LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
 
 Chap. Copyright No. 
 
 — +??£ 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 

 Ill 
 
 / 
 
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THE MARCH TO THE SEA 
 
 % Idem 
 
 Srf H.P W BYERS 
 
 "A campaign the like of which has not been read of in 
 ■past history."— U. S. Grant 
 
 SEP 24. 
 
 BOSTON 
 ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 Copley Square 
 1896 
 
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 Copyrighted, 1896, 
 By S. H. M. BYERS 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 ArenaPrbss. 
 
TO THEM 
 
 WHO MARCHED WITH SHERMAN 
 TO THE SEA. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
INTERLUDES. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prelude 9 
 
 Soldiers' Song 21 
 
 Doris 29 
 
 Foragers' Song 34 
 
 With Corse at Allatoona 42 
 
 The Ballad of John Brown 46 
 
 Last Night I heard the Whippoorwill 56 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Reveille 59 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Ballad 71 
 
 At the River 77 
 
 Midnight in Camp 85 
 
 The Raid of the Andrews Men 88 
 
 War Violets 103 
 
 Almost Up 107 
 
 Ponce de Leon 109 
 
 Kilpatrick's Cavalry Charge 118 
 
 Song of Sherman's March to the Sea 133 
 
 Adieu , 142 
 
TEE IAECH TO THE SEA. 
 
 PAET L 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 1. 
 
 O READER, listen, if it is thy will 
 To know of things that half forgot- 
 ten are — 
 Heroic deeds that may thy bosom thrill, 
 And hear a tale of heroes in the war. 
 
 2. 
 
 Think that you hear a bugle sounding yet, 
 And see a camp within a forest fair, 
 
 White rows of tents amidst the green aisles 
 set, 
 And silent sentries slowly walking there. 
 
10 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 3. 
 
 See once again the bivouacs in the wood, 
 And soldiers sleeping where the shadows 
 fall, 
 The oaks and pines, that centuries have 
 stood, 
 And glorious moonlight shining over all. 
 
 4. 
 And smouldering fires whose ashes have 
 grown cold, 
 And stacks of muskets standing there in 
 line, 
 And banners drooping, with their stars of 
 gold, 
 Beneath the moonlight and the silent pine. 
 
 5. 
 For things like these a thousand times were 
 seen, 
 Blue coat, or gray, their camps were still 
 the same, 
 And oft a river only rolled between, 
 
 That saw them f oemen when the morning 
 came. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. H 
 
 6. 
 
 Then gleamed their blades, and shone their 
 fronts of steel, 
 The fearful sounds the leaders' voices 
 drown ; 
 The guns flash out, the black-mouthed can- 
 nons peal, 
 As if the forests all were crashing down. 
 
 7. 
 
 And brave they fought, whichever side they 
 stood, 
 And met death there, not trembling nor 
 with fear, 
 For blue or gray, now struggling in that wood, 
 Each struck for something that his heart 
 held dear. 
 
 8. 
 
 And when again the night around them fell, 
 
 And in their camps all peacefully they lay, 
 
 The glorious moon, with its enchanting spell, 
 
 Still shone alike on blue coat and on gray. 
 
12 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 THE SILENT CITY. 
 ATLANTA. 
 
 IT WAS a time not very far away, 
 For men still live who knew that city 
 well, 
 And though their beards be turning into 
 g^y, 
 Their eyes rekindle when again they tell 
 How on a time they saw a city, fair, 
 Where no one lived, yet armies marshalled 
 there. 
 
 ii. 
 Grass grew at will in every empty street, 
 And roses bloomed on every garden wall, 
 And sweetbriar climbed with dear and 
 noiseless feet ; 
 One almost thought to hear the blossoms 
 fall, 
 Or the bright moonlight, as it shone apace, 
 It was so silent in that wondrous place. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 13 
 
 III. 
 
 Closed every door and every latticed shade, 
 Where once fair maids on lovers had looked 
 down, 
 
 In the dear days ere hope began to fade, — 
 In the dear days ere all had silent grown ; 
 
 Ere cruel war upon the city burst, 
 
 To leave its children wanderers and accurst ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 The old town clock there in its steeple 
 high, 
 Still tolled the hours upon the starlit air, 
 And faint one heard the hungry watch- 
 dog's cry 
 Chained to his post, — he was forgotten there ; 
 And days had gone, and nights in silence 
 
 passed, 
 Since all the people from the town were 
 cast.* 
 
 v. 
 Calm sat the city in its solitude, 
 No sound of wheels or footsteps now was 
 heard, 
 
 * Note 1. 
 
14 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 In the white moonlight tower and steeple 
 
 stood, 
 The summer wind the rose-leaves scarcely 
 
 stirred ; 
 Only the notes of some far bugle's call 
 Disturbed the silence that was over all. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Long summer days the hostile armies 
 strove 
 For mast'ry of this city, now so bare, 
 
 And many a field and many a far-off grove 
 Told of the death that soldiers met with there ; 
 
 A hundred days of conflict and of blood, 
 
 A hundred days, so long the city stood ; 
 
 VII. 
 
 Till, on a time when thousands had been 
 slain, 
 And graves were thick in every wood and 
 dell, 
 And death reaped men as harvesters their 
 grain, 
 The day was lost, and then the city fell : 
 The city fell — and through its every gate 
 The people went, and left it desolate. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 15 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And they who conquered camped about 
 its walls, 
 And left it standing empty and alone — 
 
 Its silent streets and its deserted halls, 
 Its roses blooming, but its people gone. 
 
 One had not known, it was so still and fair. 
 
 That war and death had ever entered there. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Then came a calm, and while the victors 
 lay 
 In their white tents, amidst the forest green, 
 They told the tales of their long, danger- 
 ous way, 
 Of many a march, the battles they had seen, 
 Before they reached this city of delight, 
 For so it seemed in the soft summer night. 
 
 One told how once on Lookout's height 
 they fought, 
 Wrapped in the clouds, and hid from all be- 
 low ; 
 
16 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 How every step with danger had been 
 
 fraught, 
 Each cliff a fort, and every tree a foe ; 
 How on they climbed, along the mountain 
 
 dread, 
 And no soul asked what still might be 
 
 ahead. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Till at high noon an awful darkness fell 
 Of mist, and fog, and smoke — a battle 
 shroud — 
 And who his nearest comrade none could 
 tell, 
 Nor see the flames of cannon in the cloud, — 
 When, suddenly, a rift broke in the west ; 
 They saw, and cheered, and charged the 
 mountain's crest. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Another told of Missionary Ridge, 
 And Sherman's army by the Tennessee, 
 
 That starless night, and never any bridge, 
 The army floating there so noiselessly ; 
 
 The muffled oar, the silence, and the tide, 
 
 And death, grim, waiting on the other side. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 17 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The awful charge, the storming at the 
 Left, 
 The hundred guns that flamed across their 
 path, 
 The battle roaring in the mountain's cleft, 
 The smoking rocks, the red-hot cannon's 
 wrath, 
 Till down the hill there came the exulting 
 
 cry, 
 " The Ridge is ours ; they fly, the f oemen 
 fly!" 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And round the camp-fires there was talk 
 of him 
 Who led our Left to victory on that day, 
 Who, spite of foes, and wounds, and valor 
 grim, 
 Still kept his heart like some sweet child's at 
 
 Not war his choice, nor conflict's dreadful 
 
 din, — 
 His love for others took the whole world in. 
 
 2 
 
18 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 XV. 
 
 At every camp-fire he was called the Good, 
 By every soldier he was called the Brave, 
 The kind, true knight, whom every com- 
 rade would 
 Have followed, faithful even to the grave ; 
 The glorious hero, warrior of the West, — 
 Mighty his sword, but peace he loved the 
 best. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Of him they told how, with prophetic eye, 
 From Lookout's heights he saw Atlanta rise, 
 
 And knew that there his battle-path must 
 lie, 
 Or else in vain were all his victories. 
 
 And farther, deeper still, his vision went, 
 
 Of armies marching o'er a continent. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The drums now beat ; " Lights out ! " 
 the sergeants call ; 
 Sounds the tattoo in all the forest round ; 
 And soon 'tis silent in the bivouacs all, 
 The camp-fires, dying, smoulder to the 
 ground. 
 
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.' 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 19 
 
 Above the camp the stars their silence 
 
 keep, 
 And in the moonlight all the soldiers sleep. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The soldiers sleep, and in their visions feel 
 Once more the thrill of that first battle day, 
 When down the lines they saw the flashing 
 steel, 
 And heard the guns, and saw the men in 
 gray; 
 The smoke, the heat, the furious battle-cry, 
 The squadrons charging where the wound- 
 ed lie. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Again in sleep Resaca's hills they see, 
 And Kenesaw, with all its heaps of slain, 
 
 The batteries, hid by many a rock and 
 tree, 
 In their fierce dreams they see them all 
 again ; 
 
 And Dallas Woods, where quick a thou- 
 sand fell, 
 
 And that dread field men called "The 
 Hole of Hell." 
 
20 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Still in their dreams Atlanta's cannon roar, 
 
 Round that fierce scene where brave Mc- 
 
 Pherson fell, 
 
 And Peach-tree creek, and Ezra church ; 
 
 once more 
 
 The siege, the charge ; they hear the awful 
 
 yell, 
 
 Till, waking, lo ! it is the dawn they see — 
 Their dream of war the morning's reveille.* 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Then through the camps a rider hurries by, 
 " Great news — great news ! " to all the lis- 
 t'ning host, 
 Of some great thing they are about to try, 
 Some wondrous march, — Atlanta to the 
 coast ; 
 And round about the very forest ring, 
 The bugles echo, and the soldiers sing. 
 
 * In the armies, North and South, this word was pro- 
 nounced as if written rev"-a-lee'. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 21 
 
 SOLDIERS' SONG. 
 
 " TT^ALL in, fall in, good news has come/' 
 -A. The joyous soldiers sing ; 
 
 And down the lines and up the lines 
 The glorious tidings ring. 
 
 " Sherman, hurrah ! we'll go with him 
 Wherever it may be, 
 
 Through Carolina's cotton fields, 
 Or Georgia to the Sea. 
 
 "Let every blue-coat soldier-boy 
 Put on his knapsack well, 
 
 There'll be no knowing where we'll go, 
 Nor coming back to tell. 
 
 Up boys, hurrah ! the order reads, 
 ' The troops shall forage free, 
 
 And flanking parties will go out 
 When marching to the Sea.' 
 
 " What if some soldier boys should fall ? 
 Well, there's no use to sigh, 
 
 The grave at last will cover all, 
 We have but once to die. 
 
22 THE MJLBCR TO THE SEA. 
 
 Sherman, hurrah ! well go with him 
 Wherever it may be, 
 
 Through Carolina's cotton fields, 
 Or Georgia to the Sea. 
 
 " A thousand miles we've marched before, 
 And battled half the way, 
 
 What matters then how many more 
 Be added on to-day ? 
 
 Look boys, hurrah! 'tis Sherman comes 
 Along the lines, and we 
 
 Will cheer the General as we go 
 Through Georgia to the Sea. 1 ' 
 
 XXII. 
 
 FINISHED the song, and every heart 
 beats high, 
 And horse and foot are gath'ring far and 
 near; 
 Polished each blade, and every gun they try, 
 The army trains in long white lines appear, 
 " March in light order," is the one com- 
 mand, 
 " The soldiers all will forage from the 
 land/' 
 
THE MABCR TO THE SEA. 23 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Burned every bridge between them and 
 the North, 
 Destroyed all roads, and fordless every 
 stream ; 
 Now many a one sends his last greetings 
 forth, 
 To some far home, now fading like a dream. 
 Not in their arms alone they trust, but cast 
 Themselves on God, who leadeth all at last. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Like sailors turning to an unknown sea 
 
 Where no ship's keel has ever gone before, 
 
 Not knowing where, if any land there be, 
 
 Or what may greet them on that distant 
 
 shore ; 
 
 So seems it now, and only this they know — 
 
 Their hearts are strong, and their great 
 
 leader true. 
 
 xxv. 
 " Now cut the wires," the leader said, 
 " but note 
 One message first to him we leave behind."* 
 * General Thomas. 
 
24 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 And kneeling down upon the ground, he 
 wrote, 
 "We march at dawn, — the Sea we hope to 
 find." 
 He turned his face, and through war's 
 
 vistas came 
 A light of glory shining round his name. 
 # # # * # 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Far, far away, Atlanta's children weep, 
 Yet see, nor dream, what fearful fate has 
 done ; 
 
 The weary wanderers of the city sleep, 
 Nor hear their foes nor any signal gun, 
 
 Nor any sound upon the midnight wind 
 
 To tell of all that they have left behind. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Little they dream of how war's dreadful 
 
 needs 
 
 Have doomed their city to some sudden fall, 
 
 Or how themselves have sown the awful 
 
 seeds 
 
 They soon shall reap in war's red carnival. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 25 
 
 They sleep, they dream, they see their 
 
 homes so fair, 
 The quiet moonlight and the roses there. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 They dream of days when all was sweet 
 
 and still, 
 And blessed peace her dear wings cast 
 
 around, 
 When blossoms bloomed by every tarn 
 
 and hill, 
 And violets kissed the sweetly scented ground ; 
 Of their own homes, ere the invader came, 
 In sleep they smile, and call Atlanta's 
 
 name. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 But lo ! already smoking columns rise 
 In conflagration o'er that fated town, 
 
 Illumed the woods, and reddened half the 
 skies ; 
 In every street the storm comes sweeping 
 down, 
 And bursting bombs hurl their destruction 
 
 dire, — 
 Altanta's doom ; the city is on fire. 
 
26 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Atlanta's doom ! A hundred years shall tell 
 The tale anew of that terrific morn, 
 
 How tower and dome and walls together 
 fell, 
 Or in fierce flames were to destruction borne ; 
 
 How in one night all that had been so fair 
 
 Perished and left but ruins standing there. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 And round that place where that fair town 
 had stood, 
 Ten thousand graves told what the cost 
 had been ; 
 
 No fallow field, no hill, no pleasant wood, 
 But there some mangled soldier's grave was 
 seen. 
 
 There blue and gray — their fearful con- 
 flicts done — 
 
 Together slept, nor asked which side had 
 won. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Once more the sun illumes the horizon, 
 Once more the bugles sound the call, "Fall 
 in." 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 27 
 
 On yonder heights they hear the signal 
 
 gun, 
 The hour has come ; the great march will 
 
 begin. 
 And from their camps the steady columns 
 
 wind, 
 In long blue lines, — Atlanta's left behind. # 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Their faces South along the unknown way, 
 With measured tread the bronzed veterans go. 
 
 No gorgeous pomp, no glorious array, 
 But plain, strong men, and feared by every 
 foe. 
 Sublime they sing, and glorious anon, 
 Of old John Brown, whose soul was 
 marching on. 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
 For many miles the serried column spread, 
 On many roads their daring horsemen flew, 
 A sight it was, most beautiful, yet dread, 
 War's wasting besom sweeping Georgia 
 through, 
 
 * Note 2. 
 
28 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Destroying all that in its pathway lay, 
 And threatening towns a hundred miles 
 away. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 A thousand men the railroads overturn, 
 The red-hot rails round neighboring trees 
 are bent, 
 All that a f oeman e'er may use they burn ; 
 Flames marked each road where'er the army 
 went. 
 Thus through the land the tramping 
 
 soldiers wind, 
 Kich fields in front, a howling waste 
 behind. 
 
 xxxvi. 
 
 Thus too each morrow with the risen sun 
 They march again to bugle note and song, 
 
 Or listen, thrilling, to some foeman's gun, 
 Far forward where the vanguard troopers 
 throng ; 
 There at some ford hard held by men in 
 
 gray, 
 The daring troopers give their lives away. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 29 
 
 DORIS. 
 
 'T \ ^IS morn and the horsemen ride 
 
 J- Far on at the army's van. 
 And Doris is at my side, 
 
 We are galloping man for man. 
 " Doris, brother, slow — 
 
 Halt/' is the cry ahead — 
 " Look where the colonels go ! " 
 
 Never a word he said. 
 
 My Doris's horse is brown, 
 
 And my good steed is gray, 
 We've ridden them np and down 
 
 On many a battle day. 
 " Look, Doris, see ! 
 
 Something is wrong, I know." 
 Smiling he looked at me, 
 
 Looked where the colonels go. 
 
 The bridge is burned, and the ford 
 Is filled with the men in gray, 
 
 And under the trees a horde 
 Of rebels that block our way. 
 
30 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 " Charge, cavalry, charge ! " 
 See how the sabres gleam, 
 
 Slowly out of the wood, 
 
 Quickly down to the stream. 
 
 And full in our faces flash, 
 
 As into the creek we ride, 
 The glare of the musket's crash, 
 
 A gun from the other side. 
 " Charge, cavalry, there ! 
 
 Charge on that blazing gun ! " 
 There's a shout on the morning air, 
 
 The ford and the creek are won ! 
 
 A shout on the morning air, 
 
 Till the forests resound ag-ain ; 
 We have taken the crossing fair, 
 
 And lost but a dozen men. 
 Doris ? comrades ? — God ! — 
 
 Doris ? It cannot be — 
 Yonder upon the sod, 
 
 And never a word to me ! 
 
 I buried him in the sand, 
 And tarried behind a day, 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 31 
 
 Till the army should come to hand 
 To the place where my Doris lay. 
 
 " Cheer, soldiers, cheer," 
 
 That's what the General said ; 
 
 How little they seemed to care 
 That Doris was lying dead ! 
 
 My Doris's horse is brown, 
 
 And my good steed is gray, 
 But I shall take his instead of my own, 
 
 And now I am on my way. 
 " Charge, cavalry, charge ! " 
 
 Little it is to me, 
 Whether I live or whether I die, 
 
 Or whether I reach the sea. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 LONG in the North the people sit and 
 ^ wait, 
 In doubt and fear what yet the end may be, 
 
 If time or tide, heroic deeds, or fate, 
 Shall bring that army safely to the sea. 
 " They all are lost," so rumor darkly said, 
 "In the deep forest, and their leaders 
 dead." 
 
32 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 And here and there some soldiers had 
 
 gone down, 
 Captured or killed if straggling from the 
 
 line. 
 For fiercer now the hearts of men had 
 
 grown, 
 And war had scarcely any pitying sign ; 
 Life is not much, that men to it should 
 
 cling, 
 And death to some seemed but a little 
 
 thing. 
 
 # # # # # 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Kich was that land in everything that 
 
 grew 
 On tree or vine, or nurtured in the ground ; 
 
 Its kindly sun, its sky's ethereal blue, 
 Its softening rains blessed all the fields 
 
 around. 
 From field and vine the frightened owners 
 
 fled, 
 From groaning barns with golden ears and 
 
 red. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 33 
 
 XL. 
 
 But distant far the rich fields often were, 
 And, that the army might not want for 
 bread, 
 Each twentieth man was made a forager, 
 And so it was the marching host were fed. 
 On left and right, wherever farms might 
 be, 
 They roved the lands as privateers the sea. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Grotesque their garb as ever one could 
 find, 
 To camp they rode fantastically grand, 
 
 In hats and coats the planters left behind, 
 Mounted on steeds such as might come to 
 hand ; 
 Or else in some rich farmer's new coupe, 
 Its silken cushions piled with hams and 
 hay. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 And so they went, these foragers, and far, 
 And each a law unto himself became, 
 
 Audacious men as ever went to war, 
 Or found in fight an easy road to fame. 
 3 
 
34 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 And many a time in their own reckless 
 
 way, 
 They met with death in some far-off 
 
 foray. # 
 
 Note 3. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 35 
 
 FORAGER'S SONG. 
 1. 
 
 THE bugles I hear and the camp is astir, 
 The sun rises clear on the pine and 
 the fir ; 
 Away let us ride, past the vanguard and 
 
 camp, 
 Ere the farmer shall hide all his corn in the 
 swamp. 
 
 2. 
 
 Already the hills are in purple and gold, 
 The dawn, how it thrills all the wood and 
 
 the wold ! 
 No flag and no drum — ah ! little they know 
 How sudden we come, or the roads that we go. 
 
 3. 
 Let soldiers who will plod along on their way, 
 But give us the spice of a far-off foray : 
 A brush in some lane with their five to our 
 
 one, 
 And a barn full of grain when the scrim- 
 mage is done. 
 
36 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 4. 
 
 Then forward, hurrah ! there'll be fun on 
 the farm, 
 
 When the cocks and the dogs shall have 
 raised the alarm ; 
 
 When the darkies shall cry to each gay cava- 
 lier, 
 
 " We'sglad, Mr. Sherman, to see you is here." 
 
 5. 
 
 Then here's to the bummer who longest can 
 
 ride, 
 
 A sheep on his shoulder, his gun at his side ; 
 
 And to every brave fellow who goes on before 
 
 To forage good food for the grand army 
 
 corps. 
 
 6. 
 
 Then up, while the hills are in purple and 
 
 gold, 
 While the dew's on the grass, and the sheep 
 
 are in fold ; 
 Let others who will watch along on their 
 
 way, 
 But give us the morn, and a far-off foray. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 37 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 SO day by day the army moved along, 
 Flanked left and right by these bold 
 foragers ; 
 'Tis now a cheer, or now an army song, 
 Or bugle's note the soldier's bosom stirs, 
 And catching step to that wild music's 
 
 strain, 
 They bend their faces to the distant main. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Through field and wood the blue-coat 
 
 soldiers stride, 
 The battery wagons fill the road between, 
 
 Far in advance the troopers gaily ride, 
 The long white trains fill up the varied 
 
 scene ; 
 Like grown-up boys on some wild pleasure 
 
 bent, 
 With swinging step the fearless soldiers 
 
 went. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 A sight it was ! that sea of army blue, 
 The sloping guns of the swift tramping 
 host, 
 
38 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Winding its way the fields and forests 
 
 through, 
 As winds some river slowly to the coast. 
 The snow-white trains, the batteries grim, 
 
 and then,* 
 The steady tramp of sixty thousand men. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Yet they were far within a stranger's land, 
 
 A f oeman brave was round them everywhere, 
 
 And ambuscades and swamps on every 
 
 hand, 
 
 And bridgeless streams, and f oemen waiting 
 
 there ; 
 
 Still feared they not the dangers of the 
 
 way, 
 But trusted him who led them day by day. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 And if, perchance, they saw him down 
 
 the lines, 
 
 To the blue skies there went the wild huzza, — 
 
 Amazed the rocks and the tall, silent 
 
 pines, 
 
 That never heard such music till that day ; 
 
 * Note 4. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 39 
 
 And far away still other columns hear, 
 And wave their flags and join the mighty 
 cheer. 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 By many a road the swinging lines went 
 
 on, 
 By many a farm, through many a hamlet 
 
 rude, 
 Where every soul save some poor slave 
 
 was gone, 
 The village green turned to a solitude : 
 Or if some, fearless, kept the lonesome 
 
 place, 
 Scorn marked each brow, contempt looked 
 
 from each face. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 But once unto a city fair they neared, 
 With shaded streets like to some wooded 
 glen, 
 And in its midst a great white house ap- 
 peared, 
 Within whose walls sat solemn whiskered 
 men, 
 
40 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Who great laws made, and proclamations 
 
 gave, 
 And ever cried, "Be brave, be brave, be 
 
 brave." 
 
 L. 
 
 Fearless they seemed as solemnly they 
 sate, 
 Like men who dared at duty's post to die, 
 
 But lo ! one shot outside the city's gate, 
 They took their hats and were the first to 
 
 %; 
 
 On horse, on foot, chief magistrate and all, 
 Disgraceful fled, and left an empty hall. 
 
 LI. 
 
 And in their stead some blue-coats sat 
 
 them down, 
 
 And merry made of all things grave or gay, 
 
 And laws they passed declaring that that 
 
 town 
 
 Should, nolens volens, with the Union stay. 
 
 And many days within that town, 'twas 
 
 said, 
 Men laughed at how their Legislature fled. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 41 
 
 LII. 
 
 And round the camp-fires many an even- 
 ing* 
 The soldiers too talked of those solemn men, 
 Or else told tales, or one a song would sing, 
 When all would join him in the glad re- 
 frain. 
 And so it was that every camp-fire had 
 Its tale to tell, its song to make them glad. 
 
 LIU. 
 
 And once, as closer round a fire they drew, 
 A poet comrade gave his fancy flight ; 
 
 Stories he told of lovers, false and true, 
 And tales of war — then would have said 
 " Good-night." 
 " Not yet," they cry ; " enough of love 
 
 and sport ; 
 " Still tell of Corse, and how he held the 
 fort." 
 
42 
 
 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 WITH CORSE AT ALLATOONA.* 
 
 IT was less than two thousand we num- 
 bered, 
 In the fort sitting up on the hill; 
 That night not a soldier that slumbered ; 
 
 We watched by the starlight until 
 Daybreak showed us all of their forces ; 
 
 About us their gray columns ran, 
 To left and to right they were round us, 
 Five thousand if there was a man. 
 
 " Surrender your fort," bawled the rebel ; 
 
 " Five minutes I give, or you're dead." 
 " Not a man," answered Corse, in his treble, 
 
 " Perhaps you can take us instead ! " 
 Then pealed forth their cannon infernal ; 
 
 We fought them outside of the pass, 
 Two hours, the time seemed eternal ; 
 
 The dead lay in lines on the grass. 
 
 * Note 5. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 43 
 
 But who cared for dead or for dying ? 
 
 The fort we were there to defend, 
 And across from yon far mountain flying, 
 
 Came a message, " Hold on to the end ; 
 Hold on to the fort." It was Sherman, 
 
 Who signalled from Kenesaw's height, 
 Far over the heads of our foemen, 
 
 u Hold on — I am coming to-night.' ' 
 
 Quick fluttered our flag to the signal, 
 
 We answered him back with a will, 
 And fired on the gray-coated rebels 
 
 That charged up the slope of the hill. 
 " Load double," cried Corse, " every cannon ; 
 
 Who cares for their ten to our one?" 
 We looked at the swift-coming rebels, 
 
 And answered their yell with a gun. 
 
 With the grape from our fort in their faces, 
 
 They rush to the ramparts, but stop ; 
 Ah ! few of the gray-columned army 
 
 That day left alive at the top. 
 On the parapets, too, lie our wounded, 
 
 Each porthole a grave for the dead ; 
 No room for our cannon, the corpses 
 
 Fill up the embrasures instead. 
 
44 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Again through the cannon's red weather 
 
 They charge up the hill and the pass, 
 Their dead and our dead lie together 
 
 Out there on the slope in the grass. 
 A crash from our rifles — they falter; 
 
 A gleam from our steel — it is by. 
 " Recall, and retreat," sound their bugles ; 
 
 We cheer from the fort as they fly. 
 
 Once more and the signal is flying — 
 
 " How many the wounded and dead ? " 
 " Six hundred," says Corse, " with the 
 dying," 
 
 The blood streaming down from his head. 
 " But what of that ? Look ! the old banner 
 
 Shines out there as peaceful and still 
 As if there had not been a battle 
 
 This morning up here on the hill." 
 
 LIV. 
 
 " npELL on, tell on," the eager listeners 
 J- cried, 
 As each new tale of love or war was done, 
 And half they cheered at Sheridan's great 
 ride, 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 45 
 
 And laughed or wept as each new yarn was 
 
 spun ; 
 Then all at once they wrangled,near and far, 
 As to what thing had brought about the 
 
 war. 
 
 LV. 
 
 One said the politicians ; others said 
 'Twas cotton, else the niggers did it all ; 
 
 Or abolitionists; had they been dead 
 There never had been any war at all. 
 
 Then one spake up, who by the fire had 
 lain, 
 
 " This is God's war, to me 'tis very plain. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 " You all have heard, but listen, hear once 
 
 more, 
 
 Of that old Shepherd of New England's sod, 
 
 Whose hero-blood lies at the Nation's door 
 
 Because he feared the everlasting God. 
 
 Curst was the land for that black deed, 
 
 abhorred, 
 For they had slain an angel of the Lord." 
 
46 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 THE BALLAD OF JOHN BROWN. 
 
 BY old North Elba's hill-girt town 
 A shepherd, dressed in homely brown, 
 Beside his flocks one morning stood 
 Amidst the rough field's solitude, 
 And wanting aught of else to do, 
 His Bible from his pocket drew, 
 And read some pages, till he saw 
 How straight and simple is the law. 
 
 " Do unto others as you would 
 
 That they should do to you." He stood 
 
 A little while when he had read, 
 
 Then closed the book, and prayed, and said, 
 
 " I have not done this thing at all." 
 
 He glanced beyond the pasture wall, 
 
 And saw two bondsmen hurrying by, 
 
 Who had escaped from slavery. 
 
 Far from the South they fled one day, 
 
 And good men helped them on their way. 
 
 And now the shepherd thought of this, 
 
 How far and long he'd been amiss, 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 47 
 
 How in the land he called his own 
 A monstrous evil had upgrown 
 Till millions of his kinsmen stood, 
 Bound hand and soul in servitude, 
 And he had lifted heart nor hand 
 To cleanse the foul blot from the land. 
 
 He knelt and made to God a vow, 
 
 That if some day, or if somehow, 
 
 The shepherd of North Elba could 
 
 Become God's instrument for good, 
 
 To drive the curse from out the land, 
 
 He would give all his years, and stand 
 
 First in the ranks of those who make 
 
 Their bed with death for Freedom's sake. 
 
 That moment round about him shone 
 
 A light unearthly and unknown, 
 
 But fair, supernal, as some star, 
 
 That shines where only angels are. 
 
 And then a low voice seemed to say, 
 
 " Thou art my servant from this day." 
 
 Years passed, and he who heard the Lord 
 Became an angel of the sword. 
 
48 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Wherever wrong, oppression, dwelt, 
 There his right hand was quickly felt. 
 Stern, as became his pride and name, 
 That hither with the Mayflower came, 
 Yet little children loved to stand 
 Beside his knee or press his hand ; 
 But hated, wronged, despised was he, 
 As was that One of Galilee, 
 And no man dared to give him bread, 
 Lest vengeance fall upon his head. 
 
 Only a prophet here and there 
 
 With soul to soar, and hand to dare, 
 
 Saw in the old man's shining sword, 
 
 The secret purpose of the Lord. 
 
 Like some strong knight of olden time 
 
 Whom bards have sung in many a rhyme, 
 
 Alone he fought against the wrong, 
 
 Nor asked which side was the more strong, 
 
 For well he knew one in the right 
 
 Could chase a thousand in the fight. 
 
 Years passed, but never once forgot 
 
 The bondsman's tears, the bondsman's lot, 
 
 Nor that fair morning in the field 
 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 49 
 
 Where his great vow to God was sealed. 
 
 And many a sad slave's eyes grew dim, 
 
 At thought of freedom and of him. 
 
 And many a bondsman's feet were led 
 
 To lands where slavery never spread. 
 
 Yet, wronged himself, despised and poor, 
 
 He trod the wine-press o'er and o'er : 
 
 Though full of bitterness the cup, 
 
 To the last dregs he drank it up. 
 
 Burned were his barns, his corn, his wheat, 
 
 His murdered sons lay at his feet ; 
 
 To misery his life seemed wed, 
 
 A price was placed upon his head ; 
 
 Yet yielded not his heart of steel, 
 
 Nor questioned he of woe or weal. 
 
 " Who perils naught in God's great strife 
 
 He is not worthy of his life. 
 
 To live with wrong were mortal crime ; 
 
 Who fears is born out of his time. 
 
 So one more blow the curse I'll give ; 
 
 What if I die or if I live ? 
 
 Years are not of our life the sum, 
 
 Nor dies one till his time is come. 
 
 Nor matters it, so if at last 
 
 The curse of bondage shall be passed." 
 
 4 
 
50 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 He struck. 'Twas proud Virginia felt 
 The blow the shepherd's strong arm dealt. 
 Where the Potomac winds its way 
 From the blue mountains to the bay, 
 A little village smiling waits 
 The stranger at its outer gates ; 
 Immortal grown since that first blow 
 That laid at last the monster low. 
 One autumn Sabbath in the night 
 He set the whole town in a fright ; 
 With but a handful of brave men 
 He scared the lion to his den ; 
 But ere the noontide of that day, 
 Dead half his comrades round him lay, 
 And ere night's shadows had grown dim, 
 A thousand soldiers marched on him. 
 But spite of numbers, wounds, and blood, 
 Like some chased tiger there he stood, 
 And fired his rifle till, the last 
 Poor chance of hope or rescue past, 
 He fell amidst his children dead, 
 Hurling his curse on slavery's head. 
 And no fierce foeman where he fought, 
 And no cold court where he was brought, 
 No frowning judge, nor lawyer's scorn, 
 
THE MABCH TO THE SEA. 51 
 
 Nor pain of body, bleeding, torn, 
 
 Could make him one small moment yield, 
 
 Whose life to freedom had been sealed. 
 
 Writhing upon his cot of hay, 
 Unconquered the old hero lay, 
 Though pitiless around him stood 
 His captors thirsting for his blood. 
 Unmoved he heard the judge's cry, 
 " Away with him, and let him die." 
 Unmoved and tearless saw them come 
 To lead him to his fearful doom ; 
 The scaffold saw, but not afraid, 
 He walked as if an angel stayed 
 Close by his side and bade him hear, 
 Above the rabble's shout and jeer, 
 Beyond the scaffold, dark and grim, 
 The far-off bells that tolled for him ; 
 Adown the drifting years to look, 
 And see all chains, all shackles broke ; 
 And farther, through the drifting cloud, 
 Beyond the coffin and the shroud, 
 With his glad eyes the gates behold, 
 The Master's face, the crown of gold, 
 
52 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 And in the pearls encircling it 
 These words, for his own glory writ : 
 " As unto them ye did, so ye 
 Have likewise done it unto Me." 
 
 LVII. 
 
 " npHAT is my story," said the soldier, 
 J- " and 
 That's why I think the conflict is of God. 
 
 They did not see the everlasting Hand, 
 They heeded not, so passed beneath the rod. 
 They mocked His face, nor saw the holy 
 
 light, 
 And that is why we all are here to-night." 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 A white-haired slave who to the camp had 
 
 come, 
 
 Sat near the fire and heard the story through ; 
 
 Silent he sat like one who might be dumb, 
 
 But while they talked his eyes still larger 
 
 grew, 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 53 
 
 For now, confirmed, as if by holy Word, 
 The things of which he had but dimly 
 heard. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 And when the moon her glory had put 
 on, 
 
 And silvered o'er the bivouac and the pines, 
 With step as light as some poor frightened 
 fawn 
 He crept away beyond the Union lines. 
 From farm to farm his hurrying footsteps 
 
 flew 
 To tell the slaves the mighty things he 
 knew. 
 
 LX. 
 
 How down the roads a glorious army went, 
 " A million men, each with a shining sword, 
 Their camp-fires lighting all the firmament 
 As might have shone the camp-fires of the 
 Lord." 
 How in the woods he heard their trum- 
 pets blow, 
 "Like to the horns that threw down 
 Jericho." 
 
54 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Down sank the moon and still he hurried 
 
 by, 
 
 Forever shouting, " Lo ! the Jubilee." 
 
 The foeman heard the weird and far-off 
 
 cry, 
 
 And wondered much what this strange voice 
 could be. 
 
 The bondsmen too, they hear and under- 
 stand, 
 
 As if it were an angel in the land. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 No sleep that night for twenty miles 
 around, 
 From cabin homes to cabin homes they flee, 
 And far away the glorious tidings sound 
 As spread the waves of some disturbed sea, 
 And chanting songs fill all the midnight air, 
 And sobs and sighs and thankfulness and 
 prayer. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 And old men heard who had not hoped to 
 live 
 To hail in tears the coming of this day, 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 55 
 
 Though here and there some flying slave 
 would give 
 A tale of that great army on its way ; 
 
 Or tell of him whose death, the bonds- 
 men's loss, 
 
 " Had made the scaffold glorious like the 
 cross." 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Up to the house, the white house on the 
 lawn, 
 From their rude cabins all the bondsmen 
 hie ; 
 Gone is the mistress, and the master, gone ; 
 And tasks and whips, and gone is slavery ; 
 And ere the dawn illumines field and dell, 
 The slaves will sing their long and last 
 farewell. 
 
56 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 LAST NIGHT I HEARD THE WHIP- 
 POORWILL. 
 
 LAST night I heard the whippoorwill, 
 i Good-bye ; 
 
 I think I hear his sweet voice still, 
 
 Good-bye, plantation. 
 An angel brought some good news round, 
 
 Good-bye ; 
 Oh, don't you hear the joyful sound ? 
 Good-bye, plantation. 
 
 Oh ! if you never prayed before, 
 
 Good-bye ; 
 Just now you's bound to pray the more, 
 
 Good-bye, plantation. 
 I think I hear the angels sing, 
 
 Good-bye ; 
 Oh, don't you hear the angel's wing, 
 
 Good-bye, plantation. 
 
 Oh, make your garments clean and white, 
 Good-bye ; 
 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 57 
 
 Great news has come to you this night, 
 
 Good-bye, plantation. 
 Oh, Massa Linkum, make us free, 
 
 Good-bye ; 
 Oh, let us hail the jubilee, 
 
 Good-bye, plantation. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 STILL in that forest round their bivouac 
 fires, 
 The soldiers gossip far into the night ; 
 
 Some of adventure ; some, their heart's 
 desires ; 
 To f ar-off homes some send their fancy's flight; 
 Some, of their leaders talk; but most 
 
 they bend 
 Their thoughts on Lincoln — him, the peo- 
 ple's friend. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 They see him toiling in the wilderness, 
 In simple garb, with hardened hands, but sure. 
 
 Hard school of toil, but blessed none the 
 less, 
 Where he may learn the lessons of the poor ! 
 
58 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Well Nature knew the soul she had to teach, 
 And gave it wings immortal heights to 
 reach. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 They see him stand in joy or toil the same, 
 
 And fearing not life's battles or its scars ; 
 
 The ladder see by which he climbed to 
 
 fame, — 
 
 To them it seemed to lean against the stars, — 
 
 And on its rounds, writ in his deathless 
 
 hand, 
 " There shall no more be bondage in this 
 land' 9 
 
THE TRUMPETER.' 
 
PART II. 
 
 '^T^IS morn ; the bugles in the camp 
 
 J- Sound loud the reveille, 
 And far their notes through wood and swamp 
 Re-echo merrily. 
 
 2. 
 
 And from their leafy beds the men 
 
 Rise up like wakened deer, 
 And round the bivouac fires again 
 
 Make good their morning cheer. 
 
 3. 
 
 Once more the clarion note is heard : 
 " Fall in ! " goes down the line, 
 
 The camp is left to wind and bird, 
 And to the murmuring pine. 
 
60 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 AGAIN the fir trees that an hour ago, 
 - Stood like lone ghosts above the 
 bivouac fires, 
 Illumined now with the sun's rising glow, 
 Lift up their heads like tall cathedral spires ; 
 And far along, in many a blue-coat line, 
 The columns tramp, the sloping rifles shine. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 At times through some grand forest they 
 
 would pass, 
 Whose lofty aisles were marvels to behold, 
 Whose floors of moss and of bright yellow 
 
 grass, 
 Like fairyland, new wonders did unfold ; 
 And there abreast the marching columns 
 
 come 
 With flying flags, and bugle-notes, and 
 
 drum. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 And then one sings, " My Country, 'tis of 
 thee ; " 
 A thousand voices join the glad refrain ; 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 61 
 
 Fit forest song, fit hymn to liberty ! 
 The woods resound, they are the soldier's 
 
 fane ; 
 Forgot is war, 'tis Freedom's song they 
 
 sing; 
 The bugles sound and all the dim aisles 
 
 ring. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 So marched they on, and here and there 
 there came 
 Great groups of slaves, of young folks and of 
 old, 
 Children and wives, the poor, the halt, the 
 lame, 
 To see the sights of which they had been told. 
 Still spread the tale with wondering accord 
 Of old John Brown, " The servant of the 
 Lord." 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 And dusky bondsmen at the roadside knelt 
 And gave God thanks that they had seen 
 this day. 
 No heart not flint but at that scene had 
 felt 
 Pity and shame for all that sad array : 
 
62 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Pity, that help had come so late to hand, 
 And shame, that slavery e'er had cursed 
 the land. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 And now again their hallelujahs rise, 
 Like to that chant of Miriam by the sea ; 
 
 The Lord has heard the lowly and his cries, 
 His armies come to set the bondsmen free ; 
 
 And every soldier in that mighty line 
 
 Seems in their eyes a being half divine. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 It was a scene such as the world looks on 
 But here and there in the dim centuries — 
 The armed host, that tramped its way at 
 
 dawn, 
 The lines of bondsmen weeping on their 
 
 knees, 
 And praying but to touch the garment's 
 
 hem 
 Of men who brought such glorious news 
 
 to them.* 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Nights passed, and days, and every road- 
 side had 
 
 * Note 6. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 63 
 
 Its groups of slaves now bound for liberty ; 
 
 Nor any faces were there wholly sad, 
 So glad were they at thoughts of being free ; 
 
 Poor simple souls, their cup with joy was 
 lined 
 
 At leaving all they ever knew behind. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 At times the scene was picturesque and 
 
 fair, 
 The ebon faces shining in their joy, 
 
 The half-clad forms of men and women 
 
 there, 
 The half-brown maids, with faces soft and 
 
 coy, 
 And wistful children, naked and forlorn, 
 Too young to know they were in bondage 
 
 born. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 And old, old men with faces like the night, 
 
 And locks like snow, that hemmed their 
 
 dark eyes in ; 
 
 With teeth like ivory, so smooth and white, 
 
 And beards like flakes fresh from the cotton 
 
 gin. 
 
64 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 None knew their age, nor counted they 
 
 their years, 
 Nor scars, nor blows, their sorrows nor 
 
 their tears. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Ked-turbaned matrons ling'ring round the 
 scene, 
 Their gay bandanas over breast and head ; 
 The yellow grass, no longer fresh and 
 green, 
 The autumn leaves now turning gold and 
 red. 
 December days already were at hand, 
 The Indian-summer of the Southern land. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Now many a night, around the soldiers' 
 fires, 
 In the dim light was seen the bondsman's 
 face, 
 Women and maids, young men and gray- 
 haired sires, 
 While tales they told of their down-trodden 
 race ; 
 
RE MARCH TO TEE SEA. 65 
 
 And songs they sung, for music still was 
 
 his ; 
 Wrongs had not robbed the poor slaves' 
 
 power of this. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 In his worst hours, in all his years of 
 
 wrong, 
 
 Rude song had been his only hope and stay ; 
 
 Nor day so dark but that some simple 
 
 song 
 
 Could make it light, and drive his tears away. 
 
 Simple of heart as was his music's strain, 
 
 The gentlest race that ever wore a chain. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 And dance he could, in his fantastic way, 
 And patted Juba round the fires at night — 
 Hoe-downs, and jigs, and many a caper- 
 ing play; 
 The soldiers shouted in their wild delight. 
 The flick'rinof flames danced on the 
 
 bivouacs round 
 As if they too had pleasure in the sound. 
 5 
 
66 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 And cocks crew loud that had some battle 
 won, 
 For this, too, was a soldiers' camp-fire sport, 
 And woe that cock, who when his fight 
 was done, 
 Had no great news of victory to report ! 
 Into the stew-pan straight his body came, 
 Unknown to glory and unknown to fame. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 But, lo ! for him, though common barn- 
 yard fowl, 
 Who had wrenched victory from some better 
 blood, 
 
 To him the cheers ; up rose the mighty 
 howl 
 As if some Caesar down the columns rode ; 
 
 Glorious his fate, he lived, the soldiers' 
 pride, 
 
 As on some knapsack he would proudly 
 ride. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 Still round the camp the slaves like gypsies 
 clung, 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 67 
 
 And lived on what their busy hands could 
 find 
 Of plenteous waste, or what the soldiers 
 flung 
 To them of bread, or food of any kind ; 
 Content if they could only surely be 
 Flying away from their sad slavery. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 For there was no one in that dusky throng 
 Who did not see in their escaping thus 
 
 A resurrection from the grave of wrong, 
 And to their people God's new exodus ; 
 So that no hardship seemed too great to 
 
 stand, 
 If but at last they reached their promised 
 land. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 Nor dared they halt, for oft behind them 
 rode 
 Men fierce of heart, enraged to see them fly 
 From their hard masters, who in cruel 
 mode 
 Might capture all or slay them utterly ; 
 And little choice was there for any one, 
 To die like this or live as they had done. 
 
68 THE MABCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 Nor midst the troops was every man their 
 friend ; 
 At sight of wrong men were not always 
 moved ; 
 Some had in heart no sympathy to lend, 
 And some the cnrse of slavery approved, 
 And little recked if sorrow might befall, 
 Or woful chance should put them back in 
 thrall. 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 Thus on a time, beside a rapid stream, 
 A column slept — it was the early dawn ; 
 And at their rear a thousand bondsmen 
 dream 
 Of sweetest days now swiftly coming on ; 
 But ere the sun lit full the forest fair 
 The column marched and left them sleep- 
 ing there. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 And then, as if by cruel war's mischance, 
 The bridge is cut ere they have crossed the 
 stream ; 
 They see the rapid water's cold expanse, 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 69 
 
 And far away the blue-coats' rifles' gleam. 
 "Horror!" they cry, to sudden death 
 
 consigned, 
 " The bridge is gone, and we are left 
 behind ! " 
 
 xc. 
 Broad was the stream, most pitiful the cry 
 Of that black throng quick-gathered on the 
 shore ; 
 They see their hopes in one dread instant 
 
 Before them toil and slavery once more ; 
 Dreading the foes, that close behind them 
 
 ride, 
 Wildly they wail, and plunge into the tide. 
 
 xci. 
 Old men and young, the weaklings and 
 the strong, 
 Unthinking rushed into the rolling stream; 
 Like some wild herd the panic-stricken 
 throng 
 Went to its fate as in some horrid dream, 
 Preferring death in the cold river's waves 
 To going back as bondsmen and as slaves. 
 
70 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 XCII. 
 
 Still some are saved ; the soldiers, kinder 
 
 than 
 The cruel fate that willed the fearful thing, 
 Spring to the stream and do whate'er they 
 
 can, 
 And many a poor soul from the river bring. 
 Yet all that day, adown that stream, 'twas 
 
 said, 
 Men saw naught else than bodies of the 
 
 dead.* 
 
 * Note 7. 
 
PART III. 
 
 BALLAD. 
 
 l. 
 
 THE good old times were bravest times, 
 Alas that they are by ! 
 'Twas then the land's best citizens 
 Were not afraid to die. 
 
 2. 
 
 Then Country meant to small or great 
 
 A something to defend ; 
 And nothing was too dear to give, 
 
 No blood too good to spend. 
 
 3. 
 
 And no one asked if any time 
 
 Or often he must fight, 
 Or what the cause — 'twas one to him, 
 
 His country must be right. 
 
72 TEE MARCH TO TEE SEA. 
 
 4. 
 
 Thus was it e'er Atlanta fell, 
 
 And foes were put to rout ; 
 When the great land was in despair, 
 
 And clouds hung all about. 
 
 5. 
 
 A message came to Sherman's men — 
 
 In cold and rags they stood, 
 And many names of battle-plains 
 
 Were written with their blood. 
 
 6. 
 
 " Oh ! by your hero past," it said, 
 
 " And by each honored brow, 
 Vain is the blood already spilt 
 
 If you should leave us now." 
 
 7. 
 
 Then spake a colonel of the line : 
 
 " Now, men, do as you may ; 
 Three bloody years you've battled through, 
 
 Your time is up to-day. 
 
THE MABCH TO THE SEA. 7S 
 
 " Three bloody years of heat or cold, 
 Of toil and marching far ; 
 
 A hundred battles you have fought, 
 And each man has his scar. 
 
 9. 
 
 " If 'tis your will, this moment ends 
 Your dangers in the strife ; 
 
 Say but the word and you go home 
 To sweetheart or to wife. 
 
 10. 
 
 " But if that one or all should still 
 
 His land's behest obey, 
 Let him step forward as the sign 
 
 He stands by it to-day." 
 
 11, 
 
 Calm stood each soldier in the line 
 And thought the matter o'er ; 
 
 Thought of his sweetheart, or of wife, 
 But thought of country more. 
 
74 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 12. 
 
 Ten paces out the colonel placed 
 
 The torn and tattered rag. 
 " Who wills it ? when the drum shall beat, 
 
 Steps to the dear old flag." 
 
 13. 
 
 " Eyes right ; " they looked. " Eyes front ; 
 they turned ; 
 
 Each other's face they scan : 
 One tap of drum — with steady step 
 
 Came forward every man.* 
 
 * Note 8. 
 
H 
 
 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 75 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 EAVENS ! such it was that made 
 our armies great, 
 And such it was that made our Country 
 strong — 
 A love of land, surpassing home ; the state 
 Was men's first sweetheart four years long. 
 And faithful they, who standing in that line, 
 Stepped to the flag at the grim drummer's 
 sign. 
 
 xciv. 
 And these were they now marching to the 
 sea, 
 With their dead comrades in their graves 
 behind ; 
 Little they recked what at the front might 
 be, 
 So that their banners floated to the wind ; 
 For well they knew, so long as Sherman led, 
 All would be well, whatever lay ahead. 
 
76 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 xcv. 
 
 One time they camped beside a rolling 
 stream, 
 Their kinsmen foes upon the other side, 
 
 In the green woods they saw their white 
 tents gleam 
 And heard the war-songs o'er the glistening 
 tide. 
 
 And in the night they heard their sen- 
 tinel 
 
 Cry, " Twelve o'clock, midnight, and all 
 is well." 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 77 
 
 AT THE RIVER. 
 
 BESIDE the stream our bivouac lay, 
 And by the other side 
 The rebels camped, so close that they 
 
 Could see us o'er the tide. 
 And twice a day across the way 
 They heard our bands of music play. 
 
 Green grew the grass along the shore, 
 
 Kissed by the morning dew ; 
 Like a sweet dream the silent stream, 
 
 Coursed its deep channel through ; 
 While overhead the pine-trees said 
 Low words as if they worshipped. 
 
 The soft winds lifted the sweet mist, 
 
 In happiness elate, 
 And knew not if the flags they kissed 
 
 Were flags of love or hate. 
 With sweetest thrall God's dear winds fall 
 In benediction over all. 
 
78 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 And suddenly the band began 
 
 Some sweet and loyal strain ; 
 From the green woods the soldiers ran 
 
 To hear the glad refrain. 
 From shore to shore, the waters o'er, 
 The gladsome winds the music bore. 
 
 A truce to war that moment fell 
 
 On blue coat and on gray ; 
 Entrancing music's heavenly spell 
 
 On the broad river lay. 
 Nor sabre's gleam, nor bullet's scream, 
 Disturbed the silent-flowing stream. 
 
 Now sweeter still the music plays 
 
 " My country, 'tis of thee." 
 The blue-coat boys their voices raise, 
 
 And sing it fervently. 
 Sad hearts and sore, on yonder shore, 
 The rebels love that song no more. 
 
 Then Yankee Doodle fills the air, 
 
 And slogans fierce of war ; 
 And " Old John Brown," the soldiers there 
 
 Take up the chorus far ; 
 And far and near the blue-coats cheer 
 The loyal music that they hear. 
 
THE MABCH TO THE SEA. 79 
 
 A pause — and then the band resumes, 
 
 'Tis " Dixie " is the strain ; 
 And, hark ! across the stream there comes 
 
 The rebels' loud refrain. 
 Bronze-faced they stand, the gray-coat band, 
 And cheer and cheer for Dixie Land. 
 
 " Then rally round the flag," once more 
 
 And loud the blue-coats cry, 
 And mock them on the other shore 
 
 With songs of loyalty. 
 Till loud and clear, and far and near, 
 Each side its own war slogans cheer. 
 
 Then all at once the sweeter strain 
 Of " Home, Sweet Home," is heard ; 
 
 Both camps join in the dear refrain, 
 And every heart is stirred. 
 
 And, blue or gray, each soul that day 
 
 Thought on his loved ones far away. 
 
 For one sweet moment, and there seemed 
 
 No North or South land there, 
 Across the river's breast there gleamed 
 
 The holiness of prayer. 
 Forgot were hatred, wrong, and strife ; 
 Each thought of sweetheart or of wife. 
 
80 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Oh ! had some power that moment come, 
 
 To keep that music's strain, 
 Then war and hate had all been dumb, 
 
 There had been no more slain, 
 But sweet surcease of war, the lease 
 Of years that bringeth all men peace. 
 
 Still, long as kindlier things shall last 
 
 War's rude heart to adorn, 
 No touching scene will have surpassed 
 
 The pathos of that morn, 
 When blue and gray, in one sweet lay, 
 Together sang war's hates away. 
 
 xcvi. 
 
 STILL, northward came no news of all 
 that host, 
 Since that great day that saw Atlanta fall, 
 Nor any knew if they should reach the 
 coast, 
 Or if in battle they were captured all. 
 
 "Lost is that army," still grim rumor said, 
 " Its legions captured, and its leader dead. " 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 81 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 Yet every day saw its great General ride 
 Down the blue lines amidst the columns' 
 cheers. 
 Through forests dark, across savannahs 
 wide, 
 They tramped, nor thought of all the Nation's 
 fears ; 
 Content, if only their great leader's hand 
 Should guide them safely through the 
 unknown land. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 Night saw him silent in his camp alone, 
 Or walking slowly by his bivouac fire, 
 
 When all the army to its rest had gone — 
 
 Unwearying soul that never seemed to tire ; 
 
 What thoughts were his beneath that 
 
 camp-fire's spell, 
 When lonely midnight round his bivouac 
 fell? 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 Heard he at times the far-off foeman's horn, 
 And planned, in thought, some battle's great 
 array ? 
 
82 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Saw he the charge, led he the hope forlorn, 
 Through the red coals that in his camp-fire 
 lay? 
 Saw he afar the mighty conflict done, 
 And his own name, of all, the glorious one ? 
 
 Saw he through years the arch of triumph 
 rise, 
 The bronzed steeds, the trumpeters elate, 
 
 The marble shafts that pierce the very skies 
 
 To him whose name the people have called 
 
 great ? 
 
 Hears he afar the grateful bells they ring, 
 
 The shouts of joy, the pseans that they 
 
 sing? 
 
 ci. 
 
 Night wraps him round in her mysterious 
 gloom, 
 Above his head the fir trees waiting stand, 
 
 Silent and dark, as is some funeral plume ; 
 The glimmering camp-fire waves its magic 
 wand ; 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 83 
 
 Lone shadows creep about the silent place, 
 And flickering lights fall on the leader's 
 face. 
 
 on. 
 
 A form erect as is some sturdy oak, 
 Alert, and tall, and quick in every move, 
 A face deep carved, whose very wrinkles 
 spoke, 
 And lips that told of battle and of love. 
 Brown, sparkling eyes, that ever seemed 
 
 to shine, 
 A lofty brow where genius sat divine. 
 
 cm. 
 
 Men said he was like Csesar ; only this — 
 The imperial form and face, indeed, he 
 had, 
 But his ambition never went amiss, 
 And love of glory ne'er did make him 
 mad. 
 Great though his deeds, and great though 
 
 his renown, 
 No Antony had dared to offer him a 
 crown. 
 
84 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CIV. 
 
 At times he heard some music's far-off 
 
 strain, 
 Or snatch of song beside some bivouac 
 
 fire, 
 And list'ning caught the gladsome notes 
 
 again, 
 Soft in the night as some seolian lyre ; 
 And joyed to think his soldiers free from 
 
 care, 
 Though he himself had many a load to 
 
 bear. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 85 
 
 MIDNIGHT IN CAMP. 
 
 y T I ^IS midnight in the camp, 
 
 J- And starlight in the sky ; 
 In a forest cold and damp 
 Two mighty armies lie. 
 
 A river rolled between, 
 
 Where the lone pickets stood ; 
 The camp-fire's faintest gleam 
 
 Shone on the silent flood. 
 
 Out of the darkness rides 
 
 A cavalry brass band ; 
 Down to the stream it glides, 
 
 Down where the sentries stand. 
 
 Their clanging swords we heard, 
 As past the lines they went ; 
 
 We questioned them no word, 
 But wondered what it meant.. 
 
 Low spake their leader : " Men, 
 To-morrow is the fight ; 
 
 The rebels in that glen 
 
 Must hear us play to-night. 
 
86 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 " Let's play some loyal air 
 They may not hear again, 
 
 They'll know the strain out there — 
 Some song of Sherman's men." 
 
 And through the starlight fell, 
 And midst the forest dim, 
 
 Like some grand organ's swell, 
 The Nation's battle-hymn. 
 
 Strange thoughts were in the breast 
 
 Of many a rebel there, 
 Who, wakened from his rest, 
 
 Heard that last loyal air. 
 
 Oh ! many heard that night 
 The last song of their life — 
 
 There was no time to write 
 To sweetheart or to wife. 
 
 For morning saw them slain, 
 
 Whose souls mayhap were stirred 
 
 By that one loyal strain — 
 
 The last song that they heard. 
 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 87 
 
 CV. 
 
 ONE night it was the chaplain's turn to 
 tell 
 Some story of great danger he had seen ; 
 For though he preached, still he could 
 fight as well ; 
 In many a fray and skirmish he had been, 
 And on his breast, when back his coat 
 
 was rolled, 
 They saw a badge of silver and pure gold. 
 
 cvi. 
 
 And now beside a little picket post, 
 Far in advance of all the army's camp, 
 
 Where but a handful of that mighty host 
 Sat round a hidden fire within a swamp, 
 He stirred the embers, slumbering low, 
 
 and then 
 Told them the tale of Andrews and his 
 men. 
 
88 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 THE RAID OF THE ANDREWS MEN. 
 
 'rj^WAS April eighteen sixty-two, 
 
 J- Great Shiloh's bloody day. 
 Brave Mitchell, with his men in blue. 
 
 By Chattanooga lay. 
 Far and alone he had come there, 
 
 With but a thousand men, 
 To chase the rebels to their lair, 
 
 The lion to his den. 
 
 " If I could take the town," he said, 
 
 "With its high ridges, then 
 I would not fear them though they led 
 
 A hundred thousand men ; 
 For to the lofty mountain pass 
 
 It is the only key ; 
 Who holds its gates, that moment has 
 
 The whole of Tennessee. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 89 
 
 " There is a railroad leading quite 
 
 Into Atlanta town ; 
 It brings the soldiers up who fight, 
 
 And takes the wounded down. 
 Had I some soldier bold enough 
 
 To cross yon river's bar 
 And burn the bridges on that road, 
 
 'Twere worth a year of war. 
 
 " But who would think to venture there 
 
 With life so in his hand ? 
 It were a deed no soul would dare 
 
 For all the Southern land." 
 Low spoke a captain of the guard — 
 
 James Andrews was his name : 
 " Well, General, 'twere not so hard 
 
 As many a road to fame. 
 
 " Give me a score of trusted men, 
 
 Brown coats, instead of blue, 
 And ere yon sun sinks twice again 
 
 The deed is done for you. 
 This very night in deep disguise 
 
 Each on some path his own, 
 Will wander where the river lies 
 
 Behind yon mountain lone. 
 
90 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 " To-morrow night the train will go 
 
 From Chattanooga town, 
 And we will ride to Kenesaw 
 
 Before the sun is down. 
 And there we'll hide and wait the train, 
 
 That's coming North next day, 
 And overpower the guards, and gain 
 
 The engine on its way. 
 
 " Be ready, you, to take the place 
 
 By noon if all goes well ; 
 How far we've run the fearful race 
 
 Each burning bridge will tell. 
 But if no flame nor smoke you see, 
 
 Beyond yon mountain's head, 
 Fly quickly out of Tennesee 
 
 And know that we are dead." 
 
 That night, through storm and forests damp, 
 
 By many a darkening stream, 
 A band of men set out from camp 
 
 Under the lightning's gleam. 
 Before, around, the foemen lay, 
 
 The night grew stormier still, 
 But still they kept their dangerous way 
 
 Past Chattanooga's hill. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 91 
 
 " Who are the men who ride with us 
 
 From Chattanooga town ? 
 They are not foenien, coming thus, 
 
 Their garb our homely brown ? 
 Only their faces all are pale ; 
 
 Why are they all so still ? 
 Some came on board at Ringgold vale, 
 
 And some at Tunnel Hill." 
 
 So spake the people in the train, 
 
 But night came on ere long ; 
 Some talked of harvests, and the rain, 
 
 Some passed the hours in song. 
 But no one guessed that when the light 
 
 Should tinge the mountain's crown, 
 A hundred men would be in fight 
 
 With twenty men in brown. 
 
 No sleep that night for any one 
 
 Of that heroic band, 
 And all were glad of morning's sun, 
 
 To bring the game to hand. 
 God ! 'twas a sight for one who knew 
 
 What errand they were on, 
 To see how firm their faces grew, 
 
 Their eyes, how strange they shone. 
 
92 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Low spake the leader : " Men, I know 
 
 To count on every one ; 
 We know what thing we've got to do, 
 
 'Twere good that it were done. 
 Five minutes, and the train is here ; 
 
 Keep cool, as you are now." 
 Each thought of some one far and dear, 
 
 And wiped his moistening brow. 
 
 Right by them stood the foemen's camp, 
 
 With many a sentinel ; 
 The sun rose like some mighty lamp 
 
 And tinged the mountain swell. 
 No word is said ; no soul holds back ; 
 
 One moment still for prayer, 
 And roaring down the railroad track 
 
 The train is coming there. 
 
 " Ten minutes here for breakfast, men," 
 
 They hear the trainmen cry. 
 " We'll make it more," said Andrews then, 
 
 A strange look in his eye. 
 He watched the passengers get out, 
 
 The trainmen hurry through ; 
 Loud rang the gong, the hungry rout 
 
 Quick to the table flew. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 93 
 
 
 " Now is our time, if ever, men, 
 
 The leader softly said ; 
 And every eye was turned, and then 
 
 He signalled with his head. 
 One glance along the line he flung, 
 
 One glance his comrades gave, 
 And to the train the twenty sprung, 
 
 As if 'twere from the grave. 
 
 Three men upon the engine leap, 
 
 Upon the tender, ten, 
 And seven among the baggage keep ; 
 
 They are strong-hearted men. 
 A pin is drawn, the train's in two, 
 
 One half is left behind, 
 And quick the engine leaped and flew, 
 
 As if 'twere on the wind. 
 
 The rebel soldiers fire and shout, 
 
 The wheels fly on amain, 
 Alarmed, the trainmen hurry out, 
 
 And curse the stolen train. 
 " To horse," cry some, and well they need ; 
 
 And some stand by and swear 
 That never yet was such a deed 
 
 Of daring anywhere. 
 
94 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 " 'Tis thirty miles to Kingston town/' 
 
 Cries Fuller ; brave is he. 
 " We'll catch them there, a train comes down, 
 
 The mail from Tennessee. 
 Steam up yon locomotive, quick, 
 
 The < Yonah,' flying bird ; 
 We'll teach the Yankees such a trick 
 
 As they have never heard. 
 
 " Their engine is the l General, ' 
 
 And she is strong and fleet ; 
 But ' Yonah ' is the little girl 
 
 That never yet was beat. 
 Fill her with soldiers, quick, for when 
 
 We meet, full sure it is, 
 There will be fighting fierce with men 
 
 Who'd dare a thing like this." 
 
 On, on, they fly, the Andrews men, 
 
 Quick as the bounding deer, 
 When through the woods and down the glen 
 
 The horn and hounds they hear. 
 But practiced hands hold at the bar, 
 
 The throttles open wide, 
 The engine bounds and leaps, and far 
 
 For life or death they ride. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 95 
 
 They only stop to break the track, 
 
 Or cut the wires down, 
 Or do some thing to make a wrack, 
 
 This side of Kingston town. 
 "What's all of this?" the Kingston folk 
 
 Cry, when they see the ten ; 
 u Here's Fuller's engine roaring hot, 
 
 But where are Fuller's men ? " 
 
 And freight and mail trains crowd them thick ; 
 
 There is no room, alas ! 
 " Move out, you thieves," cried Andrews, 
 quick, 
 
 " And let the Special pass. 
 For I am bound for Beauregard, 
 
 With powder and with lead ; 
 Who stops the Special Shiloh-ward 
 
 Will pay it with his head." 
 
 That moment and there is a wrack 
 
 And roaring far behind ; 
 For Fuller's men have cleared the track — 
 
 He, too, comes like the wind. 
 Amazed, the people hear the din, 
 
 And wonder what's about, 
 For just as Fuller's train comes in 
 
 The Andrews train goes out. 
 
96 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 And on, and on, and on, they fly, 
 
 On six wheels or on four ; 
 The smoke pours out, the clouds go by, 
 
 The mighty engines roar. 
 " Stop, quick, and tear the tracks again," 
 
 Cries Andrews, " and load on 
 A hundred railroad ties, my men ; 
 
 We'll throw them as we run. 
 
 " More steam, more oil, pile in the wood, 
 
 Brakes off, and let her go." 
 Two strong men hold the lever good ; 
 
 Two strong men fuel throw. 
 White are the hot flames roaring there, 
 
 And white the roaring steam, 
 And white the faces of the men 
 
 That hear the " Yonah " scream. 
 
 On, on, and on ; the people stare, 
 
 As past the towns they fly ; 
 A lightning's flash is on Adair, 
 
 A storm is in the sky. 
 " Now, let her run for all she's worth 
 
 Before our fuel's wet ; 
 There is no longer time to halt, 
 
 Nor any wood to get." 
 
THE MABCR TO THE SEA. 97 
 
 The engine rocks to left and right, 
 
 The tender springs in air ; 
 By heaven ! it was a stirring sight, 
 
 To see them flying there ! 
 The hundred ties they quickly fling 
 
 Along the railroad track ; 
 But ties, nor logs, nor anything 
 
 Can keep the " Yonah " back. 
 
 She, too, bounds roaring up and down ; 
 
 At railroad ties they scoff, 
 And fast as Andrews flings them down, 
 
 So fast they fling them off. 
 Nearer and nearer still they come, 
 
 Their musket's crash is red ; 
 " Pour on the oil, and give her room," 
 
 Was all that Andrews said. 
 
 " Pour on the oil and burn the car, 
 
 Perhaps as we pass through, 
 Its flames may catch yon bridge's bar 
 
 And burn the bridges too." 
 Lord, Lord ! it was a sight to see, 
 
 As any sight of war, 
 The storm, now raging fearfully, 
 
 The burning, flying car, 
 
98 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 The flaming at the engine's wheels, 
 
 The red-hot musket's flash, 
 The " Yonah " flying on their heels, 
 
 The mighty thunder's crash. 
 Lord, help them ! Look, the wheels stop still 
 
 Upon the slippery track ; 
 Too steep the grade of yonder hill, 
 
 The engine will go back ! 
 
 A scream, a shout, a mighty yell ! 
 
 The " Yonah's " within hail. 
 " Too late, ye rebels, with your curse, 
 
 Our engine takes the rail." 
 And faster, louder than before, 
 
 Down the steep grade she runs ; 
 They hear the " Yonah's " angry roar, 
 
 The crashing of her guns. 
 
 Oh ! for one little hour of time, 
 
 Some moments of delay, 
 So near is glory unto crime, 
 
 Failure to victory ! 
 In their brave hands a nation's hope 
 
 Hangs trembling in the scale — 
 Lord ! but five minutes on yon slope 
 
 And they were out of hail ! 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 99 
 
 But who can fight with storm and fate ? 
 
 The engine has stopped still ; 
 The " Yonah," past the Summit gate, 
 
 Is roaring down the hill ! 
 " Quick, spring, my men, to yonder wood ! *' 
 
 It is the leader's cry, 
 And right and left by copse and flood 
 
 The twenty soldiers fly. 
 
 What steam and storm could never do 
 
 Is done with horse and hound, 
 And here and there by swamp and slough, 
 
 The little band is found. 
 God help them now, an angrier foe 
 
 Was never theirs to meet, 
 The prison gate, the dungeon low, 
 
 The scaffold in the street ! 
 
 By Chattanooga's hill-girt town, 
 
 Within a shady glen, 
 The wild-flowers and the lilacs crown 
 
 The graves of Andrews' men. 
 Earth holds their earth ; their honored names 
 
 To children shall go down 
 So long as heroes' names have worth, 
 
 Or brave deeds have renown.* 
 
 * Note 9. 
 
100 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CVII. 
 
 THE story closed, and for a little spell 
 They who had listened spoke not 
 any word, 
 Nor thought if any other there might 
 tell 
 A tale so sad as this one they had heard. 
 But soon they talked of other things till 
 
 dawn 
 Put out the stars, and brought the morn- 
 ing on. 
 
 CVIII. 
 
 A few recalled the weariness of war, 
 And longed for homes that they might 
 never see; 
 Little to them was shoulder-strap or star, 
 Their trusted guns their only blazonry. 
 What theirs to hope ? A grave in some 
 
 lone spot, 
 Their valorous deeds, their very names, 
 forgot. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 101 
 
 CIX. 
 
 Nor was that march one long great holi- 
 day, 
 With naught to do but tramp along and 
 sing, 
 
 New sights to cheer them on their 
 wondrous way, 
 And blazing camp-fires, endless frolicking; 
 
 Full many a night on cold and sodden 
 ground 
 
 Their only rest, their only sleep, they 
 found. 
 
 ex. 
 
 Glad if some tree its kindly branches 
 
 lent, 
 Some fallen trunk kept off a little rain, 
 Till the cold storm, its blast and fury 
 
 spent, 
 Died with the night, and morning dawned 
 
 again. 
 When round new fires the veterans 
 
 essayed 
 Their garb to dry, their cups of coffee 
 
 made. 
 
102 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CXI. 
 
 And some recalled how, when the roads 
 
 were worst, 
 And trains mired down, deep in the mud 
 
 and sand, 
 When teams gave out, and drivers howled 
 
 and curst, 
 The soldiers pulled the wagons out by 
 
 hand ; 
 How days they tramped through muddy 
 
 fields to free 
 The roads for trains and the artillery. 
 
 cxn. 
 
 How false alarms had led them many a 
 mile; 
 The ignis fatuus that was never found ; 
 The scanty food, the tireless camp the 
 while, 
 The dang'rous foe that still was lurking 
 round — 
 Of such their speech ; of such it still had 
 
 been, 
 Had not one said, "Let us have tales 
 again." 
 # # # * # 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 103 
 
 WAR VIOLETS. 
 
 TWO days and nights the battle swept 
 Through all the forest round ; 
 Two days and nights the wounded slept 
 Upon the sodden ground. 
 
 Then came the roll-call ; every name 
 
 Accounted for but one. 
 Some dead upon the field of fame ; 
 
 Some wounded ; missing, none. 
 
 " Yes, Barton Jones," the sergeant cried. 
 
 The youngest lad was he ; 
 He rode close to the Captain's side 
 
 In that brave company. 
 
 " Has no one seen him ? Men, go out 
 
 And search among the dead. 
 Look in yon wild woods all about 
 
 Where last the foemen fled." 
 
104 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 They found him in the shady glen, 
 Hemmed in by many a tree, 
 
 Among the bodies of dead men 
 That kept him company. 
 
 Wounded, alone, in pain he'd crept 
 The shady glen around, 
 
 To pick the violets that slept 
 Tn the sweet-scented ground. 
 
 Kindly they bore him to the rear, 
 The violets on his breast ; 
 
 And no strong man but shed a tear 
 When he was put to rest. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 105 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 TOUCHED by the words, no comrade 
 round that fire 
 But saw in thought some far-off village 
 green, 
 A mother weeping, and a gray-haired 
 sire, 
 A youthful soldier parting from the scene ; 
 A sister, smiling 'twixt the tears that 
 
 flow ; 
 A sweetheart proud to see her lover go. 
 
 cxiv. 
 
 And farther still than village green or 
 
 street, 
 They see a glen where bluest violets lie, 
 And that fair youth, like to the flowers 
 
 so sweet, 
 Trampled and torn with death's artillery. 
 Ah ! North or South, bitter for you the 
 
 day 
 When your dear hearts among the violets 
 
 lay! 
 
106 THE MARCH TO TEE SEA. 
 
 cxv. 
 
 Again the soldier told a tale of one, 
 He, too, a boy, on Chattanooga's field, 
 Who, when the roar of the great fight 
 was done, 
 Lay on the grass that his life-blood had 
 sealed ; 
 Dying, he thought of his heart's pain no 
 
 more, 
 But that dear flag that he to triumph 
 bore. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 107 
 
 ALMOST UP.* 
 
 TWAS Chattanooga's battlefield ; 
 The night was filled with stars ; 
 Two strong men bore a soldier back ; 
 He wore a sergeant's bars. 
 
 A color-sergeant of the line, 
 On the high ridge he fell, 
 
 Where the old colonel gave the sign 
 To charge them with a yell. 
 
 None braver climbed the battle hill 
 Or stormed the dangerous pass, 
 
 Than he, now lying pale and still, 
 Upon the blood-stained grass. 
 
 Beneath the torchlight's flick' ring glare, 
 Under the starlight dim, 
 
 The busy surgeons labored there 
 Until they came to him. 
 
 * Note 10. 
 
108 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 " Where are you wounded, sergeant?" 
 said 
 The kind-faced surgeon. "Where? 
 
 Eight at the top, sir" said the lad ; 
 " The bullet struck me there." 
 
 " Ah ! boy, I know. But where f I 
 mean," 
 Again, in kind surprise. 
 
 " Just as I said, sir, at the top ; " 
 Steady his deep-blue eyes. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I see ! " The surgeon tore 
 The sleeve from off his arm — 
 
 A bleeding gash. " Yes, doctor — there 
 Is what did all the harm. 
 
 " I was 'most up — right at the top, 
 When the ball struck me here — 
 
 Yes, almost up." Out in the woods 
 He heard his comrades cheer. 
 
 And faint he heard the pearly gates 
 Swing outward on the air, 
 
 And still he whispered, " Almost up — 
 The flag was almost there." 
 
PONCE. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 109 
 
 PONCE DE LEON. 
 
 THROUGH the woods and the smoke 
 intense, 
 Charged the lines of the regiment, 
 Over the field and the low stone fence ; 
 And the old dog went where the Captain 
 went. 
 Once we halted. Lord ! how hot ! 
 Grape and canister filled the air ; 
 The Captain fell, and I saw the spot, 
 
 And we all went back ; but the dog stayed 
 there. 
 
 Through the fight of the afternoon, 
 
 Kept he watch by his master dead, 
 Through the fight till the sun went down, 
 And the new moon rose on the field in- 
 stead. 
 " Sound a truce," said the General ; then, 
 " Gather our wounded from off the 
 plain." 
 
110 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 With biers and spades went the burying 
 men 
 Out in the moonlight amongst the slain, 
 
 Till they came to one with a Captain's bars. 
 
 Far at the front, by the fence, he died ; 
 And they saw by the light of the moon and 
 stars, 
 
 The old dog dead by the Captain's side. 
 In the field, in the starlight there, 
 
 Under the flag they had died to save, 
 Under the moonlight, fresh and fair, 
 
 They buried them both in a soldier's 
 grave. 
 
 Softly and gently, within the ground ; 
 
 War's fierce terror has still amends. 
 Some words they wrote by the little mound : 
 
 " Sacred, forever, to two good friends." 
 Ponce de Leon, the St. Bernard, 
 
 True in life, and in death more true, 
 In the time of the great reward, 
 
 He will stand at the right hand, too. 
 
THE MABCH TO THE SEA. Ill 
 
 CXVI. 
 
 OTILL marched the soldiers, journeying 
 on and on ; 
 A bold, brave foe hung round them left and 
 right ; 
 The little towns, with half their people 
 gone, 
 Looked in amazement at the wondrous sight ; 
 Some saw with scorn, a few with secret 
 
 tears, 
 The stars and stripes they had not seen 
 for years. 
 
 cxvu. 
 
 For years that flag had been a hidden 
 
 thing ; 
 
 Men had not dared unfurl that banner there ; 
 
 No little children now were taught to sing 
 
 " God bless our land ! " The loyal, in despair, 
 
 Whispered their griefs ; no soul aloud 
 
 dare pray 
 For his own country in that awful day. 
 
112 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CXVIII. 
 
 And now they see this mighty army come, 
 Like some vast cloud, with vengeance in its 
 train ; 
 With woful faces, trembling lips and 
 dumb, 
 Once more they hear the loyal bugle's strain ; 
 For one short day, above the village gate, 
 Waves the old flag they have been taught 
 to hate. 
 
 cxix. 
 
 Waves the old flag — and then the bitter 
 end : 
 The torch, the flame ; their homes, before 
 the night, 
 With the soft winds their ashes quickly 
 blend ; 
 War's whirlwind stoops to tear them in its 
 flight. 
 And morning comes to see a naked land, 
 And trampled fields, where smoking ruins 
 stand. * 
 
 * Note 11, 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 113 
 
 cxx. 
 
 Maddened to rage the Kebel horsemen fly 
 And fling themselves upon their foemen 
 there ; 
 Useless, they only find a place to die ; 
 Their own brown fields become their 
 sepulchre. 
 For them no household fires again may 
 
 burn, 
 No village bells ring out their glad return. 
 
 cxxi. 
 
 In some lone swamp, or by some roadside 
 drear, 
 In years to come some epitaph will tell 
 
 How, " In this mound alone is sleeping here 
 A soldier boy they buried where he fell." 
 Enough the words, whichever side he stood : 
 " He thought it right, — lies here, and God 
 is good." 
 
 CXXII. 
 
 Oft, too, by night the columns hurried on, 
 Hearing dull cannon on some far-off flank, 
 
114 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 And though their feet had journeyed 
 
 since the dawn, 
 And here and there one at the roadside sank, 
 Still on they marched, till some dark 
 
 river's breast, 
 Its bridges burned, gave them a moment's 
 
 rest. 
 
 CXXIII. 
 
 Then came a scene, most weird and won- 
 drous grand : 
 A thousand torches in the forest stood ; 
 
 A thousand men with axe or saw in hand 
 Hew down the trees, and bridge the rolling 
 flood ; 
 And planks and ropes from the high banks 
 
 are strung, 
 And light pontoons across the water flung. 
 
 CXXIV. 
 
 Throughout the darkness flares the pine- 
 knot's light, 
 And shadowy forms are hurrying to and fro, 
 
 The dark stream gurgles off into the night, 
 The bonfires glimmer on the sands below ; 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 115 
 
 Gigantic seem the horsemen as they ride 
 Out of the woods, down to the river side. 
 
 cxxv. 
 
 The bridge is finished, forward moves the 
 line, 
 With steady step to the low-beating drum, 
 
 With glare and smoke from out the dark- 
 ling pine, 
 'Neath flick'ring lights the silent columns 
 come. 
 
 The stream is crossed, the dying torches 
 fall 
 
 On the wet sand, and darkness covers all. 
 
 cxxvi. 
 
 Sometimes again the march was lightly 
 
 done; 
 
 Steady the tramp, commencing with the morn, 
 
 E'er yet the light of the fair rising sun 
 
 Tinged half in gold the dry leaves of the 
 
 corn. 
 
 Then noontide saw them by some shaded 
 
 stream, 
 In bivouac resting, and their fires agleam. 
 
116 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CXXVII. 
 
 On grassy knolls some sleep the long 
 hours through ; 
 With dice and cards some chase the time 
 away, 
 Or fighting cocks, or football ; not a few 
 In dance, or tale, or music find their play; 
 For long as war is of the world a part, 
 So long will music move the soldier's 
 heart. 
 
 cxxvni. 
 
 Their muskets stacked in long, clear rows 
 
 of steel, 
 The sun's slant rays on polished bayonets 
 
 shine ; 
 One bugle call or one loud cannon peal, 
 And every soldier had been up in line. 
 The drum's long roll, one cry, " Fall in ! " 
 
 and then 
 That darkling wood had turned to armed 
 
 men. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 117 
 
 CXXIX. 
 
 Quick fly the hours ; the sunset crimsons 
 
 by; 
 Night comes, the woods with camp-fires are 
 
 ablaze, 
 In smoke the glimmering branches sway 
 
 on high, 
 Illumed yet ghostly in the bivouac's rays. 
 The tattoo sounds, the guards their vigils 
 
 keep ; 
 " Tattoo," "Lights out," and all the 
 
 soldiers sleep. 
 
 cxxx. 
 
 The soldiers sleep ; and yet, perchance, 
 
 ere morn, 
 Some fierce surprise falls on th' unconscious 
 
 men ; 
 Some cannon's boom on the night air is 
 
 borne, 
 Or flashing rifles rattle in the glen ; 
 
 Then beat the drums, and all the camp's 
 
 a-din, 
 The bugles sound, the sergeants cry, 
 
 " Fall in ! " 
 
 ^> 3*P T? 3rP ^P 
 
118 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 KILPATRICK'S CAVALRY CHARGE. 
 
 QUIET that night in our camp we lay, 
 The pine trees softly above us stirred ; 
 The brook sang low on its winding way ; 
 Only these were the sounds we heard. 
 
 Suddenly, and there came a flash, 
 Blazing red in the wooded glen ; 
 
 And that quick moment a cannon's crash, 
 Into the midnight among our men. 
 
 Little we needed the bugle's blare, 
 Little the noise of the scaring drum, 
 
 For quick in line we were standing there, 
 Waiting the foe if he dare to come. 
 
 Long we stood in the forest gloom, 
 
 Silence only along the line, 
 Save when a foeman's gun would boom 
 
 And tear the limbs from a trembling 
 pine. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 119 
 
 Fair was the dawn when at last it came, 
 Glowing and red o'er the field it lay ; 
 
 And beyond the wood, by its tinted flame, 
 We saw a line of the men in gray. 
 
 How they looked when we saw them there, 
 Loading their guns for our men in blue ! 
 
 And they burst their shells on the Sabbath 
 air; 
 Over our heads in the woods they flew. 
 
 Over our heads, and we laughed at first, 
 Till their lines broke out in a spluttering 
 flash, 
 And a hurry of musketry from them burst, 
 And we thought no more of the cannon's 
 crash. 
 
 " Cavalry, mount," came the clear command, 
 As down before us Kilpatrick rode ; 
 
 His saber glistened in his right hand, 
 Over his shoulders his fair hair flowed. 
 
 "We will drive them out of that field and lane. 
 
 Steady ! " he said, to the waiting line ; 
 And he looked straight into our eyes again, 
 
 As we waited only to see his sign. 
 
120 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Oh ! the dawn, it was fair to see ; 
 
 Rosy and fresh on the fields it fell ; 
 And clear, that moment, as clear could be — 
 
 Oh ! we heard the voice of Kilpatrick 
 well! 
 
 " Front rank, sabers, and pistols, rear : 
 Forward, gallop, and charge ! " he cried. 
 
 Over the ditch and the fences near, 
 
 Straight at the guns of the foes we ride. 
 
 Down the hill and across the brook, 
 
 Up the slope like a hurricane ; 
 The very ground with our squadrons shook, 
 
 And charging troopers fell thick as rain. 
 
 Over the fence and the barricades, 
 
 Dashing, cheering, we cut our way, 
 And we hear the thud of our slashing 
 blades, 
 On the stubborn heads of the men in 
 gray. 
 
 Smite and pound on the rebel head, 
 Strike and thrust at the blue dragoon, 
 
 Till the desperate gunners all are dead — 
 They are lying still as a day in June. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 121 
 
 " Now, right about ! " for the day is ours ; 
 
 Back to the woods, for the lane is won ; 
 But oh ! the grass and the withered flowers 
 
 Are red with blood when the charge is 
 done ! 
 
 Once again in the line we stand, 
 
 And down before us Kilpatrick rides ; 
 
 His saber glistens in his right hand, 
 
 And his face glows fair like a new-made 
 bride's. 
 
 Cheer after cheer as he rides along ! 
 
 But the soldiers lying dead 
 Will never know of the cheers and song, 
 
 Or the words Kilpatrick said.* 
 
 * Note 12. 
 
122 THE MABCH TO TEE SEA. 
 
 CXXXI. 
 
 AND now it seemed as if they could go 
 on 
 
 Forever marching in this wondrous way ; 
 The morning's foe at evening would be 
 gone; 
 Nothing there was that could that army stay. 
 With lightsome step they marched, and 
 
 cheered and sang ; 
 The hills re-echoed, and the forests rang. 
 
 cxxxn. 
 
 And all were happy, for right well they 
 knew, 
 That march once done, — the South cut clean 
 in twain, — 
 Sweet peace would come, the war would 
 then be through, 
 And they would see their far-off homes 
 again. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 123 
 
 And so with hopes like happy children 
 
 they 
 Marched laughing on, and war was almost 
 
 play. 
 
 CXXXIII. 
 
 Till on a day they fell upon a land, 
 Low, flat, and sterile ; void of everything 
 For man or beast. The cold unpitying 
 sand 
 To their tired ankles went; nor budding 
 spring 
 Nor summer made that region wholly fair, 
 Nor pierced the sun the dull, dark forests 
 there. 
 
 cxxxiv. 
 
 Now more the foe pressed hard at every 
 stream, 
 Held every bridge, in every swamp lay hid ; 
 In the swamp's twilight and its murky 
 gleam, 
 No soul could see of anything they did, 
 Nor hear alarm, till, suddenly, a flash, 
 A cry of pain, and a fierce musket's crash. 
 
124 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 cxxxv. 
 
 Hungry and tired, they who had hoped 
 before, 
 Now feared a little what might happen yet ; 
 
 For little now the wagons had in store, 
 In these last days that seemed so desperate. 
 And all men knew that hurrying armies 
 
 could 
 Still cut them off in some great swamp or 
 wood. 
 
 cxxxvi. 
 
 But on a day, while tired and sore they 
 
 went, 
 Across some hills wherefrom the view was 
 
 free, 
 A sudden shouting down the lines was 
 
 sent ; 
 They looked and cried, " It is the sea ! the 
 
 sea ! " 
 And all at once a thousand cheers were 
 
 heard, 
 And all the army shout the glorious 
 
 word. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 125 
 
 CXXXVII. 
 
 Not since that day when the great 
 Genoese 
 Placed his proud feet upon a new-found 
 world, 
 Had such glad shouts gone up to heaven 
 as these, 
 When to the breeze the old flag was un- 
 furled, 
 And all the army in one mighty song 
 Passed the glad news, "It is the sea" 
 along. 
 
 cxxxvin. 
 
 Bronzed soldiers stood and shook each 
 other's hands ; 
 Some wept for joy, as for a brother found ; 
 
 And down the slopes, and from the far- 
 off sands, 
 They thought they heard already the glad 
 sound 
 
 Of the old ocean welcoming them on 
 
 To that great goal they had so fairly 
 won. 
 
126 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CXXXIX. 
 
 High waved the flags, and every bugle 
 
 played ; 
 And silver bands whose notes had not been 
 
 heard 
 For days, in the dull forests where we'd 
 
 strayed, 
 Where joyous songs our hearts had never 
 
 stirred, 
 Poured forth their notes ; yet little heeded 
 
 we, 
 Our souls too busy with that glistening 
 
 sea. 
 
 CXL. 
 
 Now all at once things sad turned into 
 
 The very swamps seemed changed to fairy 
 green, 
 No longer dull the fields about us lay, 
 Turned to enchantment the inglorious scene ; 
 Forgot the weariness, the toil, the pain ; 
 Forgot were e'en our hapless buried 
 slain. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 127 
 
 CXLI. 
 
 To see this ocean ! that was joy supreme ; 
 Not in our lives had ever we before 
 
 Seen such a sight ; and like some fairest 
 dream 
 Sped the quick moments, for that shining 
 shore 
 To our glad hearts, and to our wondering 
 
 eyes, 
 Gleamed like the storied gates of Paradise. 
 
 CXLII. 
 
 Some swore they tasted sea-salt in the air, 
 Some strained their eyes at little specks far 
 
 off, 
 And called them ships, and looked for 
 
 sailors there ; 
 And some saw fleets in the deep ocean 
 
 trough, 
 Laden with bread and all good cheer that 
 
 we 
 Could crave, who brought such glorious 
 
 victory. 
 
128 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CXLIII. 
 
 At times we thought we heard the very 
 
 waves, 
 Though distant miles the white sea still from 
 
 us, 
 Or the low murmuring by the shore, 
 
 where laves 
 The water, restless as mankind ; and thus 
 Our hearts went faster than our feet, and 
 
 none 
 But said, " At last the weary war is 
 
 done ! " 
 
 CXLIV. 
 
 But lo! behold! just as the end was 
 near, 
 A cannon boomed across the army's way ; 
 
 And by the sea we plainly saw appear 
 A frowning fort, strong held by men in 
 
 And round about it palisades so high, 
 Who charged that fort might surely fear 
 to die. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 129 
 
 CXLV. 
 
 Black, belching guns frowned on its par- 
 apet ; 
 And though we wept to see the sweet sea's 
 face, 
 
 The longed-for goal was not accomplished 
 
 yet, 
 
 And that fair shore might be our burial 
 place. 
 
 Then, suddenly, our leader's form ap- 
 peared, 
 
 The proud flags waved, and all the army 
 cheered. 
 
 CXLVI. 
 
 Long looked he there out on the whiten- 
 ing sea, 
 Scanning in vain some little trace to find 
 
 Of friendly fleet, if any there might be, 
 Or signal flag, upon the evening wind. 
 But fleet, nor flag, nor ship was anywhere, 
 No sign to tell they knew that we were 
 there. 
 9 
 
130 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CXLVII. 
 
 That hour held fate, and well our leader 
 
 knew, 
 One short delay and all could still be 
 
 lost — 
 All that we hoped, and all we had come 
 
 through, 
 And his own fame, and all that marching 
 
 host. 
 Anxious he gazed into the speechless 
 
 space ; 
 And, breathless, looked we in our leader's 
 
 face. 
 
 CXLVIII. 
 
 " Men," then said he, " yon fort that's in 
 
 our course, 
 
 This very night must come into our hands." 
 
 Then cheered we all, and many clamored 
 
 hoarse, 
 
 To have that honor, in the woods and sands 
 
 To storm the fort, and ere the sun be 
 
 set 
 Wave the old flag above its parapet. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 131 
 
 CXLIV. 
 
 Then quiet marched five thousand veterans 
 The dark woods through, by dauntless Hazen 
 led — 
 
 Through half-cleared fields, by swamps 
 and boggy fens, — 
 While from the fort the shells shrieked over- 
 head; 
 
 Till all at once the bugles sounded clear, 
 
 " On to the works ! " We answered with 
 a cheer. 
 
 CL. 
 
 The dear flags waved, and all the lines 
 went on, 
 Toward belching guns, past those high pali- 
 sades, 
 
 In the dark smoke ; one moment they were 
 gone, 
 And then one cry, one mighty charge, they 
 made ; 
 
 Into the fort a thousand blue-coats 
 sprung ; 
 
 The stars and stripes above its walls are 
 flung ! * 
 
 * Note 13. 
 
132 THE MABCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CLI. 
 
 Bright shone the moon upon the fort that 
 night, 
 And bright it shone upon the glistening sea ; 
 
 And far below we saw by its pale light, 
 Our ships of war that lay there silently ; 
 
 And on the faces of our dead it shone — 
 
 Blue coat or gray, to them it was all one. 
 
 CLII. 
 
 And all that night beneath the Southern 
 moon, 
 With dead around us, all so patiently, 
 
 We sat and talked of that fierce battle 
 noon, 
 Until we saw the sun rise from the sea ; 
 And when it rose in all its glory, then 
 We sang the song of Sherman and his 
 men. 
 
THE MABCH TO THE SEA. 133 
 
 SONG OF SHERMAN'S MARCH TO 
 
 THE SEA. 
 
 OU R camp-fires shone bright on the 
 mountains, 
 That frowned on the river below, 
 While we stood by our guns in the morning 
 
 And eagerly watched for the foe, 
 When a rider came out from the darkness 
 
 That hung over mountain and tree, 
 And shouted, " Boys, up and be ready, 
 For Sherman will march to the sea." 
 
 Then cheer upon cheer for bold Sherman, 
 
 Went up from each valley and glen, 
 And the bugles re-echoed the music 
 
 That came from the lips of the men. 
 For we knew that the stars in our banner 
 
 More bright in their splendor would be, 
 And that blessings from Northland would 
 greet us 
 
 When Sherman marched down to the sea. 
 
184 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 Then forward, boys, forward to battle, 
 
 We marched on our wearisome way, 
 And we stormed the wild hills of Resaca ; 
 
 God bless those who fell on that day ! 
 Then Kenesaw, dark in its glory, 
 
 Frowned down on the flag of the free, 
 But the East and the West bore our stand- 
 ards, 
 
 And Sherman marched on to the sea. 
 
 Still onward we pressed, till our banners 
 
 Swept out from Atlanta's grim walls, 
 And the blood of the patriot dampened 
 
 The soil where the traitor flag falls ; 
 Yet we paused not to weep for the fallen, 
 
 Who slept by each river and tree ; 
 We twined them a wreath of the laurel 
 
 As Sherman marched down to the sea. 
 
 Oh ! proud was our army that morning, 
 That stood where the pine darkly towers, 
 
 When Sherman said, " Boys, you are weary ; 
 This day fair Savannah is ours ! " 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 135 
 
 Then sang we a song for our chieftain, 
 That echoed o'er river and lea, 
 
 And the stars in our banner shone brighter 
 When Sherman marched down to the sea.* 
 
 * Note 14. 
 
136 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CLIII. 
 
 IT was the end, and yet one march the 
 more ; 
 The Carolinas heard our columns' tread ; 
 Th' unhappy town that first began the 
 war 
 In ashes lay, with half its soldiers dead. 
 On land and sea the glorious tidings 
 
 swell, 
 And Sumter rose the day that Charleston 
 fell. 
 
 CLIV. 
 
 And proud Columbia, too, in ruins lay, 
 And shrieking shells passed through its halls 
 of state, 
 Then all bethought them of that other 
 day 
 When in these halls Secession sat elate. 
 Now, too, on far-off Appomattox field 
 Grant hurls the storm, and soon the foe- 
 men yield. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 137 
 
 CLV. 
 
 Then came that deed, ah ! wofullest of 
 all, 
 That dreadful deed, that treason's self o'er- 
 leapt ; 
 Black night of nights that saw great Lin- 
 coln fall, 
 The one great soul for whom the whole 
 world wept. 
 First, peace he saw, then laid his troubles 
 
 by, 
 
 Crowned by mankind with immortality. 
 
 CLVI. 
 
 It was the end ; in yonder Capital 
 The trumpets sounded for one last parade ; 
 Far in the South the veterans heard the 
 call ; 
 For one last tramp the army is arrayed. 
 Five hundred miles, the march is quickly 
 
 o'er, 
 Their white camps gleam by the Potomac's 
 shore. 
 
138 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CLVIL 
 
 And on a morn, a wondrous morn in 
 
 May 
 It was proclaimed that through the Avenue 
 The mighty host should take its glorious 
 
 way, 
 And all the land as one be there to view ; 
 Not in all time had such a sight, I 
 
 ween, 
 Of Freedom's hosts in the wide world been 
 
 seen. 
 
 CLVIII. 
 
 From many a field the veteran armies 
 
 came, 
 And East and West went glorious side by 
 
 side ; 
 Together felt the thrilling joys of fame, 
 The people's heroes and the nation's pride ; 
 Together now their long blue columns 
 
 wheel 
 Up the long street, one sea of sloping 
 
 steel. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 139 
 
 CLIX. 
 
 Two days they marched on that great 
 Avenue ; 
 Two days they cheered, that mighty multi- 
 tude, 
 
 And flowers and wreaths upon their heads 
 they threw ; 
 And all men called the land's defenders 
 good ; 
 
 And all gave thanks, now the great war 
 was done, 
 
 To see these men who had such victories 
 won. 
 
 CLX. 
 
 But most of all that moved beholders 
 then, 
 Were the freed bondsmen marching two by 
 two, 
 Not captive wives and chained and scowling 
 men, 
 Such as of old the Roman triumphs knew, 
 But men made free, their days of bondage 
 
 o'er, 
 And all rejoiced that slavery was no more. 
 
140 THE MABCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 CLXI. 
 
 And some shed tears, glad, joyous tears, 
 
 to know 
 What things unhoped had come about at 
 
 last; 
 He was raised high who yesterday was low ; 
 Round the poor slave the Nation's arm was 
 
 cast 
 Long years the land had passed beneath 
 
 the rod ; 
 Now through it all men saw the hand of 
 
 God. 
 
 CLXII. 
 
 And marching thus the glorious armies 
 
 went, 
 Never again to muster in review ; 
 
 Past the great leaders, past the President, 
 Swayed crests of steel upon great waves of 
 
 blue. 
 And Sherman ! Once his face his soldiers 
 
 saw, 
 And lingering looked, and gave one last 
 
 hurrah ! 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 141 
 
 CLXIII. 
 
 One last hurrah ! To him that parting 
 cheer 
 Was more than fame and glory ever were. 
 
 What if he wept ? It was a soldier's tear ; 
 They were his comrades who were marching 
 there. 
 
 Long, long he looked, moved with a mighty 
 spell, 
 
 Then, silent, waved a long, a last fare- 
 well. 
 
 CLXIV. 
 
 But in her shrines where glory loves to 
 keep 
 Record of souls she dedicates to fame, 
 There in her marble, pure, clean-cut, and 
 deep, 
 Behold ! men see the letters of his name ; 
 And underneath, in characters as free, 
 " To them who marched with Sherman 
 to the sea" 
 
142 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 ADIEU. 
 1. 
 
 IIS said that once in times of old 
 A wizard touched a land, 
 And turned its hillsides into gold, 
 To silver all its sand. 
 
 2. 
 
 A kindlier wizard cast a spell 
 
 Upon the South, and lo ! 
 Where once war's dreadful harvests fell 
 
 Now corn and cotton grow. 
 
 3. 
 
 Sweet meadows mark the shaded glen 
 That war with bullets sowed, 
 
 And roses line the lanes again 
 Where Sherman's troopers rode. 
 
THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 143 
 
 4. 
 
 In yonder wood, where once was heard 
 
 The cannon's deadly hail, 
 With softer notes the heart is stirred, 
 
 By some sweet nightingale. 
 
 War's wasted fields have grown to green, 
 The streams in Sherman's path 
 
 Turn busy wheels, no more the scene 
 Of battle's deadly wrath. 
 
 6. 
 
 And they whose swords were sharp to slay 3 
 
 Have felt war's anger cease, 
 And busy commerce leads the way 
 
 In paths of love and peace. 
 
 7. 
 
 What matters now if they were wrong ? 
 
 They were our kith and kin, 
 And they were brave, and tale and song 
 
 Shall tell what they have been. 
 
144 THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 
 
 8. 
 
 Once more in fair Atlanta town 
 The moonlight shines, as when 
 
 War's bugles sounded up and down ; 
 The sweet-briar climbs as then. 
 
 9. 
 
 And North or South, 'tis all the same, 
 
 By pine tree or by bay, 
 One starry banner guards the fame 
 
 Of blue coat and of gray. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note 1, p. 13. After the capture of Atlanta, General 
 Sherman ordered all the people to leave the town, and 
 for weeks the city was absolutely deserted and silent, 
 though the victorious army camped in the woods around 
 it for weeks. The Confederate army, on losing the 
 town, retired farther south. The unarmed people of 
 Atlanta found homes where best they could, in the 
 villages and on plantations. Many of them never saw 
 Atlanta again. 
 
 Note 2, p. 27. The March to the Sea commenced at 
 four o'clock in the morning of November 15, 1864. Sher- 
 man had sixty-two thousand, two hundred, and four 
 men and sixty-five cannon. It was three hundred miles 
 to Savannah. The army marched in two great wings, 
 Howard leading the right, Slocum the left. The army 
 corps were commanded by Generals Blair, Davis, 
 Williams, and Osterhaus. The twelve divisions were 
 led by Corse, Geary, Force, Ward, Mower, Morgan, 
 Woods, Hazen, Smith, Leggett, Baird, and Carlin. All 
 were veteran generals, and the soldiers were hardened 
 by many battles. There were five thousand cavalry 
 under General Kilpatrick. 
 
 The campaign commenced, in fact, not at Atlanta, 
 but away back at Chattanooga, and the hundred days' 
 battles on the way to Atlanta had been the first act of 
 the great drama. It was the romantic campaign of the 
 war. Many in the North supposed Sherman's army to 
 be lost. It had, in fact, wholly disappeared from all 
 knowledge of the government at Washington. It had 
 entered the unknown interior of Georgia, with its woods 
 io 145 
 
146 NOTES. 
 
 and swamps, and all communication with it was cut off. 
 That was the romance of it all. In front of Sherman 
 were the Georgia militia and General Wheeler's cavalry, 
 also a few eastern troops ; while the forts of Savannah, 
 which would have to be captured, were held by strong 
 forces of veterans under General Hardee. Lee was also 
 likely at any moment to send some of his army from 
 Eichmond to confront Sherman. Jefferson Davis in a 
 public speech proclaimed that Sherman's army was now 
 about to be destroyed. Many believed it, North and 
 South. 
 
 Note 3, p. 34. The " Foragers" were a great band of 
 mounted men, one-twentieth of the army, whose duty 
 it was to scour the enemy's country and bring captured 
 corn, meat, cattle, horses, etc., etc., into the camp. 
 They pressed the planters' negroes, carriages, mules, 
 cattle, and wagons into use, loading them all down with 
 supplies. It was no unusual sight to see fine carriages 
 laden with sweet-potatoes, and the forager driver rigged 
 out in the cylinder hat and swallow-tail coat of some 
 fleeing planter. 
 
 They were a brave and unique body of soldiers. They 
 often served in the place of cavalry, and guarded the 
 flanks of the army. They were terribly feared by the 
 enemy and were often mistreated when captured. At 
 one point on the march, eighteen of them were shot 
 after surrendering, and their bodies were piled up at the 
 roadside, labelled, " Death to Foragers." General Sher- 
 man ordered Kilpatrick to shoot eighteen prisoners in 
 retaliation for this murder. 
 
 See Sherman's " Memoir." 
 
 Note 4, p. 38. There were twenty-five miles of wagon 
 trains with the army. These, with the artillery, usually 
 occupied the roads ; the troops marched at each side, or 
 through the fields. 
 
NOTES. 147 
 
 Note 5, p. 42. When Sherman was about ready to 
 start seawards from Altanta, Hood, commanding the 
 rebel army at his front, passed around his right flank 
 and started on a grand raid to the North. He met his 
 Waterloo at the hands of Thomas in Nashville. His 
 army was destroyed. Sherman had followed him a 
 hundred miles, but suddenly turned about and started 
 for the ocean. It was in this raid of Hood's that several 
 thousand of his army attacked the little post at Alla- 
 toona. Sherman sent his famous message to " Hold on " 
 from the heights of the Kenesaw Mountain, over the 
 heads of the rebel army. Corse did hold on till almost 
 all his men had been killed or wounded and the foe was 
 in retreat. 
 
 Note 6, p. 62. The most striking feature of the whole 
 march was the tens of thousands of poor slaves deserting 
 the plantations and striking for liberty. Their songs of 
 joy, their pathetic behavior, made a lasting impression 
 on every beholder. Here was a whole race of human 
 beings suddenly let out of bondage. Not since the return 
 of the Children of Israel had the world seen such a sight. 
 It was a milestone in the history of all time. 
 
 Note 7, p. 70. For an account of this awful incident 
 see the ' ' History of the March to the Sea," by Major 
 General J. D. Cox, p. 38 (Scribner's Sons). He tells how 
 the bridge was ordered destroyed by a certain corps 
 commander, and how like a stampeded drove of cattle 
 the poor slaves rushed into the river and were drowned. 
 
 Note 8, p. 74. Incidents like this occurred near At- 
 lanta, and more than once. In fact, nearly the whole of 
 Sherman's army promptly re-enlisted on the field. 
 
 Note 9, p. 99. This scene took place as described. Its 
 heroes suffered horrible fates. Some were stripped and 
 whipped nearly to death. All were chained for months 
 
148 NOTES. 
 
 in filthy dungeons, and numbers were put to death on 
 the scaffold. All, except one, now lie buried together in 
 the National Cemetery at Chattanooga. The Fuller re- 
 ferred to in the poem was the engineer of the stolen 
 engine. One member, at least, of the Andrews party 
 escaped and, later, joined Sherman's army on the march 
 to the sea, and, as related in stanza 106, is supposed to 
 tell the tale of the wonderful raid. 
 
 The writer, after his own capture, met one of the 
 Andrews men in a Southern prison, with a cannon-ball 
 chained to his leg. 
 
 The Andrews raid was pronounced by Southerners the 
 "most daring deed of any war." " Had it succeeded," 
 said the Southern press, "Beauregard's army would 
 have been lost." 
 
 Note 10. p. 107. This incident was witnessed by General 
 Howard. The boy, in his zeal to do his duty and carry 
 his flag to the very top, thought nothing of his wound 
 except as it stopped him short of the mountain crest 
 they were charging. It may be mentioned that all in- 
 cidents narrated in the story are absolute facts gathered 
 from participants in the march. 
 
 Note 11, p. 112. The town of Louisville, in the route 
 of the march, was completely burned up while the troops 
 were in it, on November 28, 1864. Its citizens had been 
 burning bridges, and the soldiers retaliated, but not by 
 order. 
 
 Note 12, p. 121. There were few real battles on the 
 march, but constant skirmishing and attempts at sur- 
 prise. The first battle was fought at Duncan's farm, 
 near Macon ; the second was Kilpatrick's brave cavalry 
 fight at Briar Creek, by Waynesborough ; the third was 
 in the approaches to Savannah, where the road beds had 
 been filled with torpedoes ; and the last fight was the 
 storming of Fort McAllister by the sea. 
 
NOTES, 149 
 
 Note 13, p. 131. The fort thus stormed by Hazen's 
 men was McAllister. It was strongly built and had 
 abatis, ditch, and palisades. The storming took just 
 fifteen minutes. It was sad to see one hundred and 
 twenty-four brave men slain who had made the great 
 march, and who, now in sight of the sea, almost heard 
 the plaudits of the North. The dead of both armies lay 
 there in the moonlight till morning. Sherman himself 
 entered the fort late in the evening, and says in his 
 " Memoirs " : "Inside the fort lay the dead as they had 
 fallen, and they could hardly be distinguished from their 
 living comrades sleeping soundly side by side in the pale 
 moonlight." 
 
 These were the last who died on the March to the Sea. 
 
 Note 14, p. 135. This song was sung by thousands of 
 Sherman's soldiers after the completion of the march, 
 and it had the honor of giving its name to the campaign 
 it celebrates. Its author, the present writer, had been 
 one of Sherman's army, and was captured at the battle 
 of Chattanooga. While a prisoner in the South he 
 escaped from the Macon stockade, disguised himself in 
 a Confederate uniform, went to the Southern army, and 
 witnessed some of the fierce fighting about Atlanta, re- 
 ferred to in the poem. He was discovered and sent back 
 to prison at Columbia, S. C, where he wrote the song. 
 He soon escaped again, rejoined Sherman's army, and 
 for a time served on General Sherman's staff. At Cape 
 Fear river he was sent North with dispatches to Grant 
 and President Lincoln, bringing the first news the North 
 had of Sherman's successes in the Carolinas. The author 
 reproduces this song of his here because it has an inter- 
 est as being one of the songs of Sherman's soldiers, and 
 one familiar to the country in general in the years fol- 
 lowing the war. 
 
From the press of the Arena Publishing Company. 
 
 jRctton : Social, Economic an6 Beformatiue. 
 
 Byron 
 A. Brooks 
 
 The 
 New Utopia 
 
 Hamlin 
 Garland 
 
 A powerfully 
 Dramatic Novel, 
 dealing with the 
 Struggles of the 
 Poor in City and 
 Country 
 
 Price, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 EARTH REVISITED. 
 
 A story for earnest men and women of the new time. 
 Mr. Flower, in " Civilization's Inferno," portrays some 
 hideous phases of modern civilization. Mr. Brooks, in 
 " Earth Revisited," pictures our earth blossoming in 
 peace, joy and happiness, under cooperation. This story, 
 which is charming as a pure, clean love story, is made the 
 vehicle for shadowing forth an ideal civilization through 
 the working of the law of all for all. Few social studies 
 are so helpful in psychical suggestions as " Earth Revis- 
 ited," and probably this work more than any other Uto- 
 pian romance sustains the interest of the reader from first 
 to last. 
 
 Price, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 JASON EDWARDS. 
 
 This work is one of the most powerful portrayals of the 
 struggles of the mechanic in the city and the farmer in the 
 West ever published. It is highly dramatic while per- 
 fectly realistic, and though it ends in a burst of sunshine, 
 its noble lessons will linger in the heart. 
 
 Hamlin Garland's splendid qualities — his sympathy with 
 humanity, his perception of the subtlest meaning of nature, his 
 power to bring his people before you as if you had grown up 
 in their dooryards — these are his own. 
 
 Mary E. Wilkins has given us the pathos of humblest New 
 England; Charles Egbert Craddock has made known to us the 
 secrets of the Tennessee Mountains; Rudyard Kipling has 
 1 carried us to India; and now, at last, here is the story-teller of 
 farm life in those Western prairies among which Hamlin Gar- 
 land grew up, to which he goes back, now and again, with the 
 child's heart, the man's insight. — Louise Chandler Moulton, in 
 Bost n Herald. 
 
 For sale by all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by 
 
 Arena Publishing Co., Boston, Mass 
 
From the press of the Arena Publishing Co7npany. 
 
 Iujo Dramas for the Library Corner, 
 
 Walter 
 Warren 
 
 Price, cloth, $1.25. 
 COLUMBUS THE DISCOVERER. A Drama. 
 
 Printed on beautiful paper, wide margins, and richly 
 bound. 
 
 Walter Warren has struck boldly into the most am- 
 bitious field of poetical literature, and he has produced 
 three dramas which will obtain a wide reading among 
 people who read and study the best in contemporary 
 literature. 
 
 The story of Columbus has been the subject of many a novel 
 during the past two or three years, and now it is brought again 
 before the public in the form of a spirited drama in five acts. 
 Mr. Walter Warren makes a psychologic rather than historic — 
 though not unhistoric — study of the character of Columbus, as 
 manifested and developed in connection with his experiences 
 before, during and after his discovery of America. In drama- 
 tizing the story in this fashion, one gains a better insight into 
 the personality of Columbus than is possible from the merely 
 abstract narratives. Its many parts are practically arranged for 
 amateur theatricals. — The Boston Herald. 
 
 THE AZTECS. 
 
 Price, cloth, $1.25. 
 
 Printed uniform with " Columbus the Discoverer," and 
 richly bound. A fine library volume. 
 
 Mr. Walter Warren is a man evidently warm in sympathy for 
 his kind. His play is gorgeous with the local color of Mexico 
 in the fifteenth century, and replete with fine thoughts, which, 
 however, he acknowledges might not have come to Aztecs, 
 although again, he alleges they might. Its plot is a. noble con- 
 ception. — The Commonwealth, Boston. 
 
 This is a drama dating back in history to the fifteenth century, 
 when the Aztecs in Mexico began to reach out and overrun the 
 land and introduce the peculiar religion of the time. The lead- 
 ing characters are Monaska, a young Mexican of noble blood; 
 Kootha, a crippled Teztucan; Haijo, the chief priest; Wapella, 
 a Teztucan warrior; Waloon, a Teztucan maiden of rank; with 
 other maidens, "Virgins of the sun." These maidens of the 
 sun were virgins taken from their homes, educated in convents, 
 and intended for the king's palaces and seraglios. The design 
 of the drama is to introduce the character of the peculiar religion 
 of this ancient race and the manners and customs of daily life. 
 . . . There are gleams of large intelligence and civilization 
 among the ancient Aztecs, and the reader will be interested in 
 the story. — Chicago Inter-Ocean, Aug. 18, 1894. 
 
 For sale by all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by 
 
 Arena Publishing Co.* Boston. Afas£. 
 
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