Hail them as comrades tried;
Fight with them side by side;

Never, in field or tent,

Scorn the black regiment!

George Henry Boker [1823-1890]

THE HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG

[JULY 3, 1863]

A CLOUD possessed the hollow field,
The gathering battle's smoky shield:

Athwart the gloom the lightning flashed,

And through the cloud some horsemen dashed, And from the heights the thunder pealed.

Then, at the brief command of Lee,
Moved out that matchless infantry,
With Pickett leading grandly down,
To rush against the roaring crown
Of those dread heights of destiny.

Far heard above the angry guns,

A cry across the tumult runs:

The voice that rang through Shiloh's woods,

And Chickamauga's solitudes:

The fierce South cheering on her sons!

Ah, how the withering tempest blew
Against the front of Pettigrew!

A Khamsin wind that scorched and singed,
Like that infernal flame that fringed

The British squares at Waterloo!

A thousand fall where Kemper led;
A thousand died where Garnett bled;

In blinding flame and strangling smoke,
The remnant through the batteries broke,
And crossed the works with Armistead.

"Once more in Glory's van with me!" Virginia cried to Tennessee:

"We two together, come what may,

Shall stand upon those works to-day!" The reddest day in history.

Brave Tennessee! In reckless way

Virginia heard her comrade say:

"Close round this rent and riddled rag!" What time she set her battle-flag Amid the guns of Doubleday.

But who shall break the guards that wait Before the awful face of Fate?

The tattered standards of the South Were shrivelled at the cannon's mouth, And all her hopes were desolate.

In vain the Tennesseean set

His breast against the bayonet;
In vain Virginia charged and raged,
A tigress in her wrath uncaged,
Till all the hill was red and wet!

Above the bayonets, mixed and crossed,
Men saw a gray, gigantic ghost

Receding through the battle-cloud,
And heard across the tempest loud
The death-cry of a nation lost!

The brave went down! Without disgrace
They leaped to Ruin's red embrace;
They only heard Fame's thunders wake,
And saw the dazzling sun-burst break

In smiles on Glory's bloody face!

They fell, who lifted up a hand
And bade the sun in heaven to stand;
They smote and fell, who set the bars
Against the progress of the stars,
And stayed the march of Motherland!

They stood, who saw the future come
On through the fight's delirium;

They smote and stood, who held the hope
Of nations on that slippery slope,
Amid the cheers of Christendom!

God lives! He forged the iron will,
That clutched and held that trembling hill!
God lives and reigns! He built and lent
The heights for Freedom's battlement,
Where floats her flag in triumph still!

Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules. Her gentler purpose runs.
A mighty mother turns in tears,
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!

Will Henry Thompson [1848

JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG
HAVE you heard the story that gossips tell
Of Burns of Gettysburg? No? Ah, well:
Brief is the glory that hero earns,
Briefer the story of poor John Burns:

He was the fellow who won renown,—

The only man who didn't back down

When the rebels rode through his native town; But held his own in the fight next day,

When all his townsfolk ran away.

That was in July, sixty-three,—

The very day that General Lee,

Flower of Southern chivalry,

Baffled and beaten, backward reeled

From a stubborn Meade and a barren field.

I might tell how, but the day before,
John Burns stood at his cottage door,
Looking down the village street,

Where, in the shade of his peaceful vine,
He heard the low of his gathered kine,
And felt their breath with incense sweet;
Or I might say, when the sunset burned
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk that fell like a babbling flood
Into the milk-pail, red as blood!
Or how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing among the trees.
But all such fanciful thoughts as these
Were strange to a practical man like Burns,
Who minded only his own concerns,

Troubled no more by fancies fine

Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kine,— Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact,

Slow to argue, but quick to act.

That was the reason, as some folks say,

He fought so well on that terrible day.

And it was terrible. On the right
Raged for hours the heady fight,
Thundered the battery's double bass,—
Difficult music for men to face;
While on the left-where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves

That all that day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the rebels kept-
Round-shot ploughed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there
Tossed their splinters in the air;

The very trees were stripped and bare;
The barns that once held yellow grain

Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
The cattle bellowed on the plain,

The turkeys screamed with might and main,

The brooding barn-fowl left their rest
With strange shells bursting in each nest.

Just where the tide of battle turns,
Erect and lonely, stood old John Burns.

How do you think the man was dressed?

He wore an ancient long buff vest,
Yellow as saffron,-but his best;

And, buttoned over his manly breast,

Was a bright blue coat, with a rolling collar,
And large gilt buttons,-size of a dollar,-
With tails that the country-folk called "swaller."
He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.

Never had such a sight been seen

For forty years on the village green,

Since old John Burns was a country beau,
And went to the "quiltings" long ago.

Close at his elbows all that day,
Veterans of the Peninsula,

Sunburnt and bearded, charged away;
And striplings, downy of lip and chin,—-
Clerks that the Home-Guard mustered in,-
Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he wore,
Then at the rifle his right hand bore;

And hailed him, from out their youthful lore,
With scraps of a slangy repertoire:

“How are you, White Hat?" "Put her through!"
"Your head's level!" and "Bully for you!"
Called him "Daddy,"-begged he'd disclose
The name of the tailor who made his clothes,
And what was the value he set on those;
While Burns, unmindful of jeer or scoff,

Stood there picking the rebels off,—

With his long brown rifle, and bell-crowned hat,
And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.

'Twas but a moment, for that respect

Which clothes all courage their voices checked;
And something the wildest could understand
Spake in the old man's strong right hand,
And his corded throat, and the lurking frown
Of his eyebrows under his old bell-crown;
Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe

Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw,