Silence! Ground arms! Kneel all! Hats off!
Old Stonewall's going to pray!
Strangle the fool that dares to scoff!
Attention! "Tis his way! Kneeling upon his native sod
In forma pauperis to God—
"Lay bare thine arm! Stretch forth thy rod! Amen!" That's Stonewall's way!
He's in the saddle now-Fall in!
Steady, the whole brigade!
Hill's at the Ford, cut off! We'll win
His way out, ball or blade!
No matter if our shoes be worn,
No matter if our feet be torn,-
Quick step! We'll with him before morn,
In Stonewall Jackson's way!
The sun's bright lances rout the mists
Of morning, and, by George!-
There's Longstreet struggling in the lists,
Hemmed by an ugly gorge;
"Pope and his Yankees whipped before! Bayonets and grape!” hear Stonewall roar; "Charge, Stuart! Pay off Ashby's score, In Stonewall Jackson's way!"
Ah, woman! wait, and watch, and yearn
For news of Stonewall's band!
Ah, widow! read with eyes that burn
That ring upon thy hand!
Ah, maiden! weep on, hope on, pray on!
Thy lot is not so all forlorn-
The foe had better ne'er been born
That gets in Stonewall's way!
SAVE you heard the story the gossips tell
Of John 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,
The 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 in 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 heavy 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 the day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the rebels kept -
Round-shot plowed 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,
And 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 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 John Burns was a country beau,
And went to the "quilting " 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 reportoire :
"How are you, White Hat?' "Put her through?"
"Your head's level!" and, "Bully for you! "
Called him" Daddy"—and 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 and scoff,
Stood there picking the rebels off-
With his long brown rifle and bell-crown 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,
In the antique vestments and long white hair
The Past of the Nation in battle there.
And some of the soldiers since declare
That the gleam of his old white hat afar,
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,
That day was their oriflamme of war.
Thus raged the battle. You know the rest;
How the rebels, beaten, and backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge and ran.
At which John Burns — a practical man—
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows.
This is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns:
In fighting the battle, the question's whether
You'll show a hat that's white, or a feather.
One hand on the sabre,
And one on the rein,
The troopers move forward
In line on the plain.
As rings the word, "Gallop!"
The steel scabbards clank,
And each rowel is pressed
To a horse's hot flank:
And swift is their rush
As the wild torrent's flow, When it pours from the crag
On the valley below.
"Charge!" thunders the leader;
Like shaft from the bow
Each mad horse is hurled
On the wavering foe.
A thousand bright sabres
Are gleaming in air;
A thousand dark horses
Are dashed on the square.
Resistless and reckless
Of aught may betide, Like demons, not mortals, The wild troopers ride. Cut right! and cut left!
For the parry who needs?
The bayonets shiver
Like wind-scattered reeds.
Vain-vain the red volley
That bursts from the square,-~ The random-shot bullets
Are wasted in air.
Triumphant, remorseless,
Unerring as death,—
No sabre that 's stainless
Returns to its sheath.
The wounds that are dealt By that murderous steel Will never yield case
For the surgeon to heal. Hurrah! they are brokenHurrah! boys, they flyNone linger save those Who but linger to die.
Rein up your hot horses
And call in your men,
The trumpet sounds "Rally
To colors" again.
Some saddles are empty,
Some comrades are slain,
And some noble horses
Lie stark on the plain;
But war's a chance game, boys, And weeping is vain.
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