleth men,

Marks where his noble martyrs lie;

They shall all rise beneath his smile again;

His foes alone shall die.