Bugle-echoes

30 April – 6 May 1863

Battle of Chancellorsville

KEENAN'S CHARGE.

KEENAN'S CHARGE.

[At the battle of Chancellorsville, Va.t May 2, 1863,
ft became necessary to bring a Federal battery into posi
tion to resist a sudden onset by Stonewall Jackson. To
gain a few minutes' time, Major Peter Keenan, of the
Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry, was ordered to charge the
enemy ; and, with his four hundred men, he rode against
ten thousand, in a charge as gallant as that of the Light
Brigade^

BY the shrouded gleam of the western skies,
Brave Keenan looked in Pleasonton's eyes
For an instant — clear, and cool, and still ;
Then, with a smile, he said : " I will."

POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 167

cease,

Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace.
The rush of their charge is resounding still,
That saved the army at Chancellorsville.

GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP,

POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 311

And I saw a phantom army come,
With never a sound of fife or drum,
But keeping time to a throbbing hum

Of wailing and lamentation :
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,
Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures fill

The patriot graves of the nation.

23–25 November 1863

Battles for Chattanooga

BUGLE-ECHOES:

On wooded Mission Ridge increase

The fruited fields of Fall,
And Chattanooga sleeps in peace

Beneath her mountain wall.
O Country, free from sea to sea,

THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS.

THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS.

[" The day had been one of dense mists and rains,~ and
much of General Hooker's battle was fought above the
clouds, on the tap of Lookout Mountain.'1'' — General Meigs1 s
Report of the Battle before Chattanooga, Nov. 23-25, 1863.]

WHERE the dews and the rains of heaven have their

5–7 May 1864

Battle of the Wilderness

LEE TO THE REAR.

LEE TO THE REAR.

\Founded on an incident in one of the battles of the
Wilderness, when General Lee seized the colors of a Texan
regiment to lead a charge against a well-nigh impregnable
position. The colonel promised to carry the position if Lee
wotild go to the rear ; and when the soldiers heard the
promise and expostulation, they repeated it, and " Lee to
the rear /" was shouted down the

DAWN of a pleasant morning in May
Broke through the Wilderness cool and gray ;
While perched in the tallest tree-tops, the birds
Were carolling Mendelssohn's " Songs without
words."

POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 217

Turning his bridle, Robert Lee
Rode to the rear. Like waves of the sea,
Bursting the dikes in their overflow,
Madly his veterans dashed on the foe.

And backward in terror that foe was driven,
Their banners rent and their columns riven,
Wherever the tide of battle rolled
Over the Wilderness, wood and wold.

Sunset out of a crimson sky
Streamed o'er a field of ruddier dye,
And the brook ran on with a purple stain,
From the blood of ten thousand foemen slain.

POEMS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 219

The flag that once challenged the gaze of the world ;

But the fame of the Wilderness fight abides ;
And down into history grandly rides,
Calm and unmoved as in battle he sat,
The gray-bearded man in the black slouched hat.
JOHN R. THOMPSON.

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.

A WOMAN OF THE WAR.

A WOMAN OF THE WAR.

\The story told in this poem is literally true. Its hero
ine, Margaret Atigusta Peterson, lived at Rochester,
N. Y.; and when, after the battles of the Wilderness, the
hospitals of that city were filled w^th wounded men, sJie
offered her services, and was accepted, as a nurse, at St.
Mary's Hospital. She died September i, 1864, at tJie age
of twenty-three ; and her grave and the surgeoit 's may be
seen in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester.]

THROUGH the sombre arch of that gateway tower
Where my humblest townsman rides at last,