Obadiah Ethelbert Baker (1838–1923) was neither a great poet nor a public one; he wrote mainly for his wife Melissa Dalton, with whom he often exchanged journals during the Civil War years, she at home in Iowa and he a common soldier in the 2nd Iowa Cavalry Volunteers. His poem to her of November 30, 1862—written in camp in Mississippi not long after the Battle of Corinth, in which he fought—remained unpublished in the pages of one of these journals until 2005. The two were safely reunited after his honorable discharge in April 1865, and moved to California. But his private lament is still resonant: “When will we learn to war no more?”
Wish I was sitting by thy side,
My dear beloved wife;
Far from the cannon’s awful roar,
Far from this awful strife.
My thoughts are of thee through the day,
I dream of thee at night;
I long to kiss thy lips once more,
And see thy face so bright
O God! When will this strife be o’er?
When will we learn to war no more?