CHAPTER II

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTHERN WAR POETRY

Contemporary criticism is seldom safely to be trusted, but there

are times when contemporaneous comment is as valuable as it is

enlightening. It is so with this statement by T. C. de Leon--in his

introduction to an anthology of the Southern Civil War verse.[11]

“If poems born of revolution bore no marks of the bitter need that

crushed them from the hearts of their authors, they would have no value

whatever, intrinsic or historical.”

Southern war poetry is worthy of preservation because it is an

expression of vital appeal and of sentiment wrung from the heart of

a people. For the most part, it was written under the stress of the

moment. It was indeed the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion, but

only occasionally does it take its origin from emotion recollected in

tranquillity. Nevertheless, it speaks the language of men and women,

and in it we may read, as perhaps through no other medium, the true

story of the development of Southern character, of national spirit, and

of definite sectional consciousness.

Today the poetry remains to us in the newspapers and magazines of the

period, and in the anthologies and various collections of war verse

(the best of these appearing either during the war or shortly after).

Most interesting, but most ephemeral of them all, it remains in part in

the small printed broadsides, or single sheets in handbill form, which

usually appeared anonymously and mysteriously, at times even without

the name of the printer. Issued in varying numbers, on wretched paper,

and seldom gathered together, so many of these have perished in the

passage of the years, that in many instances a single copy may remain

in existence. Of the verses that circulated in MSS. there is now little

trace. Occasionally, as in the case of K--s “To the Memory of Stonewall

Jackson,” some old copy-book or diary will restore them to the light:

but of the various sources, less result is obtained from this field

than from the others.

Next to the appearance of the poems in the papers and journals,

publication by broadside was probably the most common usage. Especially

in the later days of the war, when newspaper publication was either

temporarily or entirely suspended, this medium insured the quickest

distribution of verse particularly applicable to the moment, a battle

ode, a dirge of a fallen leader, or a song of peculiarly inspiriting

phraseology. It was in this broadside form that “My Maryland” spread

through the South almost in a day, anonymously, and often suffering

from lines badly copied or cut. That Randall was the author was a fact

silently understood and communicated: for it was safest and wisest in

those early days, and particularly in the border states, that names

be not mentioned. Even later, and after months of war, this condition

still obtained. The appearance, in September, 1862, of “Stonewall

Jackson’s Way,” written by Dr. John Williamson Palmer, as he listened

to the guns of Sharpsburg, is a case in point. Dr. Palmer gives this

history of the poem, and its publication:[12]

“In September, 1862, I found myself ... at Oakland ... in Garrett

County, Maryland. Early on the sixteenth there was a roar of guns in

the air, and we knew that a great battle was toward ... I knew that

Stonewall was in it, whatever it might be: it was his way,--‘Stonewall

Jackson’s Way.’ I had twice put that phrase into my war letters, and

other correspondents, finding it handy, had quoted it in theirs. I

paced the piazza and whistled a song of Oregon lumbermen and loggers

that I had learned from a California adventurer in Honolulu. The two

thoughts were coupled and welded into one to make a song: and as the

words gathered to the call of the tune I wrote the ballad of ‘Stonewall

Jackson’s Way’ with the roar of these guns in my ears. On the morrow I

added the last stanza....

“In Baltimore I told the story of the song to my father, and at his

request made immediately another copy of it. This was shown cautiously

to certain members of the Maryland Club: and a trusty printer was

found who struck off a dozen slips of it, principally for private

distribution. That first printed copy of the song was headed ‘Found on

a Rebel Sergeant of the Old Stonewall Brigade, Taken at Winchester.’

The fabulous legend was for the misleading of the Federal provost

marshal, as were also the address and date, ‘Martinsburg, September 13,

1862.’”

It must not be supposed that this war verse which has survived to

our day consists merely of battle songs and popular ballads on

themes arising from the nature of the conflict. Just as the war was

far reaching and general in its effect, touching every Southerner

personally, and too often poignantly, so the poetic response was varied

and modified to meet the demand of the moment. There is description,

and narration; there are of course dialectics and polemics; there is

satire; and there is even a little humor. And because through all this

rings the personal and individual appeal, the prevailing note is lyric.

Of the dramatic there is very little, notably Hayne’s “The Substitute,”

and “The Royal Ape.” This last is a long dramatic narrative in iambic

pentameter rimed couplets that is possibly more interesting as satire

and propaganda than as pure drama. Yet neither of these is a work of

free inspiration. The Southern war poet did his best work when out of

the fulness of his heart, he either vowed allegiance to his beloved

land, and her leaders, or wrote in passion and defiance as a resolved

defender of the freedom of his Fathers.

Judged from an emotional point of view, this poetry falls into three

distinct periods, obvious enough in themselves, but interesting

in that by them we may see more clearly the issues of the war as

reflected in the hearts of the warriors. There are the first poems of

rebellion against oppression: lyrics of passionate defiance as well as

of hortatory counsel: appeals to remember the glory of the past and

the danger of the present. The second period started at the moment

of invasion after which there was no longer need for a Congress to

formulate the principles for which they fought, or to arrange for the

unifying of the various State integers. Then began the poetry of actual

conflict, taking the form of verses concerning particular battles, the

narration of some heroic deed, the lament for a great hero, as well

as camp ballads, and marching songs. As a connecting link with the

first period, there are still the poems breathing the national spirit,

and loyalty to the Southern cause. Even in the third and last period,

that of disappointment, discouragement and actual defeat, this note

continues, and is the more poignant for its unfaltering persistence in

the face of calamity.

The poetry of the first period began in the closing days of 1860. In

November of that year there had been elected by the North and West a

President whose principles of government seemed to threaten the South

with danger of extermination of her most precious interests. The

platform of Republicanism she considered in every respect inimical to

her importance as a unit in the central organization of states. Her

very identity was endangered, and that to a section where pride of

historic heritage was as dear as actual power of wealth and commerce,

aroused her as could perhaps nothing else. Therefore, on December

twentieth, 1860, South Carolina passed her order of secession,

following it with the “Declaration of Independence,” which justified

the previous action by recalling the two great principles asserted by

the early colonies, namely, “the right of a state to govern itself,

and the right of a people to abolish a government when it becomes

destructive to the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent

with the establishment of these principles was the fact that each

colony became and was recognized by the mother country as a free,

sovereign and independent state.” It was a proud imperious challenge,

and made immediate appeal to every Southerner to whom freedom and

independence, personal or otherwise, was a precious birthright. The

proclamation fired the imagination, as it did the poetic spirit of the

land: the poetic response struck the same note. S. Henry Dickson’s

“South Carolina” was one of the first poems to appear. Its verses are

as lofty in tone as the lines of the proclamation, and equally as

sincere. They are frankly exultant.

The deed is done! the die is cast;

The glorious Rubicon is passed:

Hail, Carolina! free at last.

Strong in the right I see her stand

Where ocean laves the shelving sand;

Her own Palmetto decks the strand.

She turns aloft her flashing eye;

Radiant, her lonely star on high

Shines clear against the darkening sky.

* * * * *

Fling forth her banner to the gale!

Let all the hosts of earth assail,--

Their fury and their force shall fail.

* * * * *

Oh, land of heroes! Spartan State!

In numbers few, in daring great,

Thus to affront the frown of fate!

And while mad triumph rules the hour,

And thickening clouds of menace lower,

Bear back the tide of tyrant power.

With steadfast courage, faltering never,

Sternly resolved, her bonds to sever:

Hail, Carolina! free forever!

This may be the expression of the hour, but it proved as well to be

the poetic sentiment of the next four years. Every poet of the South,

from the humblest maker of camp catches to the greatest of her lyrists,

shared this attitude of resolve, as they watched their Spartan nation

continue to wage what they consented to be a righteous war for freedom,

against a tyrant power. Naturally, expression became more sharply

crystalized with the actual invasion. None the less, even thus early,

before the end of ’60, we have a precise foreshadowing of the war

attitude of the Confederate poet.

With the passage of secession in South Carolina, at once the remaining

“Cotton States” were torn by the conflict of making a great decision.

There were those to whom the indignity of submitting their conception

of government to what they called a usurpation of authority was

inconceivable treachery to an ancient and honorable past: and there

were those to whom unquestioning obedience to the Government at

Washington was the only way of fulfilling the heritage of their

ancestors. In the end, the extremists won. The North would offer no

compromise: indeed, it would have been contrary to the Southern code

of honor to have accepted halfway measures. To them there appeared no

other course to pursue, no solution but to follow Carolina’s lordly

lead. Mississippi seceded on January ninth, Florida on the tenth,

Alabama on the eleventh, Georgia on the nineteenth, Louisiana on the

twenty-sixth.

For the South as a whole, as well as for her poets, January had been a

month of tempest. Following the secession of Carolina, the situation

that had developed over Fort Sumter was dangerous to the extreme.

As it afterwards proved, Sumter was the tinder which kindled the

flame of war; and as early as January, when Major Anderson refused to

surrender the fort the menace within the South began to show itself.

The authorities of Charleston, endangered by Federal possession of

Sumter, demanded its surrender. No decision could have been reached

until after March fourth, when Lincoln was inaugurated. Meanwhile,

on the fourth of February, the six states which had already left the

Union, and Texas, which seceded three days earlier, formally met at

convention in Charleston, and united in a Confederacy, in opposition to

the Government at Washington. It was a move which their poets, as well

as their more practically visioned men, had been frantically urging.

Two of the most interesting of the poems of this period appeared,

the one in the _Southern Literary Messenger_ for January, by William

Gilmore Simms, the other in the _Charleston Courier_, about the middle

of the month, addressed in French, by R. Thomassy, under date of

Nouvelle Orleans, 2 Janvier 1861, to “Les Enfants du Sud.” It is fiery

and eloquent of passion.

Enfants du Sud, l’outrage et la menace

Aux nobles coeurs ne laissent plus de choix.

Le paix nous trompe: un serpent nous enlace

Tranchons ses noeuds, et defendons nos droits!

Qu’attendrons--nous pour reprendre l’epee,

Qui triompha d’un vieux monde oppresseur?

Le nord aussi, violant la foi juree,

Seme a son tour discorde et deshonneur.

Aux armes donc pour la cause sacree;

De nos ayeux vengeons les saintes lois;

Nous sommes Sparte, invincible, eprouvee;

Que sa vertu preside a nos exploits!

Gilmore Simms’ poem is less a call to arms, and more a warm and

affectionate tribute to a beloved land, noteworthy because it proves

that even before the Confederacy was formed, the people of the South

were united in her love. The second stanza is better than the first.

She is all fondness to her friends: to foes

She glows a thing of passion, strength and pride;

She feels no tremors when the danger’s nigh,

But the fight over, and the victory won,

How with strange fondness turns her loving eye

In tearful welcome on each gallant son!

* * * * *

I glory that my lot with her is cast,

And my soul flushes and exultant sings;

Already there had begun the actual war verse, taking here the form

of the invitation to arms. That war, the “irrepressible conflict,”

was inevitable, was recognized by all sensible men. “Barhamville” in

January addressed one of the first of these, “The Call,” to the editor

of the _South Carolinian_. At this time, too, there appeared the fervid

“Spirit of ’60,” in the Columbus _Times_, forerunner of a series in

which were contrasted the spirit of the present and of ’76. To the

South, both were wars for liberty, both struggles against oppression,

in both contests the South was a vital factor; and the analogy was too

good for a poetic eye to miss.

The finest single poem produced in this preliminary stage of the

contest was that by Henry Timrod, “Ethnogenesis,” written during the

meeting of the first Southern Congress, at Montgomery, in the early

days of February. To the poet the Congress meant indeed the birth of a

great nation, a nation among nations, strong in its right, and secure

in national resource,

“marshalled by the Lord of Hosts

And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts

Of Moultrie and of Eutaw.”

It is a noble utterance and its dignity and melody of expression must

have added greatly to the deep impression it created. In the _Southern

Literary Messenger_ for the month there are Joseph Brennan’s “Ballad

for the Young South”--“Men of the South! our foes are up, in fierce and

grim array,”--and the defiant “The Southland Fears No Foeman,” by J. W.

M., in which is the richly suggestive line, “Her eagles yet are free;”

while “from the Georgia papers,” under date of Atlanta, February first,

there is the anonymous “Cotton States’ Farewell to Yankee Doodle.” This

latter is especially interesting because it is one of the first of a

“Farewell to Brother Jonathan” group which enjoyed considerable vogue

during the late winter and which was answered in the North by Oliver

Wendell Holmes, with the lines “Brother Jonathan’s Lament for Sister

Caroline,” under date of March 25. Of the Confederate poems on this

theme, “Farewell to Brother Jonathan” by “Caroline,” which appeared

about this time seems closely connected with Holmes’ verses. The metre

of the two poems is the same and the thought antithetic, although

it would be difficult to determine which is the reply. The last two

stanzas of “Farewell to Brother Jonathan” are particularly good.

O Brother! beware how you seek us again,

Lest you brand on your forehead the signet of Cain;

That blood and that crime on your conscience must sit;

We may fail, we may perish, but never submit!

The pathway that leads to the Pharisee’s door

We remember, indeed, but we tread it no more;

Preferring to turn, with the Publican’s faith,

To the path through the valley and shadow of death.

Three other poems, apparently of this month, should be mentioned in

passing, as exemplifying the note of personal interest of the Southern

poet in the issue of the struggle. Robert Joselyn’s “Gather! Gather!”

the anonymous war song, “Come, Brothers! You are called!” and Millie

Mayfield’s triumphant “We Come! We Come!” may not be poetry of the

first order: nevertheless these are verses written by people to whom

the threatened conflict is not a matter distant and aloof, but of

intimate and vital concern.

March was a month of little action on both sides. In the North it

witnessed the inauguration of Lincoln; in the South the completer

organizing and unification of the Confederacy, and the beginning of

negotiations by the Confederacy by which they might secure possession

of Fort Sumter. If, however, the South was marking time, her poets were

not. They continued to urge her on to fulfillment of her “destiny.”

Indeed, this month saw written some of the very best and most resolute

of her war verse. There is the indignant “Coercion,” by John C.

Thompson--

“Who talks of Coercion? Who dares to deny

A resolute people the right to be free?”

There is the anonymous “Prosopopeia,” also in the _Southern Literary

Messenger_, which with Timrod’s “Cry to Arms,” written a little later,

is the best of the verse of this kind which the period produced.

Another widely known poem of the month was St. George Tucker’s “The

Southern Cross,” verses patterned after Key’s “Star Spangled Banner,”

and which had enormous vogue, and was even set to music, later on. This

in so far as can be determined is the first poetic use of the Southern

Cross as the symbol of the Confederacy, a figure that was later adopted

for the design of her flag, and which finally became, not only her

ensign, but as well a symbol of the righteousness of her faith and

cause. James Barron Hope’s “Oath of Freedom,”--

Born free, thus we resolve to live:

By Heaven, we will be free.

By all the stars which burn on high,

By the green earth--the mighty sea--

By God’s unshaken majesty

We will be free or die!--

is of a kind with Thompson’s “Coercion,” and was widely copied during

this time. Another poem must be mentioned here, as presaging the

turmoil to follow, “Fort Sumter,” by “H.,” in the New Orleans _Delta_,

with the command of its refrain, “Carolina, _take_ the Fort.”

The most eventful months of the year 1861 were April and July, for

April inaugurated “the irrepressible conflict,” and July saw the first

great battle of the war, and a complete Confederate victory. On the

first of April, President Lincoln announced his decision to refuse

surrender of Fort Sumter to the Confederates, and added that he would

undertake to provision the garrison imprisoned there immediately. At

once the South was aflame. On the morning of the twelfth of April,

Beauregard, commander of the Southern forces at Charleston, ordered

the shelling of the Fort, which continued through the thirteenth, and

ended with the evacuation of the Fort on the fourteenth. The war had

begun, and though the opening engagement had been without loss to

either side, and had ended in a Confederate victory, a far bloodier and

disastrous conflict was inevitable. To the rejoicing South, however,

there was only the glory of the first decision to consider, and the

poets in their rapture gave utterance to a sheaf of verse, innumerable

ballads about Sumter, affectionate odes to the nation so gloriously

born and baptized by victorious fire, two great national songs, and

frantic appeals to North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, Tennessee and

Kentucky to join fortunes of the Confederacy.

The first song published in the South after the war began, and

corresponding, in the North, to E. C. Stedman’s “The Twelfth of April”

was, fittingly enough, “God Save the South” by George H. Miles of

Frederick County, Maryland. Sung to music by C. W. A. Ellerbrock, it

was designed to be, and accepted as the national hymn. It did not

however, succeed in becoming a favorite. On the twenty-sixth of the

month, James Rider Randall, inflamed by the circumstances of the

“Baltimore Massacre” on April nineteenth, wrote his “My Maryland,” the

most famous Southern poem produced by the war, and one whose influence

was greater than a hundred battles. Circulated at first by broadsides

it swept through the South like wildfire, and if any force could have

drawn Maryland to the side of the Confederacy, it would have been that

exerted by this poem. Her Union Governor, however, aided by Federal

troops and tactful advice from Washington, succeeded in holding the

State to the Union, although many Marylanders were ardent Southern

sympathizers. Virginia, on the other hand, who, like Maryland, had been

hesitating over her decision, hesitated no longer, after the episode

of Sumter, implying as it did, Federal coercion. On the seventeenth

of April she seceded from the Union. Her “pausing” had long been

considered a shame and a reproach by Southern poets. Now, they burst

forth in delight. “Virginia, Late But Sure!” was the triumphant shout

of Dr. Holcombe, and Virginia’s answer was expressed in poems such as

“Virginia to the Rescue,” “Virginia’s Rallying Call,” or “Virginia’s

Message to the Southern States.”

The poetry produced or published in May chiefly concerns the decision

of Virginia, and the assembling of the Southern armies, those “Ordered

Away” to the field. Virginia’s entrance into the Confederacy had burnt

all the bridges leading back--though remotely--to peace. At once the

South proceeded to rally her forces to the standard of her cause,

and gradually during May and June, flung out her battle line across

Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Mississippi. Down the

river it stretched through Forts Henry and Donelson to New Orleans. At

one time, in ’63, the Confederate line surged forward through Western

Virginia and Maryland so far into Pennsylvania that Harrisburg was

directly menaced. It was the four years’ uncertain task of the Union

forces to control this line, to break through it, turn it back and

in upon itself, and finally to starve its scattered remnants into

submission. As this was accomplished the first lyric outburst of the

War--Timrod’s “Cry to Arms,” for example--was gradually exchanged for

a slenderer volume of song. At first her poets encouraged the people

to faith and labor; then they sang of hope and courage, attempting to

relieve the despair of a nation whose cause was lost, and whose ruin

seemed irretrievable.

In the spring of ’61, however, there was only exultation, while in the

North the cry of “On to Richmond” welled and grew fiercer during May,

June and the summer months. Especially did it grow imperative after

July twentieth, when the Confederate Capital was transferred there from

Montgomery. On the next day, July twenty-first, came the great opening

battle of the war, when the Union army under General Scott, joined

with Beauregard’s men at Manassas Junction. The result was a complete

Confederate victory, and there was unrestricted panic and flight among

the Federal troops (the source of much satiric comment among the

Southern poets) when Joseph E. Johnston’s army, which had not been

expected to arrive until too late to be of assistance to Beauregard,

appeared at the crucial moment.

It was only natural that the wave of triumphant exultation which had

thrilled the South after the fall of Sumter should again sweep the

land. Her poets responded with a sheaf of poems, in which they wrote

of the contest from every angle,--odes of thanksgiving for victory,

narratives of the course of the flight, eulogies of Beauregard and

Johnston, satires on the behavior of the Union forces, camp catches

half satiric and half comic, poems of particular incidents of the

fight, finally words of regret and sorrow for the slain, and the manner

of their slaying. This last theme is particularly interesting, for the

feeling of horror at the situation “where brother fought with brother”

was ever-present with the Southerners throughout the four years of

the War. The very best of the poems occasioned by Manassas were those

of Mrs. Warfield, “Manassas,” Susan Archer Talley’s “Battle Eve,”

Ticknor’s “Our Left,” and the lines by “Ruth,” entitled “The Battle of

Bull Run,” dated Louisville, Kentucky, July twenty-fourth, and written

in curious and effective stanzas of irregular “unrhymed rhythms.” Mrs.

Warfield’s poem was stirring and vigorous, bold in metaphor and in

expression.

They have met at last, as storm clouds

Meet in Heaven,

And the Northmen, back and bleeding

Have been driven:

And their thunders have been stilled,

And their leaders crushed or killed,

And their ranks, with terror thrilled

Rent and riven!

Like the leaves of Vallumbroso

They are lying;

In the moonlight, in the midnight

Dead and dying:

Like those leaves before the gale

Swept their legions wild and pale,

While the host that made them quail

Stood, defying.

* * * * *

But peace to those who perished

In our passes!

Light be the earth above them!

Green the grasses!

Long shall Northmen rue the day,

When they met our stern array,

And shrunk from battle’s wild affray

At Manassas.

Miss Talley’s “Battle Eve,” with its beautiful picture of twilight

calm before the darker night of storm and death, is affecting in its

simple direct appeal, and sincerity of regret for the carnage of

conflict--and was called forth by the seriousness of the impending

meeting at Manassas. Francis Orray Ticknor’s “Our Left”--suggested

by the indomitable courage and perseverance of the Confederate left

wing before McDowell’s men, until reinforced by the timely arrival

of Johnston’s army, who brought victory with them, is a spirited,

almost exalted account of the actual battle, and was immensely

popular at the time. There are many versions of it still extant, in

broadsides and anthologies,--for the most part anonymous, since the

poem evidently was not at first acknowledged by Ticknor. This has led

to a curious connection of names. In one of the broadsides versions

in the collection of the Ridgway Library, in Philadelphia, the poem

is dated Baltimore, Maryland, October 20, 1861, and is signed by “Old

Secesh.” This signature is also given to “The Despot’s Song,” a popular

Lincoln satire of a later period of the War, which again is assigned to

Baltimore, and from circumstantial evidence seems to be the work of Dr.

N. G. Ridgely, a Baltimorean who was a popular satirist of the day, and

who signed his work variously “N. G. R.,” “Le Diable Baiteux,” “O. H.

S.,” “Cola,” and “B.” This last signature is further associated with

the name of James Ryder Randall, for in the Baltimore City Librarian’s

Office, in Ledger 1411, there is a broadside version of “Maryland, My

Maryland,” published in Baltimore, as were these other broadsides, and

signed “B,” Point Coupee (La.), April 26, 1861. It would, of course,

be impossible, so many years later, to puzzle out the interrelation of

the poems and signatures, and indeed their value would hardly warrant

the labor. It is, nevertheless, an interesting example of the chaos

which at times arose from the necessarily surreptitious publication and

circulation of the Confederate verse.

Manassas was the last great event of the year. There were several minor

engagements between the two armies, notably the fight at Ball’s Bluff,

on the twenty-first of October; and there was the “Trent Affair,”

with the capture of the Confederate emissaries to England, Mason and

Slidell, on November eighth. Nevertheless, the Southern poets did not

lack inspiring material, the continued “aloofness” of Maryland and

Kentucky being among their most vital themes. They were, of course,

never idle with their lyrics of loyalty and continued to sound the war

note or to sing of the South, with indomitable zeal. They had even by

this time, become so accustomed to the state of war, that they could

begin to work seriously with satire. The best in this genre written

in ’61 are John R. Thompson’s “On to Richmond,” satirizing Winfield

Scott’s first campaign, and “England’s Neutrality” (England had passed

a proclamation of neutrality towards the two belligerents early in May,

on the thirteenth): “O Johnny Bull, My Jo John,” an anonymous ballad

occasioned by the presence of English frigates off the coast in ’61,

and the unfortunately anonymous, but delightfully humorous “King Scare”

(prompted by the terror in the North regarding the Confederate power in

the field).

The close of the year was marked by a poem in the _Southern Field

and Fireside_--a “Requiem for 1861,” by H. C. B. It is not of any

particular excellence or poetic merit, but it is worthy of note for its

expression of sincere sorrow for the conflict that was severing a land

of brothers; and for a sense of the horror that war had brought to the

South.

Year of terror, year of strife,

Year with evil passions rife

Pass, with seething angry flood,

Pass, with garments dipped in blood,--

Born ’mid hopes, but raised in fears,

With thy dewdrops changed to tears,

With thy springtime turned to blight,

And with darkness quenching light.

* * * * *

War’s fierce tread upon our land

Severing once a kindred band,

Child and father ranged for strife,

Brother seeking brother’s life!

* * * * *

Thou who doth unsheathe the sword

By the power of Thy Word,

And can by Thy mighty will

To the waves say “peace, be still”

Gather up this storm once more,

Where “Thy judgments are in store,”

Send Thy holy dove of Peace,

And our fettered land release!

The same longing for peace is shown in the verses “Christmas Day, A.

D. 1861,” by M. J. H. But it must be a peace with victory. That was

the earliest conception. By the lives of her sons who had died for her

in the year just passed, the South was resolved on whatever sacrifice

it might cost her to prevail, despite the fact that she was already

weary of the struggle. No better expression of her unchecked purpose

may be found than in Mrs. War field’s lines, written in the spring

months before Manassas, “The Southern Chant of Defiance.” With Timrod’s

“Ethnogenesis,” and Randall’s “Maryland,” it stands the finest poetry

which the year produced in the Confederacy.

1862 began with the Confederacy prevailing. Nevertheless, the first

six months of the year seemed to bring to the South nothing but gloom.

In February of ’62, came news of the capture of Fort Henry on the

Tennessee River, February sixth, and on February eighth, of the fall

of Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland. There was much more importance in

these two defeats than at first appeared to the poets; for these forts

were the two most valuable gateways to the Southwestern Confederacy,

and their fall meant not only the first break in the Confederate line,

but as well, direct menace of Southern control of the Mississippi, and

New Orleans. It foreshadowed the later evacuation of Nashville, before

Grant.

In January, the month before, the chief theme of the Southern poets

had been the meditated burning of the cotton crop, by the Southern

planters, and this cry of “Burn the Cotton!” had brought forth at

least one finely phrased poem. In February, the themes concerned the

siege and evacuation of Donelson, and there began the days of wretched

anxiety that were to possess the Confederacy until the end of July,

when the land was to know that the Virginia part of her line still

held, and Richmond was safe. In March McClellan assumed chief control

of the Union forces, and began his Peninsula campaign, in response to

Lincoln’s reiterated cry, “On to Richmond.” On the eighth of the month,

the Confederate ram “Merrimac” out from Norfolk, succeeded in breaking

the Federal blockade of Hampton Roads, much to the consternation of the

North. The next day, however, in her encounter with the “cheesebox”

Monitor, “the turtle” Merrimac was too badly hurt to be of further

or immediate use, and the elation of the day before gave way to

depression, which was in no way relieved by the events of the next few

months. April saw the practical occupation of the Mississippi, with the

fall of Corinth, the evacuation of Fort Pillow, and on the lower river,

Farragut and Porter’s occupation of New Orleans. Of the Mississippi

line, there remained to the Confederates only Vicksburg and Port

Hudson. For the South everything depended on the defeat of McClellan’s

“On to Richmond” march, since on the sixth of the month, Albert Sidney

Johnston, attempting to retrieve the disaster to the middle line in

Tennessee, had engaged Grant at Shiloh and Pittsburgh Landing, with

tremendous carnage. The battle had proved an incomplete Confederate

defeat, but what was worse for the South, had occasioned Johnston’s

death.

To all of the many events of these opening months, the Southern poets

made continuous response. National songs inspiring faith and courage,

as for example, Hewitt’s “Lines Written During These Gloomy Times, To

Him Who Despairs,” spoken at the Richmond “Varieties” by Mr. Ogden,

Wednesday night, May 7, 1862,--occasional verses suggested by various

incidents and episodes of the war’s progress, camp catches and marching

ballads praising individual troops and regiments, the poets poured

forth in unstinting measure. However, the death of Albert Sidney

Johnston, at Shiloh, made a deeper impression on the poets than any

event of these spring months. The affection and pure love which the

Southerners lavished on their leaders is one of the several remarkable

phenomena of the war. In no other war, and in no other country do the

leaders appear to have been so beloved, so idolized. To us today, the

expression of sentiment seems extravagant and excessive. One attribute

it has, however, and one that is not to be denied. The praise of the

South for her great men is always passionately sincere. During the war,

the Southerners were, as never before, a band of brothers. There was,

therefore, in their relations with their great men, a personal contact

and appeal which in the North was not so keenly felt. Albert Sidney

Johnston, who with Beauregard, had been one of the heroes of Manassas,

was the first of Confederate heroes to fall. The South mourned him, as

she did all of her sons who fell in her defence, truly and warmly.

When “Stonewall” Jackson died, after Chancellorsville, almost a

year later, the outburst of the poets with dirges and elegies was

quite typical. S. A. Link quotes T. C. de Leon, the editor of _South

Songs_ (1866), as saying:[13] “I had in my collection no fewer than

forty-seven monodies and dirges on Stonewall Jackson, some dozen on

Ashby, and a score on Stuart.” Even today there are extant a round

dozen of poems lamenting the death of Albert Sidney Johnston.

With all the sorrow that came to the South in these first months of

depression, it is pleasant to see that she had not lost the saving

humor and satiric sense that was so to strengthen her in the evil

days which followed. On April sixteenth, for example, the Confederate

Congress, alarmed by the condition of the Southern army, passed a

measure for conscription. This was commented upon in the _Southern

Literary Messenger_ for the month, with a delightful epigram:

Let us hail in this crisis the prosperous omen

That our senate shows virtue higher than Roman;

It has spurned all titles of honor, for rather

Than claim that each member be called “Conscript Father,”

All self-aggrandizement they lay on the shelves,

And declare all men conscripts, excepting themselves!

During May and June of ’62 Jackson and Lee endeavored to arrest

McClellan’s progress by their counter campaign in the Shenandoah. For

the South it was a most successful move. Not only were the Southern

arms carried to victory, but, through the unfortunate wounding of

Joseph E. Johnston at Seven Pines, Lee, whose fame had grown in the

Shenandoah, was placed in supreme command of the army of Northern

Virginia. The turning point of the Southern fortunes had arrived. The

battle of the Chickahominy, Malvern Hill, and the Seven Day’s fighting

before Richmond, resulted in the defeat of McClellan’s campaign, and

Richmond, for the next two years, was saved.

The army of the Confederacy, through the hardships and reverses of the

first year of fighting, had become a seasoned and experienced (though,

thanks to the blockade, a sadly ill-equipped) machine. Its three great

leaders were Lee and Jackson and Beauregard. The Southerners at home

were beginning to be accustomed to the privations of war. They were

all as confident as ever of the righteousness of their war. Thus with

a united Confederacy behind him and after another victory at “Second

Manassas,” in ’62, Lee began his ill-starred Maryland campaign, as

a counter-stroke against the Army of the Potomac. Lee’s part of the

Confederate line, the Army of Northern Virginia, was the only part of

the original battle wall still intact. Butler and his forces were in

possession of New Orleans, the fall of Vicksburg, already in siege, was

but a matter of time, and in the West, uncertainty still prevailed.

John R. Thompson’s spirited “A Word to the West,” was written when

Joseph E. Johnston was dispatched to relieve Vicksburg. It was at the

same time an answer to A. J. Requier’s impassioned plea, “Clouds in the

West.”

Those were anxious days, indeed. September saw the desperate conflict

at Sharpsburg, the bloodiest single day’s battle of the war, which,

although it was not a conclusive defeat, left the Confederate forces

wretchedly crippled, and brought deepest anguish to the South.

The gloom, however, was relieved in December by Lee’s victory at

Fredericksburg. So the second year of war closed on a people and a

nation, whose hearts were sick of the conflict. A second Christmas came

to the Confederacy to find only the grim realities of life instead of

the plumes and pomp of circumstance with which the war had begun. Mrs.

Preston drew the picture for her countrywomen, in _Beechenbrook_:

How saddening the change is! The season’s the same,

And yet it is Christmas in nothing but name:

No merry expression we utter today--

How can we, with hearts that refuse to be gay?

We look back a twelfthmonth on many a brow

That graced the home hearthstone--and where are they now?

We think of the darling ones clustering there,

But we see, through our tears, an untenanted chair.

None the less, the South was still firm in her resolve to battle to

the end. No sacrifice could be demanded so great that it would not be

willingly offered on the altar of Liberty--

Thank God! there is joy in the sorrow for all--

He fell--but it surely was blessed to fall;

For never shall murmur be heard from the mouth

Of mother or wife, through our beautiful South,

Or sister or maiden yield grudging her part,

Tho’ the price that she pays, must be coined from her heart.

1863 proved another “Year of terror, year of strife.” In the far South,

Butler, in possession of New Orleans, had begun his reign of terror

that was the savage inspiration of several poems. From Hayne, in

particular, it wrung one of the most powerful lyrics of the war.[14] Up

the river, the siege of Vicksburg still continued. How spring came to

the land was most poignantly expressed by Henry Timrod, in “Spring.”

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air

Which dwells in all things fair,

Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain

Is with us once again.

* * * * *

Ah! who would couple thoughts of war and crime

With such a blessed time.

Who in the west-wind’s aromatic breath

Could hear the call of Death!

* * * * *

Oh! standing on this desecrated mould,

Methinks that I behold,

Lifting her bloody daisies up to God,

Spring kneeling on the sod,

* * * * *

And calling with the voice of her rills

Upon the ancient Hills,

To fall and crush the tyrants and the slaves

Who turn her meads to graves.

Spring brought with it another bloody engagement and Confederate

victory, the Battle of Chancellorsville, fought in the first four days

of May. In that, however, it caused the death of Stonewall Jackson it

was, next to the actual surrender of the Southern army, the worst blow

the Confederacy could have sustained. His death, some one once said,

was like the death of an army. Certainly it took from Lee, already

overburdened, his good right hand.

The outburst of mourning that followed on Jackson’s death, has already

been noted. The South and her poets loved him, not only as a leader,

but personally, as a great and good man. He represented, moreover, that

element of faith and religious fervor which was one of the essential

factors of the Southern character, and without which the faith that

sustained the Confederacy through four years of war, and the days of

ruin that followed, is inexplicable.

“Let me say,” wrote Dr. Gildersleeve,[15] “that the bearing of the

Confederates is not to be understood without taking into account

the deep religious feeling of the army and its great leaders. It is

a historical element, like any other, and is not to be passed over

in summing up the forces of the conflict.” Many are the poems, the

“Prayers for the South,” and the individual supplications which still

remain to attest the fact. For example, there is the “Battle Hymn of

the Virginia Soldier,” an anonymous lyric of striking beauty. There is

the simpler, yet equally sincere and devout “Soldier’s Battle Prayer”

from the _Southern Literary Messenger_ for April, ’62. “A Mother’s

Prayer,” is another very touching poem, in the same theme: and there

could be no more impressive evidence of the true religious strain in

Southern hearts, than the verses, terrible in their satire, and burning

in their indignant phrases, “The War Christians’ Thanksgiving,” by

S. Teackle Wallis of Maryland, occasioned by the Union proclamation

for a day of prayer in the North, and “Respectfully Dedicated to the

War-Clergy of the United States, Bishops, Priests and Deacons.”

Written as it was by a prisoner then in the dungeon of Fort Warren, it

is one of the most powerful human documents of the War. At the same

time, the South held her own days of national prayer and fasting: and

the verses which her poets wrote on these occasions, were quite in

character with the national temper.

In the dark days of the next two years, the South was to find need

for all her faith and confidence in the right. As if Jackson’s death

was not sufficient evil, July first to third brought Lee’s defeat at

Gettysburg, and on the day after this battle, the fall of Vicksburg, on

the Mississippi. This meant the complete breaking of the Confederate

line in the Southwest, and the return of the Army of Northern Virginia

to its original position in Virginia. To complete the rout of the

Confederate line, the Union forces now began to beat through the

Southern defense in Tennessee and Kentucky, while Lee, back once more

in Virginia, maneuvered to and fro against Meade. In the Southern

campaign, the Confederates were steadily forced out of Tennessee, and

Chattanooga, the objective of the Union troops. This, (which was with

Richmond, the last important strategic point left to the Confederacy)

was wrested from Bragg, and occupied by Rosecrans on the ninth. The

latter thought that the fall of the city would be sufficient warning

to the Southerner, and that he and his forces would at once withdraw.

Far from doing that, however, Bragg engaged him, ten days later,

at Chickamauga. It was a two days’ battle, on the nineteenth and

twentieth, and was, next to Sharpsburg, the bloodiest engagement of

the War. Though a Confederate victory, it was dearly bought. Yet even

after all her suffering, the South willingly paid the price. Verses in

the Richmond _Sentinel_ called the river “Chickamauga, The Stream of

Death,” where the foe--

Learned, though long unchecked they spoil us,

Dealing desolation round,

Marking, with the tracks of ruin

Many a rood of Southern ground;

Yet, whatever course they follow,

Somewhere in their pathway flows

Dark and deep, a Chickamauga,

Stream of death to vandal foes.

They have found it darkly flowing

By Manassas’ famous plain,

And by rushing Shenandoah

Met the tide of woe again;

Chickahominy, immortal,

By the long ensanguined fight,

Rappahannock, glorious river,

Twice renowned for matchless fight.

Heed the story, dastard spoilers,

Mark the tale these waters tell,

Ponder well your fearful lesson,

And the doom that there befell;

Learn to shun the Southern vengeance,

Sworn upon the votive sword,

Every stream a Chickamauga

To the vile invading horde!

None the less, in the battles that followed, the Union forces

prevailed. In the three days’ fighting before Chattanooga, culminating

in the Battle of Missionary Ridge, on November twenty-fifth, the

Confederates were set in full flight. J. Augustine Signaigo described

this fight in “The Heights of Mission Ridge.” The final catastrophe had

begun.

It had been threatening for a long time. By the end of ’63, nearly

every Southern home had suffered some loss or sorrow. “Our Christmas

Hymn” by Dr. John Dickson Bruns of Charleston, put the grief of the

land into words.

Wild bells! that shake the midnight air

With those dear tones that custom loves,

You wake no sounds of laughter here

Nor mirth in all our silent groves;

On one broad waste, by hill or flood,

Of ravaged lands your music falls,

And where the happy homestead stood

The stars look down on roofless halls.

Timrod’s “Christmas, 1863,” shows a South that is sobered, and weary of

battle: who with no idea of yielding, nevertheless, yearns for peace.

How grace this hallowed day?

Shall happy bells, from yonder ancient spire,

Send their glad greetings to each Christmas fire

Round which the children play?

How could we bear the mirth,

While some loved reveller of a year ago

Keeps his mute Christmas now beneath the snow,

In cold Virginian earth?

* * * * *

How shall we grace the day?

Oh! let the thought that on this holy morn

The Prince of Peace--the Prince of Peace was born,

Employ us, while we pray!

* * * * *

He who till time shall cease,

Shall watch that earth, where once, not all in vain

He died to give us peace, will not disdain

A prayer whose theme is--peace.

Perhaps, ’ere yet the spring

Hath died into the summer, over all

The land, the peace of His vast love shall fall

Like some protecting wing.

* * * * *

Peace on the whirring marts,

Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams,

Peace, God of Peace! peace, peace in all our homes,

And peace in all our hearts!

1864 was a year to be endured in stricken anguish. After a comparative

lull during the first months of the war, on the fourth of May three

Union armies moved forward, two destined for Richmond to shatter what

part of the original Confederate line there was left, and one for

Atlanta against Johnston and Hood, setting out to employ the troops

still in the far South, and keep them from the relief of Lee and

Richmond. This latter campaign was to end in the fall of Atlanta, and

“Sherman’s March to the Sea,” and caused the invention of a new word.

Gaunt and grim like a spectre rose that word before the world,

From a land of bloom and beauty into ruin rudely hurled,

From a people scourged by exile, from a city ostracised

Pallas-like it sprang to being, and that word is--Shermanized.[16]

Atlanta fell, despite Hood’s frantic efforts, on September third, ’64.

Hood’s rashness in engaging in a counter attack against Nashville,

cost him several severe defeats, and finally his army. Tennessee was

thus brought entirely under Union control, and late in December, on

the twenty-fourth, Sherman occupied Savannah. Two poems, by the same

author, Alethea S. Burroughs of Georgia, commemorate this incident most

poignantly, “Savannah,” written in encouragement when her ruin seemed

impending, and “Savannah Fallen,” written after the occupation of the

town.

On the way to Savannah, Sherman’s route had lain through Columbia,

which had been pillaged and burned, a circumstance that was the

savage inspiration of James Barron Hope’s flaming verses, “A Poem

that Needs No Dedication.” The sack of Columbia caused the evacuation

of Charleston by the Confederate forces, then directly menaced, and

before the oncoming destroyer the city was deserted. The pitiful fate

of the city which had witnessed the birth and earliest days of the

Confederacy, could not fail to stir the anguish of the Southern poets.

“The Foe at the Gates,” by Dr. Bruns, for example, reveals the still

prevailing temper of the South.

Ring round her! children of her glorious skies,

Whom she hath nursed to stature proud and great;

Catch one last glance from her imploring eyes,

Then close your ranks and face the threatening fate.

To save her proud soul from that loathed thrall

Which yet her spirit cannot brook to name;

Or, if her fate be near, and she must fall,

Spare her--she sues--the agony and shame.

From all her fanes let solemn bells be tolled,

Heap with kind hands her costly funeral pyre,

And thus, with paean sung and anthem rolled,

Give her, unspotted, to the God of Fire.

Gather around her sacred ashes, then,

Sprinkle the cherished dust with crimson rain

Die! as becomes a race of freeborn men,

Who will not crouch to wear the bondsmen’s chain.

To the poets of the South, the fate of this city was particularly

significant, for if any place may be said to have been the literary

centre of the Confederacy, it was Charleston. There, for example,

lived Simms and Timrod and Hayne, the leaders of her lyrists, who,

in the general destruction of the city, suffered the loss of their

homes and libraries. Had Charleston been spared to them and to others,

the literary history of the South in the days after the war might

have been a different tale. As it was, the disaster to each of these

particular men proved irretrievable.

Lee, during the summer months, though stoutly resisting, and adroitly

circumventing the enemy at nearly every turn, was nevertheless being

forced back against Richmond. The Battles of the Wilderness, May fifth

and sixth, the Spottsylvania fighting, on the eighth to the twentieth,

and Cold Harbor, on June third, resulted in advantage first to one

side and to the other. Then the conflict swung below Richmond to

Petersburg, and for the next month, the Union forces were halted before

that strongly fortified town. The “Battle of the Crater” was fought

on July thirtieth, over ground destroyed by Federal mines, but it was

unsuccessful for the Unionists, and their losses were so terrific that

for the next winter, at least, Richmond was safe.

The Petersburg siege is noteworthy since during it were written some of

the most attractive lyrics of the war, like “Dreaming in the Trenches,”

by Gordon McCabe, and “A Bloody Day is Dawning,” by William Munford.

It is remarkable that such freshness of phrase could be given to men

wearied by three years of disappointing struggle. One may imagine that

this is but another indication of the vitality and spirit that was an

integral part of the Southern character.

By the end of ’64, the Confederate battle wall had been crumpled and

was beaten in, everywhere except in Virginia, before Richmond. Peace

for a stricken land was the immediate concern alike of poets and

people. Beyond that they did not trust themselves to think: but peace

was the universal prayer.

Peace! Peace! God of our fathers, grant us Peace!

Peace in our hearts, and at Thine altars; Peace

On the red waters and their blighted shores;

Peace for the leaguered cities, and the hosts

That watch and bleed, around them and within;

Peace for the homeless and the fatherless;

Peace for the captive on his weary way,

And the mad crowds who jeer his helplessness.

For them that suffer, them that do the wrong--

Sinning and sinned against--O, God! for all--

For a distracted, torn and bleeding land--

Speed the glad tidings! Give us, give us Peace.[17]

The end came quickly. After a winter of preparation, determined among

the Union forces, despairing among Lee’s men, the attack on Petersburg

was resumed and carried on April second, of ’65. The next day, Richmond

fell. Lee found escape impossible, and on the twelfth the little white

farmhouse at Appomattox Court House, in the meeting of Lee and Grant,

witnessed at once the death of a young nation and the rebirth of an

older one.

Lyric as had always been the poetic genius of the South, it was but

natural that her anguished cry of despair and defeat should be put into

the mouths of her poets. For the most part, the poems on this theme are

of beautiful quality, and those still extant form the largest single

class in the war poetry of the four years.[18] Correspondingly, they

constitute a glass wherein one may see how defeat came to the South,

and how she met the challenge of the issue. There were, of course, some

spirits which cried out beneath the unendurable prick that death itself

had been preferable to defeat. There is not emotion more appalling

than despair for which one sees no relieving element of comfort. Such

poems as “Stack Arms,” by Joseph Blythe Alston, “Doffing the Gray,”

by Lieutenant Falligant, “The Price of Peace” by “Luola” or “Peace”

by Alethea Burroughs of Savannah are terrible expressions of this

attitude. At the same time, there were those who like Mrs. Preston, in

“Acceptation,” met the issue more bravely and gently:

We do accept thee, heavenly Peace!

Albeit thou comest in a guise

Unlooked for--undesired, our eyes

Welcome, thro’ tears, the kind release

From war and woe and want--surcease

For which we bless thee, holy Peace!

We lift our foreheads from the dust;

And as we meet thy brow’s clear calm,

There falls a freshening sense of balm

Upon our spirits. Fear--distrust--

The hopeless present on us thrust--

We’ll front them as we can, and must.

* * * * *

Then courage, brothers! Tho’ our breast

Ache with that rankling thorn, despair,

That failure plants so sharply there--

No pang, no pain shall be confessed;

We’ll work and watch the brightening west,

And leave to God and Heaven, the rest.

There were others who accepted the inevitable gracefully, but defiantly.

Weep, if thou wilt, with proud sad mien,

Thy blasted hopes--thy peace undone;

Yet brave, live on--nor seek to shun

Thy fate, like Egypt’s conquered queen.

Though forced a captive’s place to fill,

In the triumphal train--yet there,

Superbly, like Zenobia, wear

Thy chains--_Virginia victrix_ still.[19]

There were yet others to whom the fall of the Confederacy was typified

in the furling of its banner. Poems like “The Conquered Banner,”

by Father Ryan, and J. C. M.’s “Cruci Dum Spiro, Fido,” and A. J.

Requier’s “Ashes of Glory” are typical expressions of such spirits.

Then there were those who, like D. B. Lucas, “In the Land Where We Were

Dreaming,” began to regard the struggle as the passing of a spirit

world with which had passed all chivalry and beauty.

There are many of these verses portraying the end, each slightly

differing in spirit from the one before, each repaying careful study

with the beauty of its melody, and as a class, forming the noblest

group of the war poems, whose only companions may be the earliest of

the “Cry to Arms” series. Yet these poems of defeat are infinitely the

more appealing in that the fire and dash of the earlier verses has here

given way to the dignity of sorrow. “For the people’s hopes are dead.”

Hundreds of poems written during the four years of conflict reflect

either individual reactions to war conditions, or incidents of battle.

Besides these there are the prison verses, humorous pieces, and

the southern songs, which in no way concern the historical passage

of the War. There are poems of personal feeling, for example, like

the exquisite and tender “The Confederate Soldier’s Wife Parting

From Her Husband” or Major S. Y. Levy’s “Love Letter,” or Fanny

Downing’s “Dreaming.” There are poems that picture the life of the

civilian population, like “The Homespun Dress” by Miss Sinclair, or

the anonymous “Your Mission” which is of more than passing interest

since in the South it was attributed equally to John R. Thompson,

Mrs. Preston, Paul H. Hayne, and Mrs. Browning.[20] There are poems

reflecting the ravages of the war on the families of the soldiers,

like “Heart Victories,” “Somebody’s Darling,” “Reading the List,”

“Volunteered,” and “The Unreturning.” One could continue the catalogue

indefinitely.

The prison verse, while not extensive, is for the most part, of

good quality. There are five men whose work may be considered as

representative, S. Teackle Wallis, who was imprisoned at Fort Warren,

and four at Johnson’s Island. Wallis’s “To The Exchanged Prisoners”

was written in Fort Warren in July ’62, and is one of the first of the

prison poems which we can identify as such. The others, Major A. S.

Hawkins, Colonel Beuhring H. Jones, Colonel W. W. Fontaine, and Major

George McKnight, (“Asa Hartz,”) wrote two years later, in ’64 and

’65. Hawkins was the author of many poems, all of them popular, “The

Hero Without a Name,” “To Infidelia,” “True to the Last,” “Give Up,”

“A Prisoner’s Fancy.” About the best known of Beuhring Jones’ verses

were “To a Dear Comforter,” and the rather humorous “Rat den Linden.”

Fontaine was the author of many poems, notably “The Countersign,”

“Virginia Desolate,” and “The Cliff Beside the Sea.” It remained

for “Asa Hartz” to while away his prison hours in writing lines so

delightfully humorous, so free and swift moving, that it is difficult

to believe they could have been written within prison walls. “Living or

Dying,” “Will No One Write to Me?” “To Exchange-Commissioner Ould,” and

“My Love and I” are among the best of his lighter verses: “Exchanged,”

and “Farewell to Johnson’s Island” are of more sober temper. “My Love

and I” is the best example of his work:

My love reposes on a rosewood frame--

A bunk have I;

A couch of feathery down fills up the same--

Mine’s straw, but dry;

She sinks to sleep at night with scarce a sigh--

With waking eyes I watch the hours creep by.

My love her daily dinner takes in state--

And so do I (?);

The richest viands flank her silver plate--

Course grub have I.

Pure wines she sips at ease, her thirst to slake--

I pump my drink from Erie’s limpid lake!

My love has all the world at will to roam--

Three acres I;

She goes abroad, or quiet sits at home--

So cannot I;

Bright angels watch around her couch at night--

A Yank, with loaded gun, keeps me in sight.

A thousand weary miles do stretch between

My love and I;

To her, this wintry night, cool, calm, serene,

I waft a sigh;

And hope with all my earnestness of soul,

Tomorrow’s mail may bring me my parole!

There’s hope ahead! We’ll one day meet again--

My love and I;

We’ll wipe away all tears of sorrow then,

Her lovelit eye

Will all my many troubles then beguile,

And keep this wayward reb. from Johnston’s Isle.

The poetry dealing with incidents of the war is varied, and touches

many subjects. There were such verses for example, as “The Silent

March,” by Walker Meriweather Bell, written on an occasion during the

war when General Lee was lying asleep by the wayside and an army of

fifteen thousand men “passed by with hushed voices and footsteps, lest

they should disturb his slumbers;” “Stonewall Jackson’s Way,” written

on the theme of the great general’s ability “always to be where needed

and in the thick of things;” “The Lone Sentry,” based on an incident,

common to all wars, of the great general relieving a weary sentry;

“The Battle Rainbow” by John R. Thompson, inspired by the rainbow

that appeared the evening before the beginning of the Seven Days of

Battle before Richmond. “The rainbow overspread the eastern sky, and

exactly defined the position of the Confederate army, as seen from the

Capitol at Richmond.” There were poems like “Music in Camp” also by

John R. Thompson, suggested by an incident that occurred just after

Chancellorsville: and “The Unknown Hero,” by W. Gordon McCabe, based on

the discovery, “after the Battle of Malvern Hill, of a [Confederate]

soldier lying dead fifty yards in advance of any man or officer, his

musket firmly grasped in the rigid fingers, name unknown, simply ‘2 La’

on his cap.”

Another interesting group of poems, closely connected with the war,

although not with the actual progress of events, is found in the

national and the army songs which were sung in camp and field and by

the fire-side. It was natural that “Dixie” should be the most popular

of airs, and while it admitted of endless variations and sentiments,

the words that were generally sung to it were those by Albert Pike.

The Marseillaise was another widely popular air, to which were sung

any number of poems. One of these “The Southern Marseillaise” by A.

E. Blackmar, written early in 1861, was sung by the troops as they

marched to their assembling points, and may very properly be called the

Rallying Song of the South.

“The Bonnie Blue Flag,” by Harry Macarthy was the favorite of the

popular national songs. It was first sung by him on the stage of the

Academy of Music in New Orleans, in September, 1861, and caused such

excitement that the event precipitated a riot. When General Butler

was in command of the city, two years later, he threatened to impose

a fine of twenty-five dollars on any man, woman or child who sang it.

In addition he arrested the publisher, A. E. Blackmar, destroyed the

sheet music, and fined him five hundred dollars. After the tune became

established as a favorite, Mrs. Annie Chambers Ketchum of Kentucky

wrote other words to the air, which were frequently used.[21] In

addition to the national songs, the various states used particular

anthems. Maryland had Randall’s song, “Maryland, My Maryland.” For

South Carolina there were Timrod’s noble lines in the same strain,

“Carolina.” “Georgia, My Georgia” was written by Carrie Bell Sinclair,

and the “Song of the Texas Rangers” by Mrs. J. D. Young. These are but

a few among a longer list.

It has been said[22] that while the Confederate Army was not

“absolutely destitute of songs, it simply lacked a plentiful supply

of songs written especially for the moment.” This is far from being

the case. Indeed, the camp songs and marching ballads written in the

Confederate camps during the war, are legion. They vary in excellence

from “The Cavaliers’ Glee” by Captain William Blackford of Stuart’s

staff, to the extremely popular and delightful “Goober Peas,” by A.

Pender. For the camp catches there were certain stock tunes, such as

the “Happy Land of Canaan,” “Wait for the Wagon,” “We’ll Be Free in

Maryland,” “Gay and Happy,” which were used over and over, and to which

words were improvised to fit the occasion. Even the slender Confederate

Navy had her stock of ballads. “The Alabama,” by E. King, author of

“Naval Songs of the South,” is the best representative of this class.

It is not strange that during the chaotic days of the Confederacy,

poems that had been written by Southerners in antebellum days were

published in the South as of Confederate origin; and that poems of

the war period written in the North or abroad should be attributed

to Confederate authors. In the first category are verses such as

“My Wife and Child,” by Henry R. Jackson of Georgia, which he wrote

during the Mexican War, and in the second class, “The Soldier Boy,” a

widely popular poem which was really by the Englishman, Dr. William

Maginn (1793-1842), whom Thackeray satirized as “Captain Shalow” in

_Pendennis_, but which was assigned to “H. M. L.” of Lynchburg, and

even given the circumstantial date of May 18, 1861. Another poem that

was widely copied, but which was really written by T. Buchanan Read in

Rome in 1861, was “The Brave at Home.”

Two other poems whose origins have attracted much attention are “The

Confederate Note,” by Major S. A. Jonas of Mississippi, and “All Quiet

Along the Potomac Tonight,” by Mrs. Ethel Lynn Beers. Major Jonas seems

to have established unquestionable claim to his poem in a letter to

the Louisville _Courier_, under date of December 11, 1889. The poem

by Mrs. Beers was a long time claimed for Lomar Fontaine. Mrs. Beers

had written the verses in 1861, in which year they had appeared in

_Harper’s Weekly_. Late in ’62 they began to circulate in the South,

and for some unknown reason were assigned to Lomar Fontaine. He was at

once showered with praise and eulogy, but it is interesting to note

that in the Editor’s Table of the _Southern Literary Messenger_ for

June, 1863 (p. 375) at the end of verses by Henry C. Alexander “To

Lomar Fontaine, the author of the verses entitled ‘All Quiet Along the

Potomac Tonight,’ and if report be true, one of the unrewarded heroes

of the South” the Editor has subscribed the following discriminating

comment: “It is questionable whether Fontaine wrote the ‘All Quiet

Along the Potomac.’ There was no occasion to incite such a poem. Our

pickets along the Potomac were rarely if ever shot: those of the

Yankees were shot night after night.[23] We have heard that the author

of the lines attributed to Fontaine is an Ohioan. A brave man--a hero,

if you will,--Fontaine has yet to prove that he is a poet.”

One other poem whose origin has been questioned is “The Countersign,”

which, reprinted in the Philadelphia _Press_ in 1861, was declared

to have been written by a private in Company G, Stuart’s Engineer

Regiment, at Camp Lesley, near Washington. F. F. Browne, in _Bugle

Echoes_, cryptically adds: “But it may now be stated positively that it

was written by a Confederate soldier, still living. The third line of

the fifth stanza affords internal evidence of Southern origin.” This

Confederate soldier was Colonel W. W. Fontaine.

Metrical study of the Southern war poetry leads inevitably to the

conclusion that Southern temperament lent itself naturally to rhythmic

expression. The poets of the South, many of them untrained in the

technique of their art, wrote in every metrical arrangement that can be

imagined, from curious irregular unrhymed rhythms to ballad measure,

and to the long and intricate stanzaic forms used by Simms and Timrod.

In nearly every case, except, of course, with the cruder camp songs,

the verses flow felicitously, and the effect is melodious. Even in the

sonnet form[24] although the Southerner did not seem capable of writing

a true sonnet, the rhythm moves with ease and harmony. The verses may

infringe every rule of the sonnet form, but the result is effective.

Such is the achievement of the Southern war verse. It is a wonderfully

effective expression of sentiment, and becomes all the more remarkable

when one considers the conditions under which it was created. It was

written in a land first rich and prosperous, then through four weary

years ravaged and starved into ruin: by soldiers in the field and in

the prisons, and women suffering silently at home. Even the mediums

through which this poetry was published, shared the vicissitudes of the

land, and have been generally destroyed or scattered. Nevertheless the

war poetry of the Confederacy which remains to us today, stands as an

enduring memorial to the inherent nobility of the Southern heart and to

the fidelity of devotion to principle, which has always given the South

the admiration of those who, while they cannot agree with her point of

view, must nevertheless respect her courage and spirit. At the same

time it forms a notable contribution to the literature of our land.

Best of all, this poetry satisfies the function of those “Sentinel

Songs” of which Father A. J. Ryan wrote, on May sixth, 1867:

When sinks the soldier brave

Dead at the feet of Wrong,

The poet sings, and guards his grave

With sentinels of song.

* * * * *

When marble wears away

And monuments are dust,

The Songs that guard our soldiers’ clay

Will still fulfill their trust.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _War Poetry of the South_, ed. by W. Gilmore Simms, Preface,

pp. v and vi.

[2] See _An American Anthology_, Introduction, p. xxii.

[3] See _An American Anthology_, Introduction, p. xxii.

[4] Noted in the Editor’s Table of The Southern Literary Messenger for

January, 1862.

[5] See _Biographical and Critical Studies of Southern Authors_, “Irwin

Russell,” p. 97.

[6] See The Creed of the Old South, pp. 24 and 25.

[7] See The Creed of the Old South, p. 38.

[8] See _Southern Prose and Poetry_, p. 15.

[9] See _Biographical and Critical Studies of Southern Authors_, “Irwin

Russell,” pp. 97 and 98.

[10] See “_To the South_,” stanza V, by James Maurice Thompson.

[11] See _South Songs_, p. vii.

[12] See _Photographic History of the Civil War_, vol. 9, pp. 86 and 88.

[13] See _War Poets of the South: Singers on Fire_, S. A. Link, p. 382.

[14] “_Butler’s Proclamation_” by Paul H. Hayne, occasioned by Butler’s

order to the effect: “It is ordered that hereafter when any female

shall by word, gesture or movement insult or show contempt for any

officer or soldier of the United States, _she shall be regarded and

held liable lo be treated as a woman of the town_, plying her vocation.”

[15] See _The Creed of the Old South_, by Basil L. Gildersleeve, p. 13.

[16] See “Shermanized” by L. Virginia French.

[17] “_Prayer for Peace_,” by S. Teackle Wallis of Maryland.

[18] In the present collection, eighty-one poems are definitely

concerned with the immediate circumstances of defeat.

[19] “_Virginia Capta_” by Mrs. Margaret J. Preston.

[20] See _South Songs_, edited by T. C. de Leon, note 11, p. 149.

[21] See _The South in History and Literature_, by Mildred Lewis

Rutherford, p. 254.

[22] See _Three Centuries of Southern Poetry_, by Carl Holliday, p. 112.

[23] This was probably due to the fact that the Southern slopes of the

river were wooded as compared with the rather bare Northern side.

[24] In the present collection there are seventeen sonnets.

REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY

_An American Anthology, 1787-1900._ Selections illustrating the

editor’s critical review of American poetry in the nineteenth

century. Edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman. Boston and New

York: Houghton Mifflin Company. The Riverside Press, Cambridge,

1900.

_The Creed of the Old South, 1865-1915._ By Basil L.

Gildersleeve. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1915.

_History of the Civil War, 1861-1865._ By James Ford Rhodes,

LL.D., Litt.D.: with maps. New York: The Macmillan Company,

1917.

_The Photographic History of the Civil War_, Vol. IX. Poetry

and Eloquence of the Blue and Gray: edited by Dudley H. Miles,

Ph.D., Columbia, introduction by Dr. W. P. Trent, of Columbia.

Appendix. Songs of the War Days--Soldier Songs and Negro

Spirituals. New York: The Review of Reviews Co., 1911.

_Poets of the South_: A series of Biographical and Critical

Studies with typical poems, annotated by F. U. N. Painter,

A.M., D.D. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, 1903.

_The South in History and Literature_: A Handbook of Southern

Authors from the Settlement of Jamestown, 1607, to Living

Writers. By Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Athens, Ga. Atlanta: The

Franklin-Turner Co., 1907.

_South Songs: From the Lays of Later Days._ Collected and

Edited by T. C. De Leon. New York: Blelock & Co., No. 19

Beekman Street, 1866.

_The Southern Literary Messenger._ Dr. G. W. Bagby, Editor,

January, 1862. Macfarlane & Fergusson, Proprietors, Richmond,

Va.

_Southern Prose and Poetry_: for Schools. By Edwin Mims and

Bruce R. Payne. Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York, Chicago,

Boston, 1910.

_Southern Writers: Biographical and Critical Sketches_: “Irwin

Russell.” By William Malone Baskerville. September, 1896.

Barber & Smith, Agents, Nashville, Tenn.

_War Poetry of the South._ Edited by William Gilmore Simms,

LL.D. New York: Richardson & Company, 540 Broadway, 1867.

_War Poets of the South: Singers on Fire._ By Samuel Albert

Link. Nashville, Tenn: Barber & Smith, Agents, c. 1898.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF COLLECTIONS EXAMINED

Material from _Boston_ Boston Athenaeum.

broadsides.

Material from _New York_ New York Public Library anthologies,

Confederate imprints.

Material from _Philadelphia_ Library Co. of Philadelphia:

Main branch.

newspaper clippings.

Ridgway branch.

broadsides,

songs,

newspaper clippings,

Mr. Samuel’s collection.

Material from _Baltimore_ 1. Maryland Historical Society.

Scrap book of broadsides

(Mr. Lennox Birkhead).

2. Baltimore, City Librarian’s

Office, City Hall.

Ledger 1411,

newspaper clippings.

Material from _Washington_ Congressional Library.

broadsides (MSS. Division).

magazines,

anthologies,

Confederate imprints.

Material from _Cleveland_ Western Reserve Historical Society.

broadsides,

anthologies,

Confederate imprints.

Material from _Private MSS._ and Miscellaneous Sources.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANTHOLOGIES AND CONFEDERATE IMPRINTS

_Abram_: A Military Poem. By A. Young Rebelle, Esq., of the

Army. Richmond: Macfarlane & Fergusson, 1863.

[“A string of smoothly running rhymes about Lincoln, Stonewall,

McClellan, Pope, Burnside & Co., with a very droll preface

in place of an appendix. The author is a Texan, and we doubt

not his comrades of Hood’s old brigade will enjoy this little

book nearly as much as they do a hard day’s fight after a long

march.”--Review in _The Southern Literary Messenger_, for

March, 1863.]

_Allan’s Lone Star Ballads_: A collection of southern patriotic

songs, made during Confederate times ... compiled and revised

by Francis D. Allan. Galveston, Texas: J. D. Sawyer, 1874.

_American War Ballads and Lyrics_: Edited by George Cary

Eggleston. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889.

_The Army Songster_: Dedicated to the Army of Northern

Virginia. Published by George L. Bidgood, Richmond, Va., and

printed by Macfarlane & Fergusson, 1864. (Reprinted by J. W.

Fergusson & Son, 1902.)

[“This is one of the almost numberless catalogues of

‘Songbooks,’ ‘Songsters,’ etc., which has been published during

the War,--rejoicing in such patriotic titles as the ‘Rebel,’

‘Stonewall,’ ‘Soldiers,’ etc., which with a most refreshing

contempt for consistency in name and date, embrace sprinklings

from the lyric music of almost every age and clime. ‘No One to

Love,’ ‘Rory O’More,’ ‘Kathleen Mavourneen,’ ‘Marseillaise,’

etc., etc., of course, figure extensively. We suppose the ‘Army

Songster’ is quite as good as the rest, and we are not quite

sure this is extravagant praise.”--Review in _The Southern

Literary Messenger_ for April, 1864.]

_The Beauregard Songster_: Being a collection of Patriotic,

Sentimental and Comic Songs, The Most Popular of the Day.

Arranged by Hermann L. Schreiner. Published by John C.

Schreiner & Son, Macon and Savannah, Ga., 1864.

_Beechenbrook_: A Rhyme of the War, by Margaret J. Preston.

Richmond: J. W. Randolph, 121 Main Street, 1865.

_Same_: Baltimore, 1867.

_Bugle-echoes_: A collection of poems of the Civil War,

Northern and Southern. New York: White, Stokes & Allen, 1866.

_The Cavalier Songster_: Containing a Splendid Collection of

Original and Selected Songs, Compiled and Arranged Expressly

for the Southern Public. Staunton, Va., 1865.

_Confederate Scrap Book_: Copied from a Scrapbook kept by a

young girl during and immediately after the war, with additions

from war-copies of the “Southern Literary Messenger” and

“Illustrated News” loaned by friends, and other selections as

accredited. Published for the benefit of the Memorial Bazaar,

held in Richmond, April 11, 1893. Richmond, Va.: J. L. Hill

Printing Co., 1893.

_Corinth, and Other Poems of the War_: By Cornelia J. M.

Jordan. “Praeritorum Memoria Eventorum.” Lynchburg: Johnson &

Schaffter, Printers, 60 and 62 Market Street, 1865.

[“Publicly burnt on its appearance in 1865, by order of General

Terry, as an objectionable and incendiary publication.” See

Adams, _Dictionary of American Authors_ (1905), p. 213.]

_Cullings from The Confederacy_: A Collection of Southern

Poems, Original and Others, popular during the War between the

States, and Incidents and Facts worth recalling. 1862-1866.

Including the Doggerel of the Camp, as Well as Tender Tribute

to the Dead. “From grave to gay, from reverend to severe.”

Compiled by Nora Fontaine M. Davidson, Petersburg, Va.

Washington, D. C.: the Rufus H. Darby Printing Co., 1903.

_The General Lee Songster_: Being a collection of the most

popular, sentimental, patriotic and comic songs. Arranged by

Hermann L. Schreiner. Published by John C. Schreiner & Sons,

Macon and Savannah, Ga., 1865.

_Hopkins’ New Orleans 5c Song Book._ New Orleans, 1861.

_Immortal Songs of Camp and Field._ By Rev. Louis Albert

Banks, D.D. With portraits and illustrations. The B. B. Co.,

Cleveland. The Burrows Brothers Company, Publishers, 1899.

_Immortelles_: A tribute to “The Old South.” A Compilation by

Sarah Robinson Reid. Little Rock, Ark.: published by the Brown

Printing Company, 1896.

_The Jack Morgan Songster._ Compiled by a Captain in General

Lee’s Army. Raleigh, N. C. Branson & Farrar, Fayetteville St.,

1864.

_Original Collection of War Poems and War Songs of the American

Civil War._ Compiled by Angie C. Beebe. Edited and Published by

The Argus Press at Red Wing, Minnesota.

_Our War Songs, North and South._ Cleveland, Ohio; S.

Brainard’s Sons, c. 1887. (Words and music.)

_Personal and Political Ballads._ Arranged and edited by Frank

Moore. New York: George P. Putnam, 1864.

_The Photographic History of the Civil War_, Vol. IX, Poetry

and Eloquence of the Blue and Gray. Edited by Dudley N. Miles,

Ph.D., Columbia. Introduction by Dr. W. P. Trent, of Columbia.

Appendix: Songs of the War Days--soldier songs and negro

spirituals. New York: The Review of Reviews Company, 1911.

_Poetry, Lyrical, Narrative and Satirical, of the Civil War._

Selected and Edited by Richard Grant White. New York: The

American News Company, 1866.

_Rebel Rhymes and Rhapsodies_: Collected and edited by Frank

Moore. New York: George P. Putnam, 1864.

_Richmond, Her Glory and Her Graves._ By Cornelia J. M. Jordan.

Richmond: Medical Journal Printing Co., 1866.

_The Royal Ape_: A Dramatic Poem. Richmond: West & Johnston,

145 Main Street, 1863.

_Songs and Ballads of the Southern People, 1861-1865._

Collected and edited by Frank Moore. New York: D. Appleton &

Co., 1, 3, and 5 Bond Street, 1886.

_Songs of Love and Liberty._ Compiled by a North Carolina Lady.

Raleigh, N. C.: Branson & Farrer, Fayetteville St., 1864.

_Songs of the Confederacy and Plantation Melodies._ Compiled by

Mrs. A. Mitchell. G. B. Jennings, 1907.

_Songs of the South_: Choice selections from southern poets

from Colonial times to the present day. Collected and edited by

Jennie Thornley Clarke. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company,

1896.

_Songs of the South._ J. W. Randolph, 121 Main Street,

Richmond, Va., 1863.

[There was an earlier edition in 1862.]

_Songs Written by Capt. T. F. Roche, C. S. A., Prisoner of War

at Fort Delaware, 1865._ Sung by the Fort Delaware minstrel

troop, organized by the Confederate officers to aid sick

comrades in hospital. Winchester, Va.: The Enterprise Printing

Company.

_South Songs_: From the Lays of Later Days. Collected and

Edited by T. C. De Leon. New York: Blelock & Co., 19 Beekman

Street, 1866.

_The Southern Amaranth_: A carefully selected collection of

poems growing out of and in reference to the late war. Edited

by Miss Sallie A. Brock. New York: George S. Wilcox, Publisher,

successor to Blelock & Co., 49 Mercer Street, 1869.

_Southern and Miscellaneous Poems._ By Thomas Q. Barnes,

Mobile, Ala., 1886.

_Southern Odes_: By The Outcast, a gentleman of South Carolina.

[C. B. Northrup.] Published for the benefit of the Ladies Fuel

Society. Charleston: Harper and Calvo, 1861.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_: Devoted to every department

of Literature, and the Fine Arts. Edited by Dr. G. W. Bagby,

1861-1864, and F. H. Alfriend, 1864. Richmond: Published by

Macfarlane & Fergusson, Proprietors, 1861-1863, and Wedderburn

& Alfriend, Proprietors, 1864. January, 1861-June, 1864.

[Owing to war conditions, the magazine suspended publication

after June, 1864.]

_The Southern Poems of the War_: Collected and arranged by Miss

Emily V. Mason. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., Publishers, 182

Baltimore Street, 1867.

_Same._ Third edition revised and enlarged. Baltimore, 1869.

_The Southern Songster_: A collection of the best original

songs of the Confederate states. Published for sale at the

Southern Bazaar, at Liverpool, October, 1864.

_Southern War Songs._ Atlanta: Franklin Printing & Publishing

Co., 1895.

_Southern War Songs_: Camp Fire, Patriotic & Sentimental.

Collected and arranged by W. L. Fagan. Illustrated. New York:

M. T. Richardson & Co., 1890.

_The Stonewall Song Book_: Being a collection of patriotic,

sentimental and comic songs. Richmond: West & Johnston, 1865.

_The Sunny Land, or Prison Prose & Poetry_: Containing the

Productions of the Ablest Writers of the South, and Prison Lays

of Distinguished Confederate Officers, by Colonel Beuhring

H. Jones, 60th Virginia Infantry. Edited, with Preface,

Biographies, Sketches and Stories by J. A. Houston, Baltimore,

1868.

“The land we love--a queen of lands,

No prouder one the world has known;

Though now uncrowned, upon her throne

She sits with fetters on her hands.”

_War_: A poem, with copious notes, founded on the revolution of

1861-62. (Up to the battles before Richmond, inclusive) by John

H. Hewitt ... Richmond, Va.: Weston & Johnston, 1862.

_War Flowers_: Reminiscences of Four Year’s Campaigning.

Respectfully dedicated to the Ladies of New Orleans. By F. B.

1865.

_War Lyrics and Songs of the South._ London: Spottiswoode &

Co., 1866. “Printed of necessity in England, and not revised.”

_War Poetry of the South._ Edited by William Gilmore Simms,

LL.D. New York: Richardson & Co., 540 Broadway, 1867.

_War Poets of the South and Confederate Camp Fire Songs._

Compiled by Charles William Hubner. Atlanta, Ga.: Chas. P.

Byrd, Printer.

_War Songs & Poems of the Southern Confederacy, 1861-1865._

Compiled by H. M. Wharton. Philadelphia: Winston, 1904.

_War Songs of the Blue and the Gray_: As sung by the Brave

Soldiers of the Union & Confederate Armies in camp, on the

march, and in the garrison; with preface by Professor Henry L.

Williams, etc. New York: Hurst & Co., Publishers, 1905.

_War Songs of the South_: Edited by “Bohemian,” Correspondent,

Bichmond Despatch. [W. G. Shepperson.] Bichmond: West &

Johnson, 145 Main St., 1862.

[“I said, I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Chr----’s

sentiment, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all

the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a

nation.”--Fletcher’s _Political Works_, p. 372.]

ABBREVIATIONS USED FOR ANTHOLOGIES

Alsb _Allan’s Lone Star Ballads._

Amaranth _The Southern Amaranth._

Army _The Army Songster._

Barnes _Southern and Miscellaneous Poems._

B. E. _Bugle-Echoes._

Beau. _The Beauregard Songster._

Beechenbrook _Beechenbrook: A Rhyme of the War._

Bohemian _War Songs of the South._

Cav. _The Cavalier Songster._

C. C. _Cullings from the Confederacy._

Cor. _Corinth, and Other Poems._

C. S. B. _Confederate Scrap Book._

E. V. M. _Southern Poems of the War,’67._

E. V. M. ’69 _Southern Poems of the War,’69._

Fagan _Southern War Songs._

G. C. E. _American War Ballads and Lyrics._

Hopkins _Hopkins’ New Orleans 5c Songbook._

Hubner _War Poets of the South and Confederate Camp Fire

Songs._

Im. _Immortelles._

J. M. S. _Jack Morgan Songster._

L. & L. _Songs of Love and Liberty._

Lee _The General Lee Songster._

Outcast _Southern Odes._

P. & P. B. _Personal and Political Ballads._

Phot. Hist. _Photographic History of the Civil War._

Randolph _Songs of the South._

Richmond _Richmond, Her Glory and Her Graves._

Roche _Songs Written on Capt. T. F. Roche._

R. R. _Rebel Rhymes and Rhapsodies._

S. B. P. _Songs and Ballads of the Southern People._

S. B. Liv. _Southern Songster._

S. L. M. _The Southern Literary Messenger._

S. O. S. _War Lyrics and Songs of the South._

S. S. _South Songs._

Sunny _The Sunny Land, or Prison Prose and Poetry._

War _War._

W. B. G. _War Songs of the Blue and the Gray._

W. F. _War Flowers._

W. G. S. _War Poetry of the South._

W. L. _War Lyrics and Songs of the South._

ABBREVIATIONS USED OF COLLECTIONS

R. B. B. _Collection of Broadsides in Ridgway Branch

of Library Company of Philadelphia._

R. B. M. _Collection of Music in Ridgway Branch of

Library Company of Philadelphia._

R. N. S. _Collection of Newspaper Songs in Ridgway

Branch of Library Co., of Philadelphia._

Md. Hist. Soc. _Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Md._

Wash’n _Collection of the Congressional Library,

Washington, D. C._

West. Res. _Collection of the Western Reserve Historical

Society, Cleveland, Ohio._

N. Y. P. L. _Collection of the New York Public Library._

Priv. _Private MSS. or source._

B. C. L., Ledger 1411 _Ledger 1411 in Baltimore City Librarian’s

Office._

INDEX OF SOUTHERN WAR POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR

[Note:--Round brackets at the end of the title indicate

the volume or one of the volumes in which the poem may be

found. Wherever the poem appears in several anthologies, that

anthology easiest of access to the general reader, has been

selected. Square brackets are used for the interpolation of

explanatory matter.

The first two lines of each poem are given to serve as a check

since identical poems may appear under corrupted captions, or

various titles.]

_Abe’s Cogitations_: (Randolph.)

“We ought to whip them rebel chaps,

I think so, more and more”--

_Abraham Lincoln: The Mohammed of the Modern Hegira._ New

Orleans, March 5, 1861. (P. & P. B. from the New Orleans

_Crescent_.)

At midnight in the Keystone State

Old Abe was dreaming of the hour--

_Acceptation_: By Mrs. M. J. Preston. (E. V. M.)

“We do accept thee, heavenly Peace!

Albeit thou comest in a guise”--

_Acrostic_ [_Davis_]: February 22, 1862. (R. N. S. from the

Charleston _Courier_.)

“Jehovah, mighty arbiter in earth below,

Ere morning stars together sang, in heaven supreme,”--

_Acrostic_ [_B. F. Butler_]: Baltimore, March 14, 1863. (R. B.

B. 11½.)

“Brutal by nature--a coward and knave,

Famed for no action, noble or brave”--

_Acrostic in Memory of O. Jennings Wise_: By Miriam. (S. L. M.

Ed. Table, September, ’63.)

“Over his cold brow

Just touched by Time’s soft silver tracery,”--

_Acrostic on Magruder_: By G. B. Milner, Harrisburg, Texas.

(Alsb.)

“Much hast thou suffered, bright Isle of the Wave!

Ah! can anyone succor: can anyone save?”--

_Addition to the Bonnie Blue Flag_: A Tribute to True

Kentuckians. (W. L.)

“And we will add another cheer for our Kentucky State,

Her sons in the most glorious war have proved both brave and great;”--

_Address_: Delivered at the opening of the New Theatre at

Richmond: A Prize Poem, by Henry Timrod. (W. G. S. from

_Southern Illustrated News_.)

“A fairy ring

Drawn in the crimson of a battle plain”--

_Address to the Exchanged Prisoners_: On the 31st of July,

1862, all the prisoners of war in Fort Warren, (about 250

soldiers of the Confederate army) embarked for Fortress Monroe,

to be exchanged. They left in Fort Warren, 14 gentlemen, who

were imprisoned under the designation of “political prisoners.”

These were all Marylanders by birth, all but one (Mr. Winder)

were residents of that state when arrested. On their behalf the

following lines were addressed to their departing friends: By

T. S. Wallis, Fort Warren, July 31, 1862: S. L. M., July and

August, 1862. (E. V. M.)

“The anchors are weighed, and the gates of yon prison

Fall wide, as your ship gives her prow to the foam,”--

_Address to the Women of the Southern Troops_: Air--“Bruce’s

Address:” By Mrs. J. T. H. Cross. (R. R.)

“Southern men, unsheathe the sword,

Inland and along the board;”--

_After the Battle_: By Miss Agnes Leonard. (W. G. S. from the

Chicago _Journal of Commerce_, June, 1863.)

“All day long the sun had wandered,

Through the slowly creeping hours”--

_After the Battle of Bull Run_: July 21, [1861.] (W. L.)

“Sadly and low,

Hear how the fitful breezes blow!”--

_Afraid of a Dead Baby_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Keep here, my little baby: rest alone!

Not in thy father’s tomb can’st thou be laid:”--

_Alabama_: (Randolph).

“Over vale and over mountain,

Pealing forth in triumphal song,”--

_The Alabama_: Respectfully dedicated to the Gallant Captain

Semmes, His Officers and Crew and to the Officers and Seamen of

the C. S. Navy: by E. King, author of Naval Songs of the South.

Richmond, Va., George Dunn & Co. (R. B. M., 1864.)

“The wind blow off yon rocky shore

Boys! Set your sails all free”--

_The Alabama Cottage_: A Homely Scene. (R. B. B.)

“The Alabamian sat by the chimney side--

His face was wrinkled and worn.”--

_Albert Sidney Johnston_: (Im.)

“Honor to him who only drew

In Freedom’s cause his battle blade,”--

_Albert Sidney Johnston_: By A. G. (E. V. M., ’69.)

“I heard afar, the cannon’s roar,

Its lightning flashed from shore to shore,”--

_Albert Sidney Johnston_: Killed at Battle of Shiloh, April,

1862. By Fleming James. (E. V. M.)

“’Mid dim and solemn forests, in the dawning chill and gray

Over dank, unrustling leaves, or through the stiff and sodden clay”--

_Albert Sidney Johnston_: Dirge by Colonel A. W. Terrell.

(Alsb.)

“Hush the notes of exultation for a battle dearly won!

Low the chief’s proud form is lying--Texas weeps another son!”--

_All Is Gone_: By Fadette. (W. G. S. from the Memphis Appeal.)

“Sister hark! Atween the trees cometh naught but summer breeze?

All is gone”--

_All Over Now_: (Im.)

“All over now! The trumpet blast,

The hurried tramping to and fro,”--

_All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight_: By Mrs. Randolph

Harrison. (C. S. B.)

“All quiet along the Potomac tonight,

No sound save the rush of the river”--

_All Spice: Or Spice for All_: By Cola, Le Diable Boiteux.

Baltimore, March 7, 1862: Baltimore, April 1, 1862. (R. B. B.)

“The people endure all

The Hydropaths cure all”--

_All’s Noise Along the Appomattox_: Battle of the Crater, A.

D., 1863. (C. C.)

“All’s noise along the Appomattox tonight,

For Grant, with his Whiteworth’s and Parrots”--

_All’s Well_: By Mrs. Margaret J. Preston of Va. (Amaranth,

from _The Land We Love_.)

“‘All’s well!’ How the musical sound

Is pleasantly smiting the ear,”--

_All’s Well: Come to the Rescue._ (R. B. B.)

“One night of late I chanced to stray

Being in the pleasant sweet month of May dream.”--

_Allons Enfants: The Southern Marseillaise_: Air “Marseillaise.”

By A. E. Blackmar, New Orleans, 1861. (C. S. B.)

[“This may be called the rallying song of the Confederacy.

Composed early in 1861, it was sung throughout the South while

the soldiers were hurried to Virginia with this, the grandest

of martial airs, as a benediction.”]

“Sons of the South, awake to glory,

A thousand voices bid you rise”--

_The American Star_: Air “Humors of Glen.” Published by Louis

Bonsai, Baltimore and Frederic Streets, Baltimore. (R. B. B. p.

7)

“Come, striking the bold anthem, the war dogs are howling,

Already they eagerly snuff up their prey”--

_The Angel of the Church_: By W. Gilmore Simms. January, 1864.

(W. G. S.)

“Aye, strike with sacrilegious aim

The temple of the living God;”--

_The Angel of the Hospital_: By S. C. Mercer. (R. N. S. from

the Louisville Journal.)

“’Twas nightfall in the hospital. The day

As though its eyes were dimmed with bloody rain”--

_Another Flag: A Second Thought_: [By C. B. Northrup.]

(Outcast.)

“Whole we preserve the stars and stripes and blue

Of freedom’s ancient flag, it will not do”--

_Another Yankee Doodle_: (R. R.)

“Yankee Doodle has a mind

To whip the Southern traitors.”--

_An Answer to the Poem Entitled “How They Act in Baltimore:”_

By Redgauntlet. (Md. Hist. B.)

“When our ladies on the street

Yankee soldiers chance to meet,”--

_An Appeal_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Haste, Kentuckians! wait no longer;

Rally, and you will be stronger.”--

_An Appeal for Jefferson Davis To His Excellency, Andrew

Johnson, President of the United States_: By a Lady of

Virginia. (E. V. M.)

“Unheralded, unknown, I come to thee,

Who holdest in thy hands the scales of power;”--

_An Appeal for Maryland_: By B. Baltimore, January 20, 1862.

(R. B. B. 84.)

“Of all the gems that gild the wreath

Of freedom, the blue sky underneath,”--

_Appeal to Maryland_: From a Dying Soldier at Manassas: by a

Lady of Maryland. (S. L. M., Oct., 1861.)

“Oh Mother! my Maryland! will you awake?

Hear you not from Manassas the thunder of guns?”--

_Appeal to the South_: (R. B. B.)

“Southrons! since we boast that name;

Southrons! since your blood we claim”--

_An Appeal to the South_: By A Daughter of Dixie H. Baltimore,

Jan. 24, 1862; also Norfolk, Va., Jan. 24, 1862. (R. B. B. 2 &

41.)

“Hark! o’er the Southern hills I hear

The cannons and the rifles sound;”--

_(The) Approaching Battle Hour_: By Kentucky. Richmond,

Virginia, June, 1862. (S. O. S.)

“Ah! hovers over them

The gaunt war-demon fell;”--

_April 26th_: In the ceremonies at Memphis, Tennessee, 26th

April, “In Memory of the Confederate Dead,” Dr. Ford one of the

speakers improvised the following appropriate lines: (E. V. M.)

“In rank and file, in sad array

As though their watch still keeping,”--

_April Twenty-Sixth_: By Annie Chambers Ketchum. Memphis, Tenn.

(E. V. M.)

“Dreams of a stately land,

Where rose and lotus open to the sun”--

_Are We Free?_ By James R. Brewer. Annapolis, Oct. 22, 1861.

(E. V. M.)

“Are we free? Go ask the question

In the cells of Lafayette,”--

_Are You Ready?_ (Bohemian from the Macon _Telegraph_.)

“Sons and brothers--near and far,

Have you heard the tones of war?”--

_Arise! Ye Sons of Freeborn Sires!_ By A. E. Morris, Company C,

20th Infantry. (Alsb.)

“Arise! ye sons of freeborn sires, arise! your country save!

Kindle again the wonted fires that animate the brave:”--

_Arlington_: By Margaret J. Preston. (E. V. M.)

“You stand upon the chasm’s brink

That yawns so deadly deep,”--

_Arm for The Southern Land_: By General Mirabeau B. Lamar. (S.

B. P.)

“Arm for the Southern land,

All fear of death disdaining;”--

_The Army and Its Flag of Stars and Stripes_: [By C. B.

Northrup] (Outcast.)

“In Liberty’s great war”--

_Arouse, Kentuckians!_ By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Arouse, Kentuckians, or my heart will break!

What though by thousands brethren may forsake”--

_Ashby_: By John R. Thompson of Virginia. Richmond, June 13,

1862: S. L. M., Editor’s Table, May, 1862. (S. S.)

“To the brave all homage render!

Weep, ye skies of June!”--

_The Ashbys_: By D. B. Lucas, of Va. (E. V. M. ’69.)

“And lo! there galloped through the gates of war

Two brothers, riding side by side, with spurs,”--

_Ashby’s Avengers_: Air “Annie Lyle.” (Cav.)

“Down where the Southern army

Near Virginia’s side,”--

_Ashby’s Death_: Air: “Annie Laurie.” (Cav.)

“A wail sweeps o’er the Valley,

Virginia’s deep with woe.”--

_Ashes of Glory_: By A. J. Requier. (W. G. S.)

“Fold up the gorgeous silken sun,

By bleeding martyrs blest,”--

_At Fort Pillow_: By James R. Randall. (W. G. S. from the

Wilmington _Journal_, April 25, 1864.)

“You shudder as you think upon

The carnage of the grim report”--

_At Galveston, Texas_: By H. L. Flash. (Alsb.)

“We parted, love, some months ago, in pleasant summer weather;

You blamed the fates that you and I could not remain together;”--

_Attention!_ By B. Baltimore, Oct. 16, 1861. (R. B. B. 7.)

“Hearken, friends and foes now hearken

See Abe Lincoln’s prospects darken;”--

_Audax Omnia Perpeti_, etc. By B. (R. B. B. 4.)

“Come pretty muse, give me your help,

Keen make my pen as the teamster’s lash”--

_Auld Lang Syne_: A supposed song of Morgan’s Cavalry on

entering a Kentucky town. By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,

And not now be brought to mind?”--

_Autumn Thoughts, 1862_: By Miss Mary A. Grason. (E. V. M. ’69.)

“Our Autumn comes with tender glow;

A golden haze is on the hills,”--

_The Autumn Rain_: By Susan Archer Talley. Richmond, Va. (E. V.

M.)

“Softly, mournfully, slowly,

Droppeth the rain from the eaves”--

_The Avatar of Hell_: Sonnet, by “Pax.” (W. G. S. from the

Charleston _Mercury_.)

“Six thousand years of commune, God with man,

Two thousand years of Christ, yet from such roots”--

_Awake! Arise!_ By G. W. Archer, M. D. (W. G. S.)

“Sons of the South, awake, arise!

A million foes sweep down amain,”--

_Awake in Dixie_: By H. T. S., Winchester, Va., February 24,

1862. Air, “Dixie’s Land.” (R. B. B. 7.)

“Hear ye not the sound of battle,

Sabres’ clash and muskets’ rattle:”--

_Away with the Dastards Who Whine of Defeat_: By Paul H. Hayne

of S. C. Charleston, May 10, 1862. (E. V. M.)

“Away with the dastards who whine of defeat

And hint that the day of destruction draws near,”--

_Away with the Stripes_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Ho! away with the stripes, the despots’ fit flag!

The stars and the stripes are the bully’s great “brag”:”--

_A Ballad for the Young South_: By Joseph Brennan. S. L. M.,

Feb., 1861, from the New Orleans _Crescent_. (S. S.)

“Men of the South! Our foes are up

In fierce and grim array;”--

_The Ballad of the Right_: By J. W. Overall. (S. S. from the

New Orleans _True Delta_.)

“In other days our fathers’ love was loyal, full and free,

For those they left behind them in the Island of the Sea;”--

_A Ballad of the War_: By George Herbert Sass, of Charleston,

S. C. (W. G. S., originally published in _Southern Field and

Fireside_.)

“Watchmen, what of the night?

Through the city’s darkening street”--

_Baltimore_: (West. Res.)

“Hail, queen of cities, birthplace of the just,

Oh how cast down! by Northern vandals crushed,”--

_Baltimore_: By C. (Mr. Samuel’s Scrapbook: Ridgway Library.)

“Hail, queen of cities, birthplace of the just,

Oh how cast down! By Northern vandals crushed,”--

_Baltimore Girls_: Air, “Dearest Mae.” (West Res.)

“O the girls of dear old Baltimore,

So beautiful and fair,”--

_The Band in the Pines: Heard after Pelham died_: by John Esten

Cooke. (W. G. S.)

“Oh, band in the pine-wood, cease!

Cease with your splendid call:”--

_Banks’ Skedaddle_: (Alsb.)

“You know the Federal General Banks,

Who came through Louisiana with his forty thousand Yanks;”--

_Banner Song_: Written and Expressly Dedicated to the Armstrong

Guards. By Wm. H. Holcombe, M. D. (S. L. M., July 1861.)

“See our banner floating high

Stars in freedom’s shining sky;”--

_The Banner-Song_: By James B. Marshall. (R. R.)

“Up, up with the banner, the foe is before us,

His bayonets bristle, his sword is unsheathed,”--

_The Barefooted Boys_: (S. S.)

“By the sword of St. Michael

The old dragon through!”--

_The Bars and Stars_: Air, “Star Spangled Banner:” by A. W.

Haynes. (Randolph.)

“Oh, the tocsin of war still resounds o’er the land,

And legions of braves are now rushing to battle,”--

_Le Bataille des Mouchoirs_: The Greatest Battle of the War:

fought Feb. 20, 1863. By a young lady of 17, Eugenie. (S. L.

M., Oct., ’63.)

“Of all the battles, modern or old,

By poet sung or historian told,”--

_The Battle at Bethel_: Air, “Dixie.” (Bohemian from the

Richmond _Whig_.)

“Send out the news from West to South and spread it through the land,

Our noble boys have met the foe at Bethel,”--

_The Battle at Bull Run_: By Ruth. Louisville, Ky., July 24,

1861. (R. R.)

“Forward, my brave columns, forward!

No other word was spoken;”--

_Battle at Bull’s Run_: (R. B. B. 7.)

“Oh be easy, don’t you tease me,

While I sing a bit of fun,”--

_Battle Before Richmond_: By G. B. S., 1862. (W. L.)

“Slowly the great sun rose o’er Richmond’s hills,

Calmly the noble river waved along,”--

_Battle Call, Nec temere, nec timide_: Dedicated to her

countrymen, the Cavaliers of the South, by Annie Chambers

Ketchum. Dunrobin Cottage, May, 1861. (R. R.)

“Gentlemen of the South!

Gird on your flashing swords!”--

_The Battle Call_: By Mrs. E. V. McCord Vernon, Richmond, Va.,

Feb. 20, 1862. (C. C.)

“Rise Southerner! the day of your glory,

The hour of your destiny’s near”--

_Battle Call to Kentucky, 1862_: By Walker Meriweather Bell.

(Amaranth.)

“Arouse thee, Kentucky! the graves of thy sires

Are pressed by the foot of the foe.”--

_Battle Cry of Freedom_: By Wm. H. Barnes. (Lee.)

“Our flag is proudly floating on the land and on the main,

Shout, shout the battle cry of freedom.”--

_The Battle Cry of the South_: By James R. Randall. (W. G. S.)

“Brothers, the thunder-cloud is black,

And the wail of the South wings forth;”--

_Battle Eve_: By Susan Archer Talley. S. L. M., Aug., 1861. (S.

S.)

“I see the broad red setting sun

Sink slowly down the sky;”--

_The Battle Field of Manassas_: By M. F. Bigney. (R. R.)

“Fill, fill the trump of fame

With the name,--

Manassas,”--

_Battle Hymn_: (W. G. S. from the Charleston _Mercury_).

“Lord of Hosts, that beholds us in battle, defending

The homes of our sires ’gainst the hosts of the foe”--

_Battle Hymn: Columns Steady_: By Wm. Gilmore Simms. (Bohemian.)

“Columns steady! make ye ready--with the steel and rifle ready!

Wait the signal! wait the moment--soul and steel and weapon steady!”--

_Battle Hymn of the Virginia Soldier_: (R. B. B. 8.)

“Father of earth and heaven, I call thy name!

Round me the smoke and shout of battle roll;”--

_Battle Ode to Virginia_: (R. R.)

“Old Virginia! virgin crowned

Daughter of the royal Bess,”--

_Battle of Belmont_: (Wash’n.)

“I sing of the Battle of Belmont, ’twas near Columbus town

The Yankees in great numbers from Cairo did come down.”--

_Battle of Belmont_: By J. Augustine Signaigo. (W. G. S. from

the Memphis _Appeal_, Dec. 21, 1861.)

“Now glory to our Southern cause, and praises be to God

That He hath met the Southron’s foe and scourged him with His

rod:”--

_Battle of Bethel_: (Randolph.)

“Saw ye not the ruddy sunlight;

Glancing o’er the hill-tops far,”--

_The Battle of Bethel Church_: (C. C. from the New Orleans

_Delta_, 10 June, 1861.)

“As hurtles the tempest

Proclaiming the storm,”--

_Battle of Big Bethel_: (West Res.)

“Though Butler be a hero,

Who ne’er has powder smelt,”--

_The Battle of Buena Vista_: Inscribed to Jefferson Davis: by a

Mississippian. (E. V. M. from the Louisville _Courier_, April

1866.)

“It was upon the battle field

Where lay the dead and dying”--

_The Battle of Charleston Harbor_: April 7th, 1863: by Paul H.

Hayne. (W. C. S.)

“Two hours or more, beyond the prime of a blithe April day,

The Northman’s mailed ‘Invincibles’ steamed up air Charleston

Bay;”--

_Battle of Galveston_: Air, “The Harp that Once Through Tara’s

Halls:” by Mrs. E. L. Caplen, of Galveston. (Alsb.)

“’Twas on that dark and fearful morn

That anxious hearts beat high!”--

_The Battle of Great Bethel_: Fought on Sunday, June 9, 1861.

Dedicated to Magruder and his command: by “C.,” an American

patriot not 14 years old. (Mr. Samuel’s Scrapbook, Ridgway

Library.)

“Brave Virginians! on this day

Drive the Northern horde away!”--

_Battle of Hampton Roads_: By Ossian D. Gorman. (W. G. S. from

the Macon _Daily Telegraph_.)

“Ne’er had a scene of beauty smiled

On placid waters ’neath the sun.”--

_The Battle of Hampton Roads_: By Tenella, [Mrs. Clarke of N.

C.] (E. V. M.)

“Now, once again, let Southern hearts unite in thankful praise,

To the mighty God of battle, mysterious in his ways;”--

_Battle of Manassas_: July 21, 1861. (W. L.)

“The bridal of the earth and sky! the blessed Sabbath-morn,

Brightens into the perfect day from its soft rosy dawn;”--

_The Battle of Manassas_: Dedicated to General Beauregard, C.

S. A.: by Mrs. Clarke, wife of Colonel Clarke, 14th Regiment,

N. C. (E. V. M.)

“‘Now glory to the Lord of Hosts!’ oh! bless and praise His name,

That He hath battled in our cause, and brought our foes to shame.”--

_Battle of Manassas (July 21, 1861)_: By Cornelia J. M. Jordan.

(Corinth.)

“Clear rises now, the glorious sun,

No cloud bedims the sky,”--

_The Battle of Manassas_: By Susan Archer Talley: Richmond,

Aug. 3, 1861. S. L. M., Sept., 1861. (R. B. B. 61.)

“Now proudly lift, of sunny South,

Your glad triumphal strains,”--

_The Battle of Richmond._ (_Psalm xliv. 3-4_): By George

Herbert Sass, Charleston, S. C. (W. G. S.)

“Now blessed be the Lord of Hosts through all our Southern land,

And blessed be His holy name, in whose great might we stand;”--

_The Battle of St. Paul’s (N. O.)_: Sung by a Louisiana

Soldier. Conquered Territory of Louisiana, New Orleans, Aug.

17, 1866. (C. C.)

“Come boys and listen while I sing

The greatest fight yet fought”--

_Battle of Shiloh_: Louisville, Ky. (W. L.)

“Quick, the cannon’s shot did pour

Belching death at every roar,”--

_Battle of Shiloh Hill_: Air, “Wandering Sailor,” by M. B.

Smith, Company C, 2nd Regiment, Texas Volunteers. (Alsb.)

“Come all you valiant soldiers, and a story I will tell,

It is of a noted battle you all remember well;”--

_The Battle of the Mississippi_: (R. R.)

“The tyrants’ broad pennant is floating

In the South, o’er our waters so blue;”--

_The Battle of the Stove Pipes_: [By Nannie Lemmon (?).] (R. B.

B. 86½.)

“On Munson’s heights the Rebel Banners wave.

Their hungry hosts, their ‘loyal’ legions brave,”--

_The Battle Rainbow_: By John R. Thompson, of Va. S. L. M.,

June, ’62. (W. G. S.)

“The warm weary day was departing, the smile

Of the sunset gave token the tempest had ceased.”--

_Battle Song_: (C. S. B.)

“Have you counted up the cost

What is gained and what is lost”--

_Battle Song_: Air, “Humors of Glen.” (Randolph.)

“Come strike the loud anthem! Again must the story

Of Freedom, down-trodden by tyrants, be told!”--

_Battle Song_: Dedicated to Captain Ben Lane Posey, who

commanded the Red Eagle Battery at Pensacola. (S. L. M., Ed.

Table, June ’62, from the Montgomery _Mail_.)

“Oh, give us a song, an Eagle’s Song--

Our labor and toil rewarding,”--

_Battle Song of the “Black Horsemen:”_ Air, “Dixie:” By C.

Winchester, Va., Oct., 1861. (R. B. B. p. 8.)

“We have come from the brave Southwest

On fairy steeds, with throbbing breast,”--

_Battle Song of the Invaded_: (R. R.)

“The foe! They come! They come!

Light up the beacon pyre;”--

_Battle Song of the Maryland Line_: (R. B. B. 77.)

“To arms! to arms! the fight’s begun

Virginia sounds the call;”--

_Battle Song of the South_: By P. E. Collins. (Fag.)

“Land of our birth, thee, thee I sing,

Proud heritage is thine,”--

_Bay Blossom Cottage_: By Lieutenant H. C. Wright. (Sunny.)

“Oh, how dear to the heart are these hours of bliss,

Which ‘Bay-Blossom’ e’er brings to my view!”--

_Baylor’s Partisan Rangers_: Air, “Dixie.” By Mary L. Wilson,

of San Antonio. (Alsb.)

“Hear the summons, sons of Texas!

Now the fierce invaders nex us.”--

_Bayon City Guard’s Dixie_: By the Company’s own poet. (Alsb.)

“From Houston City and Brazos bottom,

From selling goods, and making cotton,”--

_Bayon City Guard’s Song in the Chickahominy Swamp_: (Alsb.)

“Fighting for our rights now, feasting when they’re won,

By the Cross and Stars, boys, fluttering in the sun”--

_Beaufort_: By W. J. Grayson, of South Carolina. (W. G. S.)

“Old home! what blessings late were yours:

The gifts of peace, the songs of joy!”--

_Beau-Regard_: Sung at the Montgomery Theatre on Friday night,

by Mr. M. A. Arnold: by Baron, April 12, 1861. (R. N. S. from

the Montgomery _Mail_.)

“Flashing, flashing along the wires

The glorious news each heart inspires,”--

_Beauregard_: A Historical Poem: by Kate Luby F----. (P. & P.

B.)

“In Pavia’s bloody battle field

As troubadours do sing,”--

_Beauregard_: By Catherine A. Warfield of Mississippi: (W. G.

S.)

“Let the trumpet shout once more,

Beauregard!”--

_Beauregard_: Written after the Battle of Shiloh, when

Beauregard became Commander-in-Chief: by C. A. Warfield of

Kentucky. (E. V. M.)

“Our trust is now in thee,

Beauregard!”--

_Beauregard at Shiloh_: Lines found on the dead body of a

Confederate soldier after the battle of Williamsburg. (R. B. B.)

“Now glory to the Lord of Hosts,

And glory the reward”--

_Beauregard’s Appeal_: By Paul H. Hayne. (S. S. from the

Charleston _Courier_.)

“Yea! though the need is bitter,

Take down those sacred bells!”--

_The Beleaguered City_: By Rosa Vertner Jeffrey. (E. V. M.)

“There’s a beautiful city, far, far, away,

In the land of myrtle and the rose,”--

_Ben M’Culloch_: Air, “Something new comes every day.” (R. B.

B. 65.)

“Oh, have you heard of the brave old fellow

He goes by the name of Ben McCulloch,”--

_Ben M’Culloch--He Fell At His Post!_ By Ned Bracken. (Alsb.)

“When the Northmen their war-banner spread; nor would give

the right to secede,

The cause of his country he wed, in this her great hour of need”--

_Bentonville_: Written on the field, at the close of the first

day’s fight: by T. B. Catherwood. (Hubner.)

“Another battle has been fought, another victory won.

We’ve fought this day from rising to the setting of the sun”--

_Bethel_: (S. L. M. January, ’62.)

“Hurrah for old Virginia! God bless the brave North State!

For they first taught the Yankee curs to dread a freeman’s hate:”--

_A Betrayal_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Dallying on as fair a landscape

As the skies in beauty drape,”--

_Beyond the Potomac_: By Paul H. Hayne. (R. R. from the

Richmond _Whig_.)

“They slept on the fields which their valor had won!

But arose with the first early blush of the sun,”--

_Bill Hoosier’s Advice to the Hoosiers of Louisville_: Three

days after the battle of Richmond, Kentucky. Air, “Sing, sing,

Darkies, sing:” by Kentucky. Sept. 2, 1862. (S. O. S.)

“Why should Hoosiers spill their blood

To enrich Kentucky mud?”--

_The Black Flag_: By Paul H. Hayne. (Alsb.)

“Like the roar of the wintry surges, on a wild tempestuous strand

The voice of the maddened millions comes up from an outraged land;”--

_The Blessed Hand_: Respectfully dedicated to the Ladies of

the Southern Relief Fair: by S. T. Wallis, Baltimore, April 8,

1866: “There is a legend of an English Monk, who died at the

monastery of Aremberg, where he had copied and illuminated many

books, hoping to be rewarded in Heaven. Long after his death,

his tomb was opened, and nothing could be seen of his remains

but the right hand with which he had done his pious work, and

which had been miraculously preserved from decay.” (E. V. M.)

“For you and me, who love the light

Of God’s uncloistered day,”--

_The Blessed Heart_: Suggested by “The Blessed Hand.”

Gratefully dedicated to the Ladies of the Southern Relief Fair

by Mrs. M. M. of Columbia, S. C. (E. V. M.)

“I sing not of ‘The Blessed Hand,’

That has so well been sung,”--

_The Blessed Union--Epigram_: (W. G. S.)

“Doubtless to some, with length of ears,

To gratify an ape’s desire,”--

_The Blockaders_: Dedicated to A. Lincoln: by Paul H. Hayne.

(Bohemian from the Charleston _Mercury_.)

“Across this threatening ocean tide,

I see the despot’s vessels ride,”--

_A Bloody Day is Dawning_: By William Munford. July, 1864; In

the trenches before Petersburg. (Newspaper clipping from _The

Baltimore American_, c. 1895.)

“Because I know by those sweet tears that gushed

Fresh from thine eyes when, proffered to your beauty,”--

_Blue Coats Are Over the Border_: Air, “Blue Bonnets are over

the Border:” Inscribed to Captain Mitchell: by Kentucky. (S. O.

S.)

“Kentucky’s banner spreads

Its folds above our heads;”--

_The Blue Cockade_: By Mary Walsingham Crean: (R. R.)

“God be with the laddie, who wears the blue cockade.

He’s gone to fight the battle of our darling Southern land!”--

_The Bold Engineer_: Air, “Young Lockinvar:” by O. H. S.

Baltimore, Oct. 14, 1861. (R. B. B. 59.)

“O bully George B. has come out of the West,

Of all that wide border the scourge and the pest.”--

_The Bold Privateer_: Published by Thomas G. Doyle, Bookseller,

Stationer, and Song Publisher, No. 279 N. Gay St., Baltimore.

(Wash. No. 29.)

“It’s O! my dearest Polly

You and I must part,”--

_Bombardment and Battles of Galveston_: Air, “Auld Lang Syne.”

June 1, 1862-January 1, 1863: by S. R. Ezzell, of Captain

Daly’s Company. (Alsb.)

“The Yankees hate the Lone Star State, because she did secede,

At Galveston they’ve now begun to make her soldiers bleed.”--

_The Bonnie Blue Flag_: By Annie Chambers Ketchum. (G. C. E.)

“Come, brothers! rally for the right!

The bravest of the brave.”--

_The Bonnie Blue Flag_: By Harry Macarthy. (C. S. B.)

“We are a band of brothers, and native to the soil,

Fighting for our liberty, with treasure, blood and toil,”--

_The Bonnie Dundee of the Border_: Inscribed to Colonel Wm. S.

Hawkins, of the Western Army: by Clarine Rirnarde. (W. L.)

“Oh, lightly his proud plume floats over the field,

And the battle-god smileth his honors above him,”--

_The Bonnie White Flag: Or the Prisoners’ Invocation to Peace_:

Air, “Bonnie Blue Flag:” by Colonel W. S. Hawkins, C. S. A., in

Camp Chase Ventilator, 1864. (Fag.)

“Though we’re a band of prisoners,

Let each be firm and true,”--

_The Border Ranger_: The Mountain Partisan: by W. G. Simms. (S.

L. M., Feb. March, ’62.)

“My rifle, pouch and knife,

My steed, and then we part,”--

_Bouquet de Bal_: A Ballad dedicated to Miss J----: by F. B.

(W. F.)

“She stepped within the lighted hall

And dimmed the lesser beauties all.”--

_The Boy Picket: or Charley’s Guard_: By a Lady of Kentucky.

(E. V. M.)

“Wearily my footsteps their measured cadence keep,

While my tired comrades are wrapped in slumber deep,”--

_The Boy Soldier_: By a Lady of Savannah. (W. G. S. from the

Richmond _Dispatch_.)

“He is acting o’er the battle,

With his cap and feather gay,”--

_Boy Who Thinkest to Be Wed_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Boy who thinkest to be wed,

By remembrance of our dead,”--

_Boys! Keep Your Powder Dry_: (Alsb.)

“Can’st tell who lose the battle, oft in the councils-field?

Not they who struggle bravely, not they who never yield.”--

_Bowing Her Head_: (W. G. S.)

“Her head is bowed downwards; so pensive her air,

As she looks on the ground with her pale, solemn face,”--

_Brave Deeds--Brave Fruits_: Sonnet: by Wm. Gilmore Simms. (Am.

from _Southern Opinion_.)

“The record should be made of each brave deed

That brings us Pride and Freedom as its fruits,”--

_A Brave Girl’s Fate_: By Miriam Erle. Charleston, S. C., A.

D., 1864. (C. C.)

“The battle riot raged without

A city’s strong, defiant walls,”--

_The Brass-Mounted Army_: Air, “Southern Wagon:” by ----, of

Colonel A. Bucher’s Regiment. (Alsb.)

“O Soldiers! I’ve concluded to make a little song,

And if I tell no falsehood, there can be nothing wrong;”--

_The Bridal Gift_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Fair one, soon my bride to be,

What shall be my gift to thee?”--

_Brigadier General John H. Morgan in a Penitentiary!_ By

Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Hide him in a dark cell,

And fame will crown him there!”--

_The Brigand Brigade_: (Bohemian.)

“When Abe called the Council together,

Secession at large to discuss,”--

_Broken Bench_: A Ballad: By F. B. Chattawa, August, 1862. (W.

F.)

“I stood upon the bridge of sighs,

A wooden bench of common size”--

_The Broken Mug_: Ode (So-called) on a Late Melancholy Accident

in the Shenandoah Valley (so-called): by John Esten Cooke. (W.

G. S.)

“My mug is broken, my heart is sad!

What woes can fate still hold in store!”--

_The Broken Sword_: Suggested by an incident which occurred

after the surrender of Fort Donaldson: by Walker Meriweather

Bell. (W. L.)

“No; never shall this trusty glaive,

Which I so long have borne.”--

_The Broker’s ‘Stamp Act’ Lament_: July, 1862: (R. B. B. 10.)

“Lord save the South from Liberty (?)

‘Beast’ Butler and his masters!”--

_The Brotherly Kindness of 1861_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“‘They’ would burst Southern hearts in twain,

Nor care if so they could regain”--

_Bugle Call_: By Colonel John Milledge, of Ga. (Im.)

“I love to feel upon my bridle bit

The champ of a thoroughbred,”--

_Bugle Note_: By A. Lansing Burrows. (Bohemian from the

Richmond _Dispatch_.)

“Tramp! tramp! tramp! steadily on to the foe;

With banners afloat in the stirring breeze,”--

_Bull Run--A Parody_: (W. G. S.)

“At Bull Run where the sun was low,

Each Southern face grew pale as snow”--

_Bull’s Run_: Air, “Wait for the Wagon.” (R. B. B. 11.)

“Says Greely, to Scott, to Richmond, why not,

These Southerns are only in fun,”--

_Burial of Brigadier General M. Jenkins_: At Summerville,

Whitsunday, May 15, 1864: by “C. G. P.” (Amaranth.)

“Bring blossoms from the rosy beds of May,

Bay from the woodland, myrtle from the bowers,”--

_The Burial of Captain O. Jennings Wise_: Killed at Roanoke

Island, Feb. 8, 1862: by Accomac. (E. V. M.)

“Mournfully the bells are tolling,

And the muffled drums are rolling,”--

_The Burial of Latane_: By Jno. R. Thompson. S. L. M., July

and August 1862. _Note_: The beautiful image in the including

stanza is borrowed and some of the language is versified from

the eloquent remarks of the Honorable R. M. T. Hunter, on the

death of Ex-President Tyler. (E. V. M.)

“The combat raged not long, but ours the day,

And, through the hosts that compassed us around,”--

_Burial of Lieutenant General Jackson_: Air, “Oporto:” by R. W.

Kercheval, Esq. (Im.)

“Comrades, advance! Your colors drape with mourning,

Muffled your drums, and arms reversed, ye brave,”--

_Burial of the Tough Beef in Galveston_: March 5, 1864. (Alsb.)

“The Sabbath sun shone bright and fair,

The earth rejoiced in gladness,”--

_Burn the Cotton_: By Estelle, Memphis, Tenn., May 16, 1862.

(R. R.)

“Burn the cotton! burn the cotton!

Let the solemn triumph rise,”--

_Bury Me on the Field, Boys_: By Mary S. Grayson, of Md.

(Amaranth.)

“Bury me on the field, boys!

When the deadly strife is over;”--

_Bury Our Dead_: (Sunny.)

“Bury our dead! From Rama’s shore!

From every beauteous Southland vale,”--

_Butler’s Proclamation_: By Paul H. Hayne, of S. C. (E. V. M.)

“Aye, drop the treacherous mask! throw by

The cloak which veiled thine instincts fell”--

_By the Banks of Red River_: By E. E. Kidd. (Fag.)

“Oh, gone is the soul from his wondrous dark eye,

And gone is her life’s dearest glory.”--

_By the Camp Fire_: By Fanny Murdaugh Downing. (E. V. M. ’69)

“The sun has fallen: cool and deep

The night wind moans in murmurs low.”--

_By the Camp Fire_: By Viola. [Fannie M. Downing] (E. V. M.)

“The snow has fallen thick and soft,

The cold wind mourns in murmurs harsh”--

_The Cadets at New Market_: By Cornelia J. M. Jordan. (Corinth.)

“Onward they come, they come!

’Mid the wild battle-hum”--

_The Call_: By A. B. Baltimore, Oct., 1862. (R. B. B. 71.)

“Maryland! Maryland!

Stainless in story”--

_The Call_: To Editor _South Carolinian_. By Barhamville. Jan.,

1861. (R. N. S.)

“Hark, the shout! from shore to mountain

Hark the war note raises high!”--

_The Call!_ By Jennie. (B. C. L. Ledger 1411.)

“Sons of Maryland, arouse!

They who sealed your eyes in sleep,”--

_Call All! Call All!_ By Georgia. (C. C. from the Rockingham,

Va., _Register_.)

“Whoop! The Doodles have broken loose

Running around like the very deuce”--

_The Call of Freedom_: Richmond, May 1, 1861. (R. A.)

“Hark! To the rescue! Freedom calls,

Where triumph’s banners brightly wave,”--

_A Call to Kentuckians_: By a Southern Rights Woman.

Louisville, Ky., June 24, 1862. (R. R.)

“Sons of Kentucky! arise from your dreaming

Awake and to arms! for the foe draweth nigh:”--

_The Cameo Bracelet_: By James B. Randall, of Maryland. (W. G.

S.)

“Eva sits on the ottoman there,

Sits by a Psyche carved in stone.”--

_Campaign Ballad_: By Rev. J. E. Carnes. (Alsb.)

“Young Florida sends for their clan--the old Dominion’s brave,

With sons of Texas, lead the van, to glory or the grave;”--

_Camp Douglas By the Lake_: A Prison Song. Air, “Cottage by the

Sea.” (Fag.)

“Childhood’s days have long since faded,

Youth’s bright dreams like lights gone out,”--

_Cannoneer’s Doom_: A legend of the 19th century: by F. B.,

Cottage Hill, Ala., Sept. 7, 1863. (W. F.)

“Oh, tell me not of trimmings red,

Thus sighed a cannoneer,”--

_Cannon Song_: (S. S.)

“Aha! a song for the trumpet’s tongue!

For the bugle to sing before us,”--

_Captain Maffit’s Ballad of the Sea_: (W. G. S. from the

Charleston _Mercury_.)

“Though winds are high and skies are dark

And the stars scarce show us a meteor spark;”--

_The Captain’s Story_: (E. V. M.)

“We rested on the battle field

The busy day was o’er.”--

_The Captain With His Whiskers_: (Alsb.)

“As they marched through the town with their banners so gay

I ran to the window just to hear the band play;”--

_The Cap That Poor Henderson Wore_: By Willie Lightheart.

Charleston, S. C. (C. C.)

“Tattered and threadbare, greasy and torn,

Faded and worn though it be,”--

_Captives Going Home_: (W. G. S.)

“No flaunting banners o’er them wave

No arms flash back the sun’s bright ray.”--

_The Captured Epaulette_: By M. J. P. [Mrs. M. J. Preston?] (P.

& P. B.)

“Oh! we’ve beaten them gallantly! back from our soil,

We have hurled the invader and taken his spoil,”--

_The Captured Flag_: By Kentucky. Jan. 29, 1862. (S. O. S.)

“It is not strange that you should like to get

Sight of the flag that waved”--

_Capture of 17 of Company H., 4th Texas Cavalry_: Air, “Wake

Snakes and Bite a Biskit.” (Alsb.)

“’Twas early in the morning of eighteen sixty-three,

We started out on picket, not knowing what we’d see:”--

_Carmen Triumphale_: By Henry Timrod. (W. G. S. from the

_Southern Illustrated News_.)

“Go forth and bid the land rejoice,

Yet not too gladly, oh my song!”--

_Carolina_: By Mrs. C. A. B. (Fag.)

“’Mid her ruins proudly stands,

Our Carolina!”--

_Carolina_: Inscribed to the Pee Dee Legion, General W. W.

Harlee, New Orleans, Dec. 1, 1861: by Mrs. Anna Peyre Dennies.

(E. V. M.)

“In the hour of thy glory

When thy name was far renowned,”--

_Carolina_: By Henry Timrod. (W. G. S.)

“The despot treads thy sacred sands,

Thy pines give shelter to his bands,”--

_Carolina_: April 14, 1861: by John A. Wagener, of S. C. (W. G.

S.)

“Carolina! Carolina!

Noble name in State and story”--

_Carolina’s Hymn_: For the _Courier_: by E. B. C., Jan. 1861.

(R. N. S.)

“Be merciful, O God; the crimson tide

Of sanguinary war, a cooling flood,”--

_Cavalier and Roundhead_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Will he ne’er come again,

Come into my waiting arms?”--

_The Cavaliers’ Glee_: Air, “The Pirates’ Glee:” by Captain Wm.

Blackford, of General Stuart’s staff. (S. S.)

“Spur on! spur on! we love the bounding

Of barbs that bear us to the fray:”--

_The Cavalier’s Serenade_: By Colonel Wm. S. Hawkins. (Sunny.)

“O, come to the heart that is beating for thee!

By the hope of my freedom, my bride thou shalt be.”--

_Charade_: [Jackson?] (E. V. M.)

“My first is seen on a field of green

And a lucky elf is he,”--

_The Charge of the Georgia Eighth_: At the Battle of Manassas,

July 21, 1861: by Marie Key Steele, of Md. (E. V. M., ’69.)

“The rising sun shines gaily,

On proud Manassas height,”--

_Charge of Hagood’s Bridage_: Weldon Railroad, Aug. 21, 1864.

(W. G. S.)

“Scarce seven hundred men they stand

In tattered, rude array,”--

_Charge of the Louisiana Brigade at Atlanta_: July 28, 1864: by

F. B., Atlanta, Aug. 17, 1864. (W. F.)

“Thunders that roll along

Mountains and rocks among,”--

_Charge of the Night Brigade_: Baltimore, July 13, 1861. (E. V.

M.)

“At three o’clock, three o’clock,

Three o’clock, onward”--

_Charles B. Dreux_: By James R. Randall. (E. V. M.)

“Weep, Louisiana, weep the gallant dead!

Weave the green laurel o’er the undaunted head!”--

_Charleston_: Written for the Charleston _Courier_ in 1863: by

Miss E. B. Cheeseborough. (W. G. S.)

“Proudly she stands by the crystal sea,

Within the fires of hate around her,”--

_Charleston_: By Paul H. Hayne. (W. G. S.)

“What! still does the Mother of Treason uprear

Her crest ’gainst the Furies that darken her sea?”--

_Charleston_: By Paul H. Hayne. (Amaranth.)

“Calmly beside her Tropic strand

An Empress, brave and loyal,”--

_Charleston_: By Henry Timrod: Jan., 1863. (E. V. M.)

“Calm as that second summer which precedes

The first fall of the snow,”--

_Charlestonians and Yankees_: Dialogue between Yankees and the

Charlestonians: by Kentucky. (S. O. S.) April, 1863.

“Ho! heigho! for Charleston, ho!”--

_Charmed Life_: (2 Kings vi, 16): by Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Ah! ours is such a little, half-armed band

Compared to those who fight to win our land!”--

_Cheer, Boys, Cheer!_ [This was the favorite song of the

Kentuckians, and was sung by Southern troops under General

Basil Duke at the Battle of Shiloh. Several versions of adapted

words were sung to the melody of this song. One of the versions

was dedicated to Horace Greely and circulated throughout the

North. The original “Cheer, Boys, Cheer,” has, however, always

remained closely identified with Southern sentiment.] (Phot.

Hist.)

“Cheer, boys, cheer! no more of idle sorrow:

Courage, true hearts shall bear us on our way,”--

_Chickamauga_, “_The Stream of Death_:” (W. G. S. from the

Richmond _Sentinel_.)

“Chickamauga! Chickamauga!

O’er thy dark and turbid wave”--

_Chief Justice Taney_: Air, “The Days of Absence.” (R. B. B.,

110.)

“Hail, thou noble hearted lawyer,

Advocate of human rights:”--

_The Chimes of St. Paul’s_: by Tenella. [Mrs. M. B. Clarke of

N. C.] (E. V. M.)

“When first St. Paul’s, your sweet-voiced chimes

Shed music on the air,”--

_Chivalrous C. S. A._: Air, “Vive la Compagnie!” by B.

Baltimore, Sept. 21, 1861. (R. R.)

“I’ll sing you a song of the South’s sunny clime,

Chivalrous C. S. A.”--

_Christian Love in Battle_: An incident which occurred at

Manassas. Waterproof, La., July 21, 1861: by Wm. H. Holcombe.

(S. L. M., Sept., 1861.)

“The Northern soldier reeled and fell

Upon the bloody ground to die:”--

_Christmas Carol, for 1862_: From “Beechenbrook:” by Mrs. M. J.

Preston, of Va. (E. V. M.)

“Halt, the march is over

Day is almost done;”--

_Christmas Day, A. D., 1861_: By M. J. H. (Bohemian.)

“The day’s high festival is come,

The time of careless mirth,”--

_Christmas Eve_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Christmas is here--time to be glad!

Alas! I seldom am so sad”--

_Christmas, 1863_: By Henry Timrod, of S. C. (E. V. M.)

“How grace this hallowed day?

Shall hallowed bells from yonder ancient spire”--

_Christmas Night of ’62_: By W. G. McCabe. S. L. M., Jan., ’63.

(B. E.)

“The wintry blast goes wailing by.

The snow is falling overhead.”--

_Chronicle of Fort Sumter_: (Bohemian from the Charleston

_Courier_.)

“Night lingered over quiet shore and bay

In grim repose where fort and battery lay,”--

_The Church of the North_: Inscribed to Bishop Hopkins, of

Vermont. Written during the General Convention, Oct., 1862: by

Kentucky. (S. C. S.)

“In the midst of raging billows

Zion’s harp hung on the willows,”--

_The Church of the South to the Church of the North_: Written

on reading an article in the _Church Journal of New York_,

which I cannot now find: by Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“We are not divided--no never! no! no!

For the Church of the North cannot be our foe:”--

_Civile Bellum_: [In many collections this poem is entitled

“The Fancy Shot.” It was first published in London, in the

paper called “Once A Week,” signed “From the Once United

States,” and was there entitled “Civile Bellum.” It is

believed to be the work of Charles Dawson Shavley, who died in

1876.--_Editor._] (G. C. E.)

“Rifleman, shoot me a fancy shot

Right at the heart of yon prowling vidette,”--

_Cleburne_: (Im.)

“How far and fast the autumn blast

Beats the dead leaves o’er the ground:”--

_Cleburne_: “Another Star now Shines on High:” by M. A.

Jennings of Alabama. (W. G. S. from the Selma _Dispatch_, 1864.)

“Another ray of light hath fled, another Southern brave

Hath fallen in his country’s cause, and found a laurelled grave,”--

_The Clerk’s Lament_: By F. B., Dalton, March 26, 1863. (W. F.)

“Give my companions back to me,

My rock built hut so gray,”--

_The Cliff Beside the Sea_: By Colonel W. W. Fontaine. (Sunny.)

“Five summers bright have come and gone,

A weary time to me,”--

_Close the Ranks_: By John L. Sullivan. (W. G. S.)

“The fell invader is before!

Close the ranks! Close up the ranks!”--

_Clouds in the West_: By A. J. Requier, of Alabama. (W. G. S.)

“Hark! on the wind that whistles from the West

A manly shout for instant succor comes”--

_The Clouds of War_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“O God, the clouds of war press heavily!

I pant and pant; now I can scarcely breathe,”--

_Coast-Guard Cogitations_: By Carlos. (Bohemian from the

Richmond _Dispatch_.)

“On the cold, white sand

Of a wave-washed strand,”--

_Coercion_: A Poem for Then and Now: by John R. Thompson, of

Va. S. L. M., March, 1861. (S. S.)

“Who talks of Coercion? who dares to deny

A resolute people the right to be free”--

_Colonel B. F. Terry_: By J. R. Barrick, Glasgow, Ky. (Alsb.)

“There is a wail

As if the voice of sadness, long and deep,”--

_The Colonel Gilbert_: By Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“The petty Cromwell of our State oppressed

Is Buckeye Gilbert, as must be confessed;”--

_The Color-Bearer_: By Mrs. Margaret J. Preston. (E. V. M.,

’69.)

“The shock of battle swept the lines,

And wounded men, and slain,”--

_Columbia_: By J. C. J. (W. L.)

“On thy banks, in pride and beauty

Stands the city, Congaree!”--

_Coming at Last_: By Geo. H. Miles. Frederick Co., Md. (E.V. M.)

“Up on the hill there,

Who are they, pray,”--

_Company A. Seventh Regiment, Texas Cavalry_: Air, “Bonnie Blue

Flag:” by Mrs. Dr. M’Grew. Refugio, Texas, Feb. 3, 1863. (Alsb.)

“Let genius bring, on silver wing, her richest best oblation,

To crown thy brow, fair as the snow, young and potent nation!”--

_Company L, 20th Regiment, T. V. I._: Air, “Root Hog or Die:”

by a Private in said company. (Alsb.)

“O here is our Company, the famous Company K

They are always on the sick list unless it’s ration day”--

_The Confederacy_: By Jane T. H. Cross. (W. G. S. from the

Southern Christian Advocate, 1864.)

“Born to a day, full grown, our Nation stood,

The pearly light of heaven was her face,”--

_The Confederate Dead_: By author of “Albert Hastings.” A.D.,

1866. (C. C.)

“O, not o’er these, the true and brave

Whose mangled forms in many a grave”--

_The Confederate Dead_: By Latienne. Enfala, Ala., June,

(1866?) (E. V. M. from the Macon _Journal_.)

“From the broad and calm Potomac,

Is the Rio Grande’s waves,”--

_The Confederate Dead_: (C. C.)

“They sleep. Go not to Rome nor Greece

For history knows no nobler race,”--

_The Confederate Flag_: (E. V. M. ’69.)

“No more o’er living hearts to wave,

Its tattered folds forever furled,”--

_The Confederate Flag_: By J. R. Barrick. Glasgow, Ky. (R. R.)

“Flag of the South! Flag of the free!

Thy stars shall cheer each eye,”--

_The Confederate Flag_: Written by Mrs. C. D. Elder of New

Orleans: music by Sig. G. George of Norfolk, Va. (R. B. B.,

16½.)

“Bright banner of freedom, with pride I unfold thee:

Fair flag of my country, with love I behold thee,”--

_The Confederate Flag_: By H. L. Flash. (Amaranth.)

“Four stormy years we saw it gleam

A people’s hope--and then refurled”--

_The Confederate Flag_: Red, White and Blue. Composed and Sung

by J. S. Prevatt, Co. E., 6th Ga. Regiment. (R. B. B., 16½.)

“On the Banks of the Potomac, there’s an army so grand,

Whose object’s to subjugate Dixie’s fair land”--

_Confederate Land_: By H. H. Strawbridge. (R. R.)

“States of the South! Confederate Land!

Our foe has come--the hour is nigh;”--

_The Confederate Note_: (E. V. M., also C. S. B. No. 25.)

“Representing nothing on God’s earth now,

And naught in the water below it:”--

_Confederate Oath_: Air, “My Maryland;” circulated sub rosa in

New Orleans. (Alsb.)

“By the Cross upon our banner, glory of our Southern sky,

Swear we now, a band of brothers, free to live, or free to die”--

_A Confederate Officer to His Lady Love_: By Major McKnight

(“Asa Hartz”), A. A. B., General Loring’s staff. Johnston’s

Island. (E. V. M.)

“My love reposes on a rosewood frame,

A bunk have I:”--

_Confederate Paradox_: “The falling debris now aids in

strengthening Fort Sumter,” Telegram, Charleston, Nov. 6, 1863.

(W. L.)

“A seeming evil often is

A great and glorious benefit,”--

_The Confederate Soldier’s Wife--Parting from Her Husband._ (R.

B. B., 17.)

“Here is thy trusty blade!

Take it, and wield it in a glorious cause;”--

_Confederate Song_: Air, “Bruce’s Address.” Dedicated to the

Kirk’s Ferry Rangers: by their captain, E. Lloyd Wailes. Sung

by the Glee Club on July 4, 1861, at the Kirk’s Ferry barbecue,

Catahoula, La. (R. R.)

“Rally round our country’s flag!

Rally, boys, nor do not lag,”--

_The Confederate States_: (R. B. B., 16.)

“Yankees may sing of their rank pork and beans,

Their dollars and cents are but fabulous dreams”--

_A Confederate Valentine_: To Miss Jewly Ann Pious: by Peter

Barlow. Picked up, A. D., 1863. (C. C.)

“When these lines you read

Think not of him unkind”--

_Confiscation_: A Wife to Her Husband: by Kentucky. (S. O. S.)

“Let us go forth into the cold, cold snow!

A tyrant says we must, or bow us low”--

_Congressman Ely_: Air, “Hi Ho Dobbin.” (Wash’n, 44.)

“As I rode down to Manassas one day,

With heart light as air and spirit so gay,”--

_Conquered_: By F. B. (W. F.)

“Like the bird who sings at midnight,

I am lone,”--

_The Conquered Banner_: By Moina. [The Reverend J. A. Ryan,

of Knoxville, Diocese of Nashville, Tenn.]: music by A. E.

Blackmar. (E. V. M. from the Freeman’s Journal, June 24, 1865.)

“Furl that banner for ’tis weary

Round its staff ’tis drooping dreary;”--

_The Conscription Bill_: (S. L. M., April, ’62.)

“Let us hail in this crisis the prosperous omen

That our Senate shows virtue higher than Roman;”--

_Conscript’s Departure_: (Army.)

“You are going far away, far away from your Jeanette,

There is no one left to love me now, and you, too, may forget,”--

_Contraband_: (Cav.)

“Say, darkies, hab you seen ole massa

Wif de mustach on his face,”--

_Corinth._ (_April, 1862_): By Cornelia J. M. Jordan. (Corinth.)

“Land of the Pioneer--behold! come

To drink thy balmy airs enchanting West”--

_The Cotton Boll_: By Henry Timrod. (W. G. S. from the

Charleston Mercury.)

“While I recline

At ease beneath”--

_The Cotton-Burners’ Hymn_: “On yesterday, all the cotton in

Memphis, and throughout the country, was burned. Probably not

less than 300,000 bales have been burned in the last three days

in West Tennessee and North Mississippi.”--Memphis _Appeal_.

(W. G. S.)

“Lo! where Mississippi rolls

Oceanward its stream,”--

_Cotton Doodle_: Written by a lady on learning that Yankee

Doodle had been hissed in New Orleans. San Antonio, Jan. 2,

1861. (S. L. M., Ed. Table, Feb. 1861.) From the Galveston

_Evening News_.

“Hurrah for brave King Cotton!

The Southerners are singing;”--

_Cotton is King_: By N. G. R., [Dr. N. G. Ridgley] Baltimore,

Jan. 1, 1862. (R. B. B., 18.)

“All hail to the great King.

Quick to him your tribute bring”--

_The Cotton States’ Farewell to Yankee Doodle_: Atlanta, Ga.,

Feb. 1, 1861. (C. S. B. from the Richmond _Dispatch_, copied

from the Georgia papers.)

“Yankee Doodle fare you well

Rice and cotton float you;”--

_The Countersign_: By Colonel W. W. Fontaine. (E. V. M.)

“Alas! the weary hours pass slow,

The night is very dark and still,”--

_Country, Home and Liberty_: (R. B. B., 18.)

“Freedom calls you! Quick be ready,--

Rouse ye in the name of God,--”

_Creation of Dixie_: 1861. (C. C.)

“Created by a nation’s glee

With jest and song and revelry”--

_Crippled for Life_: By Leola. [Mrs. Loula W. Rogers of Ga.]

“Mountain Home,” S. W. Virginia, Dec. 1, 1862. (S. L. M., Nov.

and Dec., ’62.)

“On a low couch as the bright day is dying

Young, helpless and hopeless, a soldier is lying,”--

_Cruci Dum Spiro, Fido_: By J. C. M. New York, March 20, 1866.

(E. V. M.)

“You may furl the gleaming star-cross

That lit a hundred fields,”--

_A Cry to Arms_: By Henry Timrod, New Orleans, March 9, 1862.

(R. R.)

“Ho! woodsmen of the mountain-side!

Ho! dwellers in the vales!”--

_The Darlings at Home_: By Colonel C. G. Forshey. (Alsb.):

“The sentinel treads his martial round,

Afar from his humble home”--

_Da Vis!_: By Quien Sabe? Baltimore, Feb. 10, 1862. (R. B. B.

73.)

“Give us one chance, ’tis all we ask,

Be retribution then our task:”--

_The Dead_: (Randolph.)

“On the field of battle lying,

Was a youthful hero dying”--

_Dead_: By C. C. (Amaranth from the Richmond _Examiner_.)

“Dead! well I have written the word, and I gaze

On it still and again,”--

_Dead_: By Colonel W. S. Hawkins, C. S. A.; prisoner of war.

Camp Chase, Ohio, March, 1865. (Sunny.)

“Dead! with no loving hand to part

The soft hair back from the pallid brow”--

_Dead Jackson_: (E. V. M.)

“A chaplet! as ye pause ye brave

Beside the broad Potomac’s wave”--

_Dead on Manassas Plain_: By J. Augustine Signaigo. (I. M.)

“Close beside the broken grasses,

Near the setting of the day,”--

_The Dead Soldier_: (E. V. M., ’69.)

“Go where the dying soldiers lie

Eve blushing closes now her eye,”--

_Dear Liberty: or Maryland Will Be Free_: Air, “Carry me back

to old Virginny:” by Miss R. L., a Daughter of Dixie. (R. B.

B., 73.)

“Farewell dear Liberty, farewell for awhile,

Ere long we’ll greet thee again.”--

_Dear Mother I’ve Come Home to Die_: Music by Henry Tucker:

words by E. Bowers. Geo. Dunn & Co., Richmond, Va. (R. B. M.)

“Dear Mother, I remember well,

The parting kiss you gave to me”--

_Death-Bed of Stonewall Jackson_: By Colonel B. H. Jones.

(Sunny.)

“Stretched on his couch the Christian warrior lies;

Cold perspiration beads his marble brow;”--

_The Death of Ashby_: By J. A. Via. Richmond, June 16, 1862.

(S. L. M., May, 1862.)

“Wild rings the raging battle cry;

It’s thunders echo in the sky,”--

_The Death of General A. S. Johnston_: (S. O. S.)

“A nation tolls his requiem;

Bring forth the victor’s diadem,”--

_Death of Albert Sidney Johnston_: By George B. Milnor,

Harrisburg, Tex. (Alsb.)

“The sun was sinking o’er the battle plain,

Where the night winds were already sighing,”--

_Death of Jackson_: By Cornelia M. Jordan. (Corinth.)

“Brightly the moon o’er pallid corpses streaming,

Mingled her soft rays with the cannon’s breath,”--

_Death of William H. Mitchell_: Killed at Gettysburg: by

Lieutenant J. E. Dooley. (Sunny.)

“So bright in his genius--so bright in his youth

Gone to his grave!”--

_Death of Polk_: (W. L.)

“We hear a solemn saddening sound,

A mournful knell;”--

_Death of Stonewall Jackson_: (Fag.)

“On a bright May morn in ’sixty-three,

And eager for the action,”--

_Death of Stonewall Jackson_: By Thomas Q. Barnes. (Barnes.)

“Southrons all bewail the loss

Of a hero true and brave,”--

_Death of the Lincoln Despotism_: Air, “Root, Hog, or Die:” (P.

& P. B. from the Richmond _Times-Despatch_.)

“’Twas out upon mid-ocean that the San Jacinta hailed

An English neutral vessel, while on her course she sailed.”--

_Death of the Young Partisan_: By Cornelia J. M. Jordan.

(Richmond.)

“He fell--not where numbers were falling

Whose groans with the cannon peal blend,”--

_The Debt of Maryland_: By H. Baltimore, Oct. 16, 1861. (R. B.

B., 72.)

“Remember, men of Maryland,

You have a debt to pay.”--

_De Cotton Down in Dixie_: (“These capital verses were found on

board of the English barque ‘Premier’ in January, 1863, bound

from Liverpool to Havana, sixty miles west of Madeira, by Lone

Star, of Galveston, Texas.”) (Alsb.)

“I’m gwine back to de land of cotton,

Wid de ‘English Flag’ in an ‘English Bottom’”--

_Dedicated to the Baltimore Light Artillery, C. S. A._: by

Captain G. W. Alexander. (R. B. B. 81.)

“The Maryland boys are coming

Dost hear their stirring drums?”--

_Dedication: To Mrs. Fanny S. Bears_: By F. B. Kingston, Feb.

23, 1864. (W. F.)

“To you, though known but yesterday, I trust

These winged thoughts of mine”--

_Dejected_: By G. W. Archer, M. D.: In the Field, Sept.’64. (E.

V. M., ’69.)

“Turmoil, never, never ending!

Clamor, clangor, grasp and groan!”--

_Desolated_: By Fanny Downing. (E. V. M. ’69.)

“A weight of suffering my spirit seals

As I stand of life’s sweetest joys bereft,”--

_Despondency_: By Tenella. [Mrs. M. B. Clarke of N. C.] (E. V.

M.)

“The waters in life’s goblet sink,

Which late were foaming to its brink”--

_The Despot’s Song_: By Old Secesh. Baltimore, March 15, 1862.

(R. R.)

“With a beard that was filthy and red

His mouth with tobacco bespread”--