’Mid dim and solemn forests, in the dawning chill and gray,
Over dank, unrustling leaves, or through stiff and sodden clay,
With never a fife or bugle, or mutter of rumbling drum,
With shivering forms and solemn souls the Southern soldiers come;
Their long lines vanishing in mist as onward they are sweeping,
With step as silent as the dawn’s, to where the foe is sleeping.
A challenge!--“Halt!”--The expected shot,--and then a dozen more,
Like pebbles pattering down the steep the avalanche before;
And then a rush, and then a yell, and then a blinding glare,
And then a crash to lift the feet resounding everywhere!
Now vanish chill and solemn thoughts, now burns the frenzied blood;
The tottering tents toss to and fro upon the driving flood,
And the campfires flash and darken fast beneath the masses’ tread--
Now smoke behind in scattered brands ’mid wounded men and dead.
And forward crowd the fugitives in panic-driven race;
In vain in bush, ravine, and brake they hunt a hiding-place;
For still that long line onward sweeps unbroken far and near,
As War himself, with pinions bowed, were screaming in their rear.
But far beyond the panic’s reach the foe is forming fast,
And in our path stands rank on rank of long battalions massed.
Now, Southern soldiers, nerve your hearts and gather up your strength,
The time of trial waited for is come to you at length!
A hundred pieces open, and their shrieking missiles pour,
While full ten thousand muskets flash and mingle in the roar,
Till the cannon’s boom is swallowed in the din of musketry,
As the booming of the ocean when the thunders crash on high.
But momently our laboring lines are charging o’er the field,
And forcing back the stubborn ranks that only inches yield;
For at every fence they rally and oppose our surging flood,
Till their dead lie heaped before us wherever they have stood.
A Southern regiment there is matched against a full brigade,
And not a hundred yards apart in open field arrayed;
A brook half way between them through a copse of willows glides,
There’s not a rock, fence, log, or tree to shelter ours besides.
But stubbornly, undauntedly, with ne’er a cheer or shout,
With hands too busy for their lips they deal their volleys out.
Again the battle gathers strength on yonder wooded hill,
Behind whose awful batteries fresh ranks are forming still;
A reeking veil of undergrowth divides the hostile lines,
But lurid through its tangled web the vivid lightning shines!
And so affrighting Death appears behind that dreadful pall,
The stoutest spirit hesitates and flinches from his call.
Now who will pierce that curtain dire and meet the battle’s brunt,
Before their armies gather there and burst upon our front?
Again the stern, portentous cry of “bayonets” is heard,
But not again the serried line springs forward at the word;
Behind the trees as skirmishers the cowering soldiers hide,
And from afar the harmless trade of musket balls is plied.
In vain, in vain their leaders shout, they cannot make them stir,
But perish singly in the lead with scarce a follower!
But hark, a sound of hoofs behind, a clang of sabres loud!
I see a squad of mighty men go by me like a cloud!
As the immortals rode to war when Hector fought for Troy,
These ride, as if immortals, too, inspired with awful joy.
Before them spurs their leader with a form that fills the air,
So does his bearing fill their eyes, as if a god were there!
Look how he goes to battle with a glory on his brow,
As if prophetic Victory held laurels o’er it now!
They are racing to the rescue: it is Johnston rides before;
God grant they be in time to turn the battle’s tide once more!
I hear their shoutings in the din; I hear the cries to “form,”
I see a stiffening battle-line take shape within the swarm;
And again the rank advances with an impetus of wrath,
Their chieftain’s rage in every heart impels them on their path.
A thousand rifles leveled low, but every rifle dumb,
The beating of a thousand feet upon a monster drum,
A surging of the war cloud as they disappear beneath,
A sickening of the spirit and a gasping of the breath;
Redoubled din--a lull--a cheer; I would the smoke would go!
Oh, see our swooping battle flags! Oh, see the fleeing foe!
Now glory to those gallant men! and Father, to Thy hand
To-morrow shall our praises ring throughout our stricken land!
But where is he who rallied them? I miss his charger there;
I see him now ’midst yonder three whose saddles all are bare;
And two men staggering with a load this side of them I see;
Oh, who is it they carry in their arms so tenderly?
They lay him gently on the leaves. Ah, well I know him now!
I know that lordly figure and that grand imperial brow!
’Tis he; but oh, how prostrate is that form which filled the air!
And his the pallid face; but look, the glory still is there!
Oh, ye daughters of Kentucky, ere your pæans are begun,
Your lips shall falter when they tell how Shiloh’s fight was won!
Your hands shall weave the victor crown of laurels, but in vain;
His marble brow shall never feel, nor pulse beat quick again.
Oh, South, be sure a heart so pure had never loved so well!
A country which had wronged him sore he pardoned ere he fell.