No More Learning

FREDERICKSBURG

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

[Sidenote: Dec. 13, 1862]

The increasing moonlight drifts across my bed,
And on the churchyard by the road, I know
It falls as white and noiselessly as snow.
'Twas such a night two weary summers fled;
The stars, as now, were waning overhead.
Listen! Again the shrill-lipped bugles blow
Where the swift currents of the river flow
Past Fredericksburg: far off the heavens are red
With sudden conflagration: on yon height,
Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath:
A signal-rocket pierces the dense night,
Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath:
Hark! --the artillery massing on the right,
Hark! --the black squadrons wheeling down to Death!





MUSIC IN CAMP

JOHN R. THOMPSON

[Sidenote: Dec. 15-31, 1862]

Two armies covered hill and plain
Where Rappahannock's waters
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain
Of battle's recent slaughters.

The summer clouds lay pitched like tents
In meads of heavenly azure;
And each dread gun of the elements
Slept in its hid embrasure.

The breeze so softly blew, it made
No forest leaf to quiver,
And the smoke of the random cannonade
Rolled slowly from the river.

And now where circling hills looked down
With cannon grimly planted,
O'er listless camp and silent town
The golden sunset slanted;

When on the fervid air there came
A strain, now rich, now tender,
The music seemed itself aflame
With day's departing splendor.

A Federal band, which eve and morn
Played measures brave and nimble,
Had just struck up with flute and horn
And lively clash of cymbal.

Down flocked the soldiers to the bank;
Till margined by its pebbles,
One wooded shore was blue with "Yanks,"
And one was gray with "Rebels.
"

Then all was still; and then the band
With movements light and tricksy,
Made stream and forest, hill and strand,
Reverberate with "Dixie. "

The conscious stream, with burnished glow,
Went proudly o'er its pebbles,
But thrilled throughout its deepest flow
With yelling of the Rebels.

Again a pause, and then again
The trumpet pealed sonorous,
And Yankee Doodle was the strain
To which the shore gave chorus.

The laughing ripple shoreward flew
To kiss the shining pebbles--
Loud shrieked the crowding Boys in Blue
Defiance to the Rebels.

And yet once more the bugle sang
Above the stormy riot;
No shout upon the evening rang
There reigned a holy quiet.

The sad, lone stream its noiseless tread
Spread o'er the glistening pebbles:
All silent now the Yankees stood;
All silent stood the Rebels:

For each responsive soul had heard
That plaintive note's appealing,
So deeply "Home, Sweet Home" had stirred
The hidden founts of feeling.

Or blue or gray, the soldier sees,
As by the wand of fairy,
The cottage neath the live-oak trees,
The cottage by the prairie.

Or cold or warm, his native skies
Bend in their beauty o'er him:
Sending the tear-mist in his eyes--
The dear ones stand before him.

As fades the iris after rain
In April's tearful weather,
The vision vanished as the strain
And daylight died together.

But memory, waked by music's art
Expressed in simplest numbers,
Subdued the sternest Yankee's heart,
Made light the Rebel's slumbers.

And fair the form of Music shines,
That bright, celestial creature,
Who still 'mid war's embattled lines
Gave this one touch of nature.





KEENAN'S CHARGE

GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP

[Sidenote: May 2, 1863]
_During the second day of the battle of Chancellorsville, General
Pleasonton was trying to get twenty-two guns into a vital position
as Stonewall Jackson made a sudden advance. Time had to be bought;
so Pleasanton ordered Major Peter Keenan, commanding the Eighth
Pennsylvania Cavalry (four hundred strong), to charge the advancing
ten thousand of the enemy. An introduction to the poem, setting
forth these facts, is omitted. _

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. "

"Cavalry, charge!