_Songs of Soldiers_
When faced by the stern realities of life and death, it is not easy for
any person to practice the subtle art of camouflage so far as faith and
destiny are concerned. The experiences of G. A. Studdert-Kennedy, one of
the war chaplains at the Front, were similar to those of other men
engaged in ministering to the religious needs of the soldiers. He was
once brought face to face with one of the boys in a crisis, and was
asked the pointed question: "What is God like?" The soldiers who know
that God is like Christ the Sufferer and Sympathizer, have an assurance
that gives them courage to go through the rough and distracting ordeal
on the field of battle. This was true in the World War and in all
similar grim encounters.
Another chaplain, Thomas Tiplady, wrote that when the great hours draw
near, and even in the lighter hours, the soldiers like hymns most of
all, and at the religious services they cannot have too many hymns. They
care little for patriotic songs since they are living their patriotism
in the severe struggle with the enemy. The hymns for which they have a
special preference are those which give them cheer and hope and deepen
their consciousness of the presence of the Comrade Christ.
These incidents belong to our Civil War and to later wars. But in
essence they bear on the same themes and frankly reveal the recesses and
the resources of the soul.
The unexpected turns in war are illustrated in
A Memory of Pickett's Brigade
Reminiscences were being exchanged by veterans of both sides of the
Civil War at a banquet given in their honor by the Board of Trade of New
York City. Colonel J. J. Phillips, of the Ninth Virginia Regiment,
Pickett's Division, presided. Speaking of night attacks, he recalled one
in particular because of the peculiar circumstances which resulted
almost in the compulsory disobedience of orders, in response to a higher
command.
"The point of attack had been carefully selected," said Colonel
Phillips, "the awaited dark night had arrived, and my command was to
fire when General Pickett should signal the order.
"There was that dread, indescribable stillness; that weird ominous
silence that always settles over everything before a fight. You felt
that nowhere in the universe was there any voice or motion.
"Suddenly the awesome silence was broken by the sound of a deep, full
voice rolling over the black void like the billows of a great sea,
directly in line with our guns. It was singing the old hymn, 'Jesus,
Lover of My Soul.'
"I have heard that grand old music many times in circumstances which
intensified its impressiveness, but never had it seemed so solemn as
when it broke the stillness in which we waited for the order to fire.
Just as it was given there rang through the night the words:
'Cover my defenseless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.'
"'Ready, aim! Fire to the left, boys!' I said.
"The guns were shifted, the volley that blazed out swerved aside, and
that 'defenseless head' was 'covered' with the shadow of His wing."
A Federal veteran who listened to this story spoke up and said, "I
remember that night, Colonel, and that midnight attack which carried off
so many of my comrades. I was the singer."
Such confirmation produced a deep impression, and after a silence
"Jesus, Lover of My Soul" was again sung as on the fatal night in 1864
when it rang across the lines at Bermuda Hundred.
The reference to the same leader is brought out under exceptional
circumstances in
The Song of the Defeated
"Written in Defeat, After the Battle of Five Forks," is the heading
given to a letter written by General George E. Pickett to his wife,
April 2, 1865. It is included by Arthur Crew Inman in his volume, _A
Soldier of the South_.[12] Here is part of it:
"All is quiet now, but soon all will be bustle, for we march at
daylight. Oh, my darling, were there ever such men as those of my
division? This morning after the review I thanked them for their valiant
services yesterday on the first of April, never to be forgotten by any
of us, when they fought one of the most desperate battles of the whole
war. Their answer to me was cheer after cheer, one after another calling
out, 'That's all right, Marse George!' and 'We only followed you!' Then
in the midst of these calls, silencing them, rose loud and clear old
Gentry's voice, singing the old hymns which they all knew I loved:
'Guide me, oh, Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.'
"Voice after voice joined in till from all along the line the plea rang
forth:
'Be my sword and shield and banner,
Be the Lord my righteousness.'
"I do not think, my Sallie, the tears sounded in my voice as it mingled
with theirs; but they were in my eyes, and there was something new in my
heart.
"When the last line had been sung, I gave the order to march ..."
What the soldiers felt in the depths of their life is revealed in
A Chorus of Ten Thousand
The night after the Battle of Shiloh, when there were thousands of
wounded on the field, one Christian soldier as he lay there dying under
the starlight began to sing, "There is a land of pure delight." When he
reached the next line there were scores of voices singing, "Where saints
immortal reign." The song was caught up all through the fields among the
wounded until it was said there were at least ten thousand wounded men
uniting in the triumphant closing verse of that beautiful hymn:
"Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore."
Mrs. Margaret Bottome relates an incident about
Marching to Music
"I had a brother who was in the Battle of the Wilderness during the
Civil War. He told me of a day in that dreadful wilderness when the
Connecticut regiment was traveling through such deep mud that they could
hardly pull their boots out of it as they took one step after another.
They were thoroughly dispirited and they had no music--the band was far
in the rear, but all at once they heard the sound that told them the
band was coming, and as it drew nearer they caught the strain. The band
was playing a tune known to every Methodist:
'Come on, my partners in distress,
My comrades through the wilderness,
Who still their bodies feel.
Awhile forget your griefs and fears
And look beyond this vale of tears
To that celestial hill.'
"My brother said it acted like magic on that regiment, the largest
proportion of which were Methodists; new life entered into them. A
moment before their feet had stuck in the mud, and they did not see how
they were ever to get along, for again and again they had to pull their
boots out of the mud with their hands, but from the time that tune, with
the words that memory made so distinct, was heard, not a step
faltered."[13]
This story from the Crimean War might be duplicated from other wars for
it tells of
A Soldier Saved by Song
Duncan Matheson, a Bible reader to the soldiers in the Crimea, was
returning one night to his lodgings in an old stable. Sickened by the
sights he had seen, and depressed with the thought that the siege of
Sebastopol was likely to last for months, he trudged along in the mud,
knee-deep. Happening to look up, he saw the stars shining calmly in the
clear sky. Weariness gave place to the thought that in heaven is rest,
and he began to sing aloud the old hymn:
"How bright these glorious spirits shine!
Whence all their bright array?"
The next day was wet and stormy. While going his rounds he met a
soldier, soiled and in ragged clothes; his shoes so worn that they did
not keep his feet from the mud. In the course of conversation this man
said:
"I am not what I was yesterday. Last night I was tired of life and of
this blundering siege. I took my musket and went down yonder, determined
to blow out my brains. As I got around that hillock I heard some one
singing, 'How bright these glorious spirits shine!' It recalled to me
the Sunday School where I used to sing it, and the religious truths I
had heard there. I felt ashamed of being such a coward. I said to
myself, 'Here is a comrade as badly off as I am, but he is not a
coward--he's bearing it!' I felt that man had something which I did not
possess to make him accept with cheerfulness our hard lot. I went back
to my tent, and today I am seeking that thing which made the singer so
happy."
Here is another from the World War, related in _The War Romance of the
Salvation Army_, by Booth and Hill,[14] how
Sunshine Came Into a Soldier's Heart
It was one Sunday afternoon in Bazeilles, France, at a service conducted
by three Salvationists. One of the girls sang:
"There's sunshine in my soul today,
More glorious and bright
Than glows in any earthly skies,
For Jesus is my light.
O there's sunshine, blessed sunshine,
When the peaceful, happy moments roll;
When Jesus shows His smiling face,
There is sunshine in the soul."[15]
The sequel is best explained in a letter written to his mother by one of
the boys:
"You will be surprised to hear that I am in the hospital, but I am
getting well quickly and am having a good time. But best of all, some
Salvation Army people came along and sang and talked about sunshine, and
while they were talking the sunshine came through my window--not into my
room alone, but into my heart and life as well, where it is going to
stay. I know how happy this will make you."
An incident from the Spanish-American War reveals the unity of Christian
faith in the way
American Soldiers Greeted Christmas
Christmas Eve, 1898, found the Seventh Army Corps encamped along the
hills at Quemados, near Havana, Cuba. Suddenly from the camp of the
Forty-ninth Iowa rang a sentinel's call, "Number ten; twelve o'clock,
and all's well!" Lieutenant-Colonel Curtis Guild thus wrote about it:
"It was Christmas morning. Scarcely had the cry of the sentinel died
away, when from the bandsmen's tents of that same regiment there rose
the music of an old, familiar hymn, and one clear baritone voice led the
chorus that quickly ran along the moonlit fields: 'How firm a foundation
ye saints of the Lord!' Another voice joined in, and another, and
another, and in a moment the whole regiment was singing, and then the
Sixth Missouri joined in with the Fourth Virginia, and all the rest,
till there on the long ridges above the city ... a whole American army
corps was singing:
'Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.'
Protestant and Catholic, South and North, singing together on Christmas
day in the morning,--that's an American army!"
We next go to Palestine for two stories. One is about
Soldiers and Sankey's Hymns
At a meeting in Blackheath, London, some time ago, according to a writer
in _The British Weekly_, a missionary to the Jews related one of his
experiences at a Jewish settlement in Palestine. He asked to see the
head of the settlement, who said, "Are you an Englishman?" He answered,
"Yes," feeling that perhaps he would not be pleased. Then he said, "Are
you a missionary?" And he answered "Yes," feeling certain now he would
not be pleased. To his astonishment the man said, "Oh, I am so glad, so
very glad. And can you play the piano?" to which he answered "Yes."
The missionary was then told that when the soldiers were there they came
almost daily and played Sankey's hymns on the piano, and sang them. The
people in the house crowded round to listen, and others gathered
outside. The result was that there were about thirty people in the
settlement who wanted to become Christians, and the missionary stayed
there for a month, at the end of which time they were baptized.
The other is from Mrs. Carrie J. Bond about
Marching Men
"A few years ago I was in Jerusalem in the American Colony Home. It was
a bright moonlight night and I heard the marching feet of soldiers. Soon
they began singing 'The End of a Perfect Day.' I looked out to see about
twelve soldiers marching by. In the morning I asked my host about it and
he brought out an old worn sheet of 'A Perfect Day' and told me this
story: Two American boys had been billeted to the American Colony House
and every evening during their stay one had played and the other had
sung that song. When they were well enough to leave they left the music
as a token of their gratitude."
Now we go to the Transvaal for a testimony to the influence of Fanny
Crosby's hymn, "Blessed Assurance," as related by Mr. Sankey,[16] which
might be entitled
"Six Further On"
"'During the recent war in the Transvaal,' said a gentleman in my
meeting in Exeter Hall, London, in 1900, 'when the soldiers going to the
front were passing another body of soldiers whom they recognized, their
greetings used to be, "Four-nine-four, boys, four-nine-four;" and the
salute would invariably be answered with "Six further on, boys; six
further on." The significance of this was that, in "Sacred Songs and
Solos," a number of copies of the small edition of which had been sent
to the front, Number 494 was "God Be With You Till We Meet Again"; and
six further on than 494, or Number 500, was "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is
Mine."'"
The last incident brings us back to the World War in the touching words,
"Sing It Again, Laddie"
In times of stress, Scotsmen turn toward God, for in the heart of them
they are all religiously inclined. During the World War a service in the
historic church in Ayr, Scotland, began with that beautiful Psalm
paraphrase: "I to the hills will lift mine eyes", sung to the tune of
"French."
The sermon had a reference to a young Highlander who was wounded in a
recent battle and lay stretched on the field. In his youth he had
learned "I to the hills" in Gaelic. He now began to sing that old Psalm
in his native tongue, and out over the field his singing reached as far
as his voice would carry. Just then a Scotch regiment came marching by
and the men heard it. One of them noted the spot from which the song
proceeded and at night, after the conflict, he went back to look for the
singer.
All was quiet as this Highlander wandered backward and forward and it
seemed as though his quest would be futile. He then raised his voice and
called out: "Sing it again, laddie, sing it again." The laddie heard and
responded and sang on till the searcher found him and carried him back
to the base. In due course he returned home wounded but thankful that He
had not slumbered who kept him.
The higher unity of faith carries further than the discordant notes of
mere nationalism. This was illustrated by a writer in the Kansas City
_Times_, relating the experience of
A Violinist in the Trenches
Outside of the dugout, shells whined and machine guns spattered with a
staccato of rat-tat-tats. Inside a violin sang and sobbed. The magic of
its music made men forget. They forgot the homesickness. They forgot the
mud. They forgot the cold. They forgot the ever presence of danger and
death.
They listened, heads propped up on sand bags and feet wrapped in
blankets as they stretched on mattresses of sand bags covering the rough
planks of their underground cots.
In another dugout, across No Man's Land on the German side, others were
also listening. They heard the strains of Mendelssohn's "Spring Song,"
as sweet and gentle and refreshing as an early summer shower. A strange
thing happened. A German picked up a cornet, and floating to the Allies'
dugout came the notes of the horn harmonizing with the violin.