Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War | Page 3

prime?(It was the breezy summer time),
Life throbbed so strong,?How should they dream that Death in a rosy clime
Would come to thin their shining throng??Youth feels immortal, like the gods sublime.
Weeks passed; and at my window, leaving bed,?By night I mused, of easeful sleep bereft,?On those brave boys (Ah War! thy theft);
Some marching feet?Found pause at last by cliffs Potomac cleft;
Wakeful I mused, while in the street?Far footfalls died away till none were left.
Dupont's Round Fight.?(November, 1861.)
In time and measure perfect moves?All Art whose aim is sure;?Evolving ryhme and stars divine?Have rules, and they endure.
Nor less the Fleet that warred for Right,?And, warring so, prevailed,?In geometric beauty curved,?And in an orbit sailed.
The rebel at Port Royal felt?The Unity overawe,?And rued the spell. A type was here,?And victory of Law.
The Stone Fleet.[2]?An Old Sailor's Lament.?(December, 1861.)
I have a feeling for those ships,?Each worn and ancient one,?With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam;?Ay, it was unkindly done.
But so they serve the Obsolete--?Even so, Stone Fleet!
You'll say I'm doting; do but think?I scudded round the Horn in one--?The Tenedos, a glorious?Good old craft as ever run--
Sunk (how all unmeet!)?With the Old Stone Fleet.
An India ship of fame was she,?Spices and shawls and fans she bore;?A whaler when her wrinkles came--?Turned off! till, spent and poor,
Her bones were sold (escheat)!?Ah! Stone Fleet.
Four were erst patrician keels?(Names attest what families be),?The Kensington, and Richmond too,?Leonidas, and Lee:
But now they have their seat?With the Old Stone Fleet.
To scuttle them--a pirate deed--?Sack them, and dismast;?They sunk so slow, they died so hard,?But gurgling dropped at last.
Their ghosts in gales repeat?_Woe's us, Stone Fleet!_
And all for naught. The waters pass--?Currents will have their way;?Nature is nobody's ally; 'tis well;?The harbor is bettered--will stay.
A failure, and complete,?Was your Old Stone Fleet.
Donelson.?(February, 1862.)
The bitter cup?Of that hard countermand?Which gave the Envoys up,?Still was wormwood in the mouth,?And clouds involved the land,?When, pelted by sleet in the icy street,?About the bulletin-board a band?Of eager, anxious people met,?And every wakeful heart was set?On latest news from West or South.?"No seeing here," cries one--"don't crowd--"?"You tall man, pray you, read aloud."
IMPORTANT.
_We learn that General Grant,?Marching from Henry overland,?And joined by a force up the Cumberland sent?(Some thirty thousand the command),?On Wednesday a good position won--?Began the siege of Donelson.
The stronghold crowns a river-bluff,?A good broad mile of leveled top;?Inland the ground rolls off?Deep-gorged, and rocky, and broken up--?A wilderness of trees and brush.?The spaded summit shows the roods?Of fixed intrenchments in their hush;?Breast-works and rifle-pits in woods?Perplex the base.--
The welcome weather?Is clear and mild; 'tis much like May.?The ancient boughs that lace together?Along the stream, and hang far forth,?Strange with green mistletoe, betray?A dreamy contrast to the North.
Our troops are full of spirits--say?The siege won't prove a creeping one.?They purpose not the lingering stay?Of old beleaguerers; not that way;?But, full of _vim_ from Western prairies won,?They'll make, ere long, a dash at Donelson._
Washed by the storm till the paper grew?Every shade of a streaky blue,?That bulletin stood. The next day brought?A second.
LATER FROM THE FORT.?_Grant's investment is complete--
A semicircular one.?Both wings the Cumberland's margin meet,?Then, backwkard curving, clasp the rebel seat.?On Wednesday this good work was done;?But of the doers some lie prone.?Each wood, each hill, each glen was fought for;?The bold inclosing line we wrought for?Flamed with sharpshooters. Each cliff cost?A limb or life. But back we forced?Reserves and all; made good our hold;?And so we rest.
Events unfold.?On Thursday added ground was won,?A long bold steep: we near the Den.?Later the foe came shouting down?In sortie, which was quelled; and then?We stormed them on their left.?A chilly change in the afternoon;?The sky, late clear, is now bereft?Of sun. Last night the ground froze hard--?Rings to the enemy as they run?Within their works. A ramrod bites?The lip it meets. The cold incites?To swinging of arms with brisk rebound.?Smart blows 'gainst lusty chests resound.
Along the outer line we ward?A crackle of skirmishing goes on.?Our lads creep round on hand and knee,?They fight from behind each trunk and stone;?And sometimes, flying for refuge, one?Finds 'tis an enemy shares the tree.?Some scores are maimed by boughs shot off?In the glades by the Fort's big gun.?We mourn the loss of colonel Morrison,?Killed while cheering his regiment on.?Their far sharpshooters try our stuff;?And ours return them puff for puff:?'Tis diamond-cutting-diamond work.?Woe on the rebel cannoneer?Who shows his head. Our fellows lurk?Like Indians that waylay the deer?By the wild salt-spring.--The sky is dun,?Fordooming the fall of Donelson.
Stern weather is all unwonted here.?The people of the country own?We brought it. Yea, the earnest North?Has elementally issued forth?To storm this Donelson._
FURTHER.
A yelling rout?Of ragamuffins broke profuse?To-day from out the Fort.?Sole uniform they wore, a sort?Of patch, or white badge (as you choose)?Upon the arm. But leading these,?Or mingling, were men of face?And bearing of patrician race,?Splendid in courage and gold