CHAPTER II

The Historical Development of the Southern War Poetry

Contemporary criticism is seldom safely to be trusted, but there are times when contemporaneous comment is as valuable as it is enlightening. It is so with this statement by T. C. de Leon—in his introduction to an anthology of the Southern Civil War verse.11“If poems born of revolution bore no marks of the bitter need that crushed them from the hearts of their authors, they would have no value whatever, intrinsic or historical.”

Southern war poetry is worthy of preservation because it is an expression of vital appeal and of sentiment wrung from the heart of a people. For the most part, it was written under the stress of the moment. It was indeed the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion, but only occasionally does it take its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. Nevertheless, it speaks the language of men and women, and in it we may read, as perhaps through no other medium, the true story of the development of Southern character, of national spirit, and of definite sectional consciousness.

Today the poetry remains to us in the newspapers and magazines of the period, and in the anthologies and various collections of war verse (the best of these appearing either during the war or shortly after). Most interesting, but most ephemeral of them all, it remains in part in the small printed broadsides, or single sheets in handbill form, which usually appeared anonymously and mysteriously, at times even without the name of the printer. Issued in varying numbers, on wretched paper, and seldom gathered together, so many of these have perished in the passage of the years, that in many instances a single copy may remain in existence. Of the verses that circulated in MSS. there is now little trace. Occasionally, as in the case of K—s “To the Memory of Stonewall Jackson,” some old copy-book or diary will restore them to the light: but of the various sources, less result is obtained from this field than from the others.

Next to the appearance of the poems in the papers and journals, publication by broadside was probably the most common usage. Especially in the later days of the war, when newspaper publication was either temporarily or entirely suspended, this medium insured the quickest distribution of verse particularly applicable to the moment, a battle ode, a dirge of a fallen leader, or a song of peculiarly inspiriting phraseology. It was in this broadside form that “My Maryland” spread through the South almost in a day, anonymously, and often suffering from lines badly copied or cut. That Randall was the author was a fact silently understood and communicated: for it was safest and wisest in those early days, and particularly in the border states, that names be not mentioned. Even later, and after months of war, this condition still obtained. The appearance, in September, 1862, of “Stonewall Jackson’s Way,” written by Dr. John Williamson Palmer, as he listened to the guns of Sharpsburg, is a case in point. Dr. Palmer gives this history of the poem, and its publication:12

“In September, 1862, I found myself ... at Oakland ... in Garrett County, Maryland. Early on the sixteenth there was a roar of guns in the air, and we knew that a great battle was toward ... I knew that Stonewall was in it, whatever it might be: it was his way,—‘Stonewall Jackson’s Way.’ I had twice put that phrase into my war letters, and other correspondents, finding it handy, had quoted it in theirs. I paced the piazza and whistled a song of Oregon lumbermen and loggers that I had learned from a California adventurer in Honolulu. The two thoughts were coupled and welded into one to make a song: and as the words gathered to the call of the tune I wrote the ballad of ‘Stonewall Jackson’s Way’ with the roar of these guns in my ears. On the morrow I added the last stanza....

“In Baltimore I told the story of the song to my father, and at his request made immediately another copy of it. This was shown cautiously to certain members of the Maryland Club: and a trusty printer was found who struck off a dozen slips of it, principally for private distribution. That first printed copy of the song was headed ‘Found on a Rebel Sergeant of the Old Stonewall Brigade, Taken at Winchester.’ The fabulous legend wasfor the misleading of the Federal provost marshal, as were also the address and date, ‘Martinsburg, September 13, 1862.’”

It must not be supposed that this war verse which has survived to our day consists merely of battle songs and popular ballads on themes arising from the nature of the conflict. Just as the war was far reaching and general in its effect, touching every Southerner personally, and too often poignantly, so the poetic response was varied and modified to meet the demand of the moment. There is description, and narration; there are of course dialectics and polemics; there is satire; and there is even a little humor. And because through all this rings the personal and individual appeal, the prevailing note is lyric. Of the dramatic there is very little, notably Hayne’s “The Substitute,” and “The Royal Ape.” This last is a long dramatic narrative in iambic pentameter rimed couplets that is possibly more interesting as satire and propaganda than as pure drama. Yet neither of these is a work of free inspiration. The Southern war poet did his best work when out of the fulness of his heart, he either vowed allegiance to his beloved land, and her leaders, or wrote in passion and defiance as a resolved defender of the freedom of his Fathers.

Judged from an emotional point of view, this poetry falls into three distinct periods, obvious enough in themselves, but interesting in that by them we may see more clearly the issues of the war as reflected in the hearts of the warriors. There are the first poems of rebellion against oppression: lyrics of passionate defiance as well as of hortatory counsel: appeals to remember the glory of the past and the danger of the present. The second period started at the moment of invasion after which there was no longer need for a Congress to formulate the principles for which they fought, or to arrange for the unifying of the various State integers. Then began the poetry of actual conflict, taking the form of verses concerning particular battles, the narration of some heroic deed, the lament for a great hero, as well as camp ballads, and marching songs. As a connecting link with the first period, there are still the poems breathing the national spirit, and loyalty to the Southern cause. Even in the third and last period, that of disappointment, discouragement and actual defeat, this note continues, and is the more poignant for its unfaltering persistence in the face of calamity.

The poetry of the first period began in the closing days of 1860. In November of that year there had been elected by the North and West a President whose principles of government seemed to threaten the South with danger of extermination of her most precious interests. The platform of Republicanism she considered in every respect inimical to her importance as a unit in the central organization of states. Her very identity was endangered, and that to a section where pride of historic heritage was as dear as actual power of wealth and commerce, aroused her as could perhaps nothing else. Therefore, on December twentieth, 1860, South Carolina passed her order of secession, following it with the “Declaration of Independence,” which justified the previous action by recalling the two great principles asserted by the early colonies, namely, “the right of a state to govern itself, and the right of a people to abolish a government when it becomes destructive to the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles was the fact that each colony became and was recognized by the mother country as a free, sovereign and independent state.” It was a proud imperious challenge, and made immediate appeal to every Southerner to whom freedom and independence, personal or otherwise, was a precious birthright. The proclamation fired the imagination, as it did the poetic spirit of the land: the poetic response struck the same note. S. Henry Dickson’s “South Carolina” was one of the first poems to appear. Its verses are as lofty in tone as the lines of the proclamation, and equally as sincere. They are frankly exultant.

The deed is done! the die is cast;The glorious Rubicon is passed:Hail, Carolina! free at last.Strong in the right I see her standWhere ocean laves the shelving sand;Her own Palmetto decks the strand.She turns aloft her flashing eye;Radiant, her lonely star on highShines clear against the darkening sky.Fling forth her banner to the gale!Let all the hosts of earth assail,—Their fury and their force shall fail.Oh, land of heroes! Spartan State!In numbers few, in daring great,Thus to affront the frown of fate!And while mad triumph rules the hour,And thickening clouds of menace lower,Bear back the tide of tyrant power.With steadfast courage, faltering never,Sternly resolved, her bonds to sever:Hail, Carolina! free forever!

The deed is done! the die is cast;The glorious Rubicon is passed:Hail, Carolina! free at last.

The deed is done! the die is cast;

The glorious Rubicon is passed:

Hail, Carolina! free at last.

Strong in the right I see her standWhere ocean laves the shelving sand;Her own Palmetto decks the strand.

Strong in the right I see her stand

Where ocean laves the shelving sand;

Her own Palmetto decks the strand.

She turns aloft her flashing eye;Radiant, her lonely star on highShines clear against the darkening sky.

She turns aloft her flashing eye;

Radiant, her lonely star on high

Shines clear against the darkening sky.

Fling forth her banner to the gale!Let all the hosts of earth assail,—Their fury and their force shall fail.

Fling forth her banner to the gale!

Let all the hosts of earth assail,—

Their fury and their force shall fail.

Oh, land of heroes! Spartan State!In numbers few, in daring great,Thus to affront the frown of fate!

Oh, land of heroes! Spartan State!

In numbers few, in daring great,

Thus to affront the frown of fate!

And while mad triumph rules the hour,And thickening clouds of menace lower,Bear back the tide of tyrant power.

And while mad triumph rules the hour,

And thickening clouds of menace lower,

Bear back the tide of tyrant power.

With steadfast courage, faltering never,Sternly resolved, her bonds to sever:Hail, Carolina! free forever!

With steadfast courage, faltering never,

Sternly resolved, her bonds to sever:

Hail, Carolina! free forever!

This may be the expression of the hour, but it proved as well to be the poetic sentiment of the next four years. Every poet of the South, from the humblest maker of camp catches to the greatest of her lyrists, shared this attitude of resolve, as they watched their Spartan nation continue to wage what they consented to be a righteous war for freedom, against a tyrant power. Naturally, expression became more sharply crystalized with the actual invasion. None the less, even thus early, before the end of ’60, we have a precise foreshadowing of the war attitude of the Confederate poet.

With the passage of secession in South Carolina, at once the remaining “Cotton States” were torn by the conflict of making a great decision. There were those to whom the indignity of submitting their conception of government to what they called a usurpation of authority was inconceivable treachery to an ancient and honorable past: and there were those to whom unquestioning obedience to the Government at Washington was the only way of fulfilling the heritage of their ancestors. In the end, the extremists won. The North would offer no compromise: indeed, it would have been contrary to the Southern code of honor to have accepted halfway measures. To them there appeared no other course to pursue, no solution but to follow Carolina’s lordly lead. Mississippi seceded on January ninth, Florida on the tenth, Alabama on the eleventh, Georgia on the nineteenth, Louisiana on the twenty-sixth.

For the South as a whole, as well as for her poets, January had been a month of tempest. Following the secession of Carolina, the situation that had developed over Fort Sumter was dangerousto the extreme. As it afterwards proved, Sumter was the tinder which kindled the flame of war; and as early as January, when Major Anderson refused to surrender the fort the menace within the South began to show itself. The authorities of Charleston, endangered by Federal possession of Sumter, demanded its surrender. No decision could have been reached until after March fourth, when Lincoln was inaugurated. Meanwhile, on the fourth of February, the six states which had already left the Union, and Texas, which seceded three days earlier, formally met at convention in Charleston, and united in a Confederacy, in opposition to the Government at Washington. It was a move which their poets, as well as their more practically visioned men, had been frantically urging. Two of the most interesting of the poems of this period appeared, the one in theSouthern Literary Messengerfor January, by William Gilmore Simms, the other in theCharleston Courier, about the middle of the month, addressed in French, by R. Thomassy, under date of Nouvelle Orleans, 2 Janvier 1861, to “Les Enfants du Sud.” It is fiery and eloquent of passion.

Enfants du Sud, l’outrage et la menaceAux nobles coeurs ne laissent plus de choix.Le paix nous trompe: un serpent nous enlaceTranchons ses noeuds, et defendons nos droits!Qu’attendrons—nous pour reprendre l’epee,Qui triompha d’un vieux monde oppresseur?Le nord aussi, violant la foi juree,Seme a son tour discorde et deshonneur.Aux armes donc pour la cause sacree;De nos ayeux vengeons les saintes lois;Nous sommes Sparte, invincible, eprouvee;Que sa vertu preside a nos exploits!

Enfants du Sud, l’outrage et la menace

Aux nobles coeurs ne laissent plus de choix.

Le paix nous trompe: un serpent nous enlace

Tranchons ses noeuds, et defendons nos droits!

Qu’attendrons—nous pour reprendre l’epee,

Qui triompha d’un vieux monde oppresseur?

Le nord aussi, violant la foi juree,

Seme a son tour discorde et deshonneur.

Aux armes donc pour la cause sacree;

De nos ayeux vengeons les saintes lois;

Nous sommes Sparte, invincible, eprouvee;

Que sa vertu preside a nos exploits!

Gilmore Simms’ poem is less a call to arms, and more a warm and affectionate tribute to a beloved land, noteworthy because it proves that even before the Confederacy was formed, the people of the South were united in her love. The second stanza is better than the first.

She is all fondness to her friends: to foesShe glows a thing of passion, strength and pride;She feels no tremors when the danger’s nigh,But the fight over, and the victory won,How with strange fondness turns her loving eyeIn tearful welcome on each gallant son!I glory that my lot with her is cast,And my soul flushes and exultant sings;

She is all fondness to her friends: to foes

She glows a thing of passion, strength and pride;

She feels no tremors when the danger’s nigh,

But the fight over, and the victory won,

How with strange fondness turns her loving eye

In tearful welcome on each gallant son!

I glory that my lot with her is cast,And my soul flushes and exultant sings;

I glory that my lot with her is cast,

And my soul flushes and exultant sings;

Already there had begun the actual war verse, taking here the form of the invitation to arms. That war, the “irrepressible conflict,” was inevitable, was recognized by all sensible men. “Barhamville” in January addressed one of the first of these, “The Call,” to the editor of theSouth Carolinian. At this time, too, there appeared the fervid “Spirit of ’60,” in the ColumbusTimes, forerunner of a series in which were contrasted the spirit of the present and of ’76. To the South, both were wars for liberty, both struggles against oppression, in both contests the South was a vital factor; and the analogy was too good for a poetic eye to miss.

The finest single poem produced in this preliminary stage of the contest was that by Henry Timrod, “Ethnogenesis,” written during the meeting of the first Southern Congress, at Montgomery, in the early days of February. To the poet the Congress meant indeed the birth of a great nation, a nation among nations, strong in its right, and secure in national resource,

“marshalled by the Lord of HostsAnd overshadowed by the mighty ghostsOf Moultrie and of Eutaw.”

“marshalled by the Lord of Hosts

And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts

Of Moultrie and of Eutaw.”

It is a noble utterance and its dignity and melody of expression must have added greatly to the deep impression it created. In theSouthern Literary Messengerfor the month there are Joseph Brennan’s “Ballad for the Young South”—“Men of the South! our foes are up, in fierce and grim array,”—and the defiant “The Southland Fears No Foeman,” by J. W. M., in which is the richly suggestive line, “Her eagles yet are free;” while “from the Georgia papers,” under date of Atlanta, February first, there is the anonymous “Cotton States’ Farewell to Yankee Doodle.” This latter is especially interesting because it is one of the first of a “Farewell to Brother Jonathan” group which enjoyed considerable vogue during the late winter and which was answered in the North by Oliver Wendell Holmes, with the lines “Brother Jonathan’s Lament for Sister Caroline,” under date of March 25. Of the Confederate poems on this theme, “Farewell to Brother Jonathan” by “Caroline,” which appeared about this time seemsclosely connected with Holmes’ verses. The metre of the two poems is the same and the thought antithetic, although it would be difficult to determine which is the reply. The last two stanzas of “Farewell to Brother Jonathan” are particularly good.

O Brother! beware how you seek us again,Lest you brand on your forehead the signet of Cain;That blood and that crime on your conscience must sit;We may fail, we may perish, but never submit!The pathway that leads to the Pharisee’s doorWe remember, indeed, but we tread it no more;Preferring to turn, with the Publican’s faith,To the path through the valley and shadow of death.

O Brother! beware how you seek us again,Lest you brand on your forehead the signet of Cain;That blood and that crime on your conscience must sit;We may fail, we may perish, but never submit!

O Brother! beware how you seek us again,

Lest you brand on your forehead the signet of Cain;

That blood and that crime on your conscience must sit;

We may fail, we may perish, but never submit!

The pathway that leads to the Pharisee’s doorWe remember, indeed, but we tread it no more;Preferring to turn, with the Publican’s faith,To the path through the valley and shadow of death.

The pathway that leads to the Pharisee’s door

We remember, indeed, but we tread it no more;

Preferring to turn, with the Publican’s faith,

To the path through the valley and shadow of death.

Three other poems, apparently of this month, should be mentioned in passing, as exemplifying the note of personal interest of the Southern poet in the issue of the struggle. Robert Joselyn’s “Gather! Gather!” the anonymous war song, “Come, Brothers! You are called!” and Millie Mayfield’s triumphant “We Come! We Come!” may not be poetry of the first order: nevertheless these are verses written by people to whom the threatened conflict is not a matter distant and aloof, but of intimate and vital concern.

March was a month of little action on both sides. In the North it witnessed the inauguration of Lincoln; in the South the completer organizing and unification of the Confederacy, and the beginning of negotiations by the Confederacy by which they might secure possession of Fort Sumter. If, however, the South was marking time, her poets were not. They continued to urge her on to fulfillment of her “destiny.” Indeed, this month saw written some of the very best and most resolute of her war verse. There is the indignant “Coercion,” by John C. Thompson—

“Who talks of Coercion? Who dares to denyA resolute people the right to be free?”

“Who talks of Coercion? Who dares to deny

A resolute people the right to be free?”

There is the anonymous “Prosopopeia,” also in theSouthern Literary Messenger, which with Timrod’s “Cry to Arms,” written a little later, is the best of the verse of this kind which the period produced. Another widely known poem of the month was St. George Tucker’s “The Southern Cross,” verses patterned after Key’s “Star Spangled Banner,” and which had enormous vogue, and was even set to music, later on. This in so far as can be determinedis the first poetic use of the Southern Cross as the symbol of the Confederacy, a figure that was later adopted for the design of her flag, and which finally became, not only her ensign, but as well a symbol of the righteousness of her faith and cause. James Barron Hope’s “Oath of Freedom,”—

Born free, thus we resolve to live:By Heaven, we will be free.By all the stars which burn on high,By the green earth—the mighty sea—By God’s unshaken majestyWe will be free or die!—

Born free, thus we resolve to live:

By Heaven, we will be free.

By all the stars which burn on high,

By the green earth—the mighty sea—

By God’s unshaken majesty

We will be free or die!—

is of a kind with Thompson’s “Coercion,” and was widely copied during this time. Another poem must be mentioned here, as presaging the turmoil to follow, “Fort Sumter,” by “H.,” in the New OrleansDelta, with the command of its refrain, “Carolina,takethe Fort.”

The most eventful months of the year 1861 were April and July, for April inaugurated “the irrepressible conflict,” and July saw the first great battle of the war, and a complete Confederate victory. On the first of April, President Lincoln announced his decision to refuse surrender of Fort Sumter to the Confederates, and added that he would undertake to provision the garrison imprisoned there immediately. At once the South was aflame. On the morning of the twelfth of April, Beauregard, commander of the Southern forces at Charleston, ordered the shelling of the Fort, which continued through the thirteenth, and ended with the evacuation of the Fort on the fourteenth. The war had begun, and though the opening engagement had been without loss to either side, and had ended in a Confederate victory, a far bloodier and disastrous conflict was inevitable. To the rejoicing South, however, there was only the glory of the first decision to consider, and the poets in their rapture gave utterance to a sheaf of verse, innumerable ballads about Sumter, affectionate odes to the nation so gloriously born and baptized by victorious fire, two great national songs, and frantic appeals to North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, Tennessee and Kentucky to join fortunes of the Confederacy.

The first song published in the South after the war began, and corresponding, in the North, to E. C. Stedman’s “The Twelfth of April” was, fittingly enough, “God Save the South” by GeorgeH. Miles of Frederick County, Maryland. Sung to music by C. W. A. Ellerbrock, it was designed to be, and accepted as the national hymn. It did not however, succeed in becoming a favorite. On the twenty-sixth of the month, James Rider Randall, inflamed by the circumstances of the “Baltimore Massacre” on April nineteenth, wrote his “My Maryland,” the most famous Southern poem produced by the war, and one whose influence was greater than a hundred battles. Circulated at first by broadsides it swept through the South like wildfire, and if any force could have drawn Maryland to the side of the Confederacy, it would have been that exerted by this poem. Her Union Governor, however, aided by Federal troops and tactful advice from Washington, succeeded in holding the State to the Union, although many Marylanders were ardent Southern sympathizers. Virginia, on the other hand, who, like Maryland, had been hesitating over her decision, hesitated no longer, after the episode of Sumter, implying as it did, Federal coercion. On the seventeenth of April she seceded from the Union. Her “pausing” had long been considered a shame and a reproach by Southern poets. Now, they burst forth in delight. “Virginia, Late But Sure!” was the triumphant shout of Dr. Holcombe, and Virginia’s answer was expressed in poems such as “Virginia to the Rescue,” “Virginia’s Rallying Call,” or “Virginia’s Message to the Southern States.”

The poetry produced or published in May chiefly concerns the decision of Virginia, and the assembling of the Southern armies, those “Ordered Away” to the field. Virginia’s entrance into the Confederacy had burnt all the bridges leading back—though remotely—to peace. At once the South proceeded to rally her forces to the standard of her cause, and gradually during May and June, flung out her battle line across Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Mississippi. Down the river it stretched through Forts Henry and Donelson to New Orleans. At one time, in ’63, the Confederate line surged forward through Western Virginia and Maryland so far into Pennsylvania that Harrisburg was directly menaced. It was the four years’ uncertain task of the Union forces to control this line, to break through it, turn it back and in upon itself, and finally to starve its scattered remnants into submission. As this was accomplished the first lyric outburst of the War—Timrod’s “Cry to Arms,” for example—was gradually exchanged for a slenderer volume of song. At first her poetsencouraged the people to faith and labor; then they sang of hope and courage, attempting to relieve the despair of a nation whose cause was lost, and whose ruin seemed irretrievable.

In the spring of ’61, however, there was only exultation, while in the North the cry of “On to Richmond” welled and grew fiercer during May, June and the summer months. Especially did it grow imperative after July twentieth, when the Confederate Capital was transferred there from Montgomery. On the next day, July twenty-first, came the great opening battle of the war, when the Union army under General Scott, joined with Beauregard’s men at Manassas Junction. The result was a complete Confederate victory, and there was unrestricted panic and flight among the Federal troops (the source of much satiric comment among the Southern poets) when Joseph E. Johnston’s army, which had not been expected to arrive until too late to be of assistance to Beauregard, appeared at the crucial moment.

It was only natural that the wave of triumphant exultation which had thrilled the South after the fall of Sumter should again sweep the land. Her poets responded with a sheaf of poems, in which they wrote of the contest from every angle,—odes of thanksgiving for victory, narratives of the course of the flight, eulogies of Beauregard and Johnston, satires on the behavior of the Union forces, camp catches half satiric and half comic, poems of particular incidents of the fight, finally words of regret and sorrow for the slain, and the manner of their slaying. This last theme is particularly interesting, for the feeling of horror at the situation “where brother fought with brother” was ever-present with the Southerners throughout the four years of the War. The very best of the poems occasioned by Manassas were those of Mrs. Warfield, “Manassas,” Susan Archer Talley’s “Battle Eve,” Ticknor’s “Our Left,” and the lines by “Ruth,” entitled “The Battle of Bull Run,” dated Louisville, Kentucky, July twenty-fourth, and written in curious and effective stanzas of irregular “unrhymed rhythms.” Mrs. Warfield’s poem was stirring and vigorous, bold in metaphor and in expression.

They have met at last, as storm cloudsMeet in Heaven,And the Northmen, back and bleedingHave been driven:And their thunders have been stilled,And their leaders crushed or killed,And their ranks, with terror thrilledRent and riven!Like the leaves of VallumbrosoThey are lying;In the moonlight, in the midnightDead and dying:Like those leaves before the galeSwept their legions wild and pale,While the host that made them quailStood, defying.But peace to those who perishedIn our passes!Light be the earth above them!Green the grasses!Long shall Northmen rue the day,When they met our stern array,And shrunk from battle’s wild affrayAt Manassas.

They have met at last, as storm clouds

Meet in Heaven,

And the Northmen, back and bleeding

Have been driven:

And their thunders have been stilled,

And their leaders crushed or killed,

And their ranks, with terror thrilled

Rent and riven!

Like the leaves of VallumbrosoThey are lying;In the moonlight, in the midnightDead and dying:Like those leaves before the galeSwept their legions wild and pale,While the host that made them quailStood, defying.

Like the leaves of Vallumbroso

They are lying;

In the moonlight, in the midnight

Dead and dying:

Like those leaves before the gale

Swept their legions wild and pale,

While the host that made them quail

Stood, defying.

But peace to those who perishedIn our passes!Light be the earth above them!Green the grasses!Long shall Northmen rue the day,When they met our stern array,And shrunk from battle’s wild affrayAt Manassas.

But peace to those who perished

In our passes!

Light be the earth above them!

Green the grasses!

Long shall Northmen rue the day,

When they met our stern array,

And shrunk from battle’s wild affray

At Manassas.

Miss Talley’s “Battle Eve,” with its beautiful picture of twilight calm before the darker night of storm and death, is affecting in its simple direct appeal, and sincerity of regret for the carnage of conflict—and was called forth by the seriousness of the impending meeting at Manassas. Francis Orray Ticknor’s “Our Left”—suggested by the indomitable courage and perseverance of the Confederate left wing before McDowell’s men, until reinforced by the timely arrival of Johnston’s army, who brought victory with them, is a spirited, almost exalted account of the actual battle, and was immensely popular at the time. There are many versions of it still extant, in broadsides and anthologies,—for the most part anonymous, since the poem evidently was not at first acknowledged by Ticknor. This has led to a curious connection of names. In one of the broadsides versions in the collection of the Ridgway Library, in Philadelphia, the poem is dated Baltimore, Maryland, October 20, 1861, and is signed by “Old Secesh.” This signature is also given to “The Despot’s Song,” a popular Lincoln satire of a later period of the War, which again is assigned to Baltimore, and from circumstantial evidence seems to be the work of Dr. N. G. Ridgely, a Baltimorean who was a popular satirist of the day, and who signed his work variously “N. G. R.,” “Le Diable Baiteux,” “O. H. S.,” “Cola,” and “B.”This last signature is further associated with the name of James Ryder Randall, for in the Baltimore City Librarian’s Office, in Ledger 1411, there is a broadside version of “Maryland, My Maryland,” published in Baltimore, as were these other broadsides, and signed “B,” Point Coupee (La.), April 26, 1861. It would, of course, be impossible, so many years later, to puzzle out the interrelation of the poems and signatures, and indeed their value would hardly warrant the labor. It is, nevertheless, an interesting example of the chaos which at times arose from the necessarily surreptitious publication and circulation of the Confederate verse.

Manassas was the last great event of the year. There were several minor engagements between the two armies, notably the fight at Ball’s Bluff, on the twenty-first of October; and there was the “Trent Affair,” with the capture of the Confederate emissaries to England, Mason and Slidell, on November eighth. Nevertheless, the Southern poets did not lack inspiring material, the continued “aloofness” of Maryland and Kentucky being among their most vital themes. They were, of course, never idle with their lyrics of loyalty and continued to sound the war note or to sing of the South, with indomitable zeal. They had even by this time, become so accustomed to the state of war, that they could begin to work seriously with satire. The best in this genre written in ’61 are John R. Thompson’s “On to Richmond,” satirizing Winfield Scott’s first campaign, and “England’s Neutrality” (England had passed a proclamation of neutrality towards the two belligerents early in May, on the thirteenth): “O Johnny Bull, My Jo John,” an anonymous ballad occasioned by the presence of English frigates off the coast in ’61, and the unfortunately anonymous, but delightfully humorous “King Scare” (prompted by the terror in the North regarding the Confederate power in the field).

The close of the year was marked by a poem in theSouthern Field and Fireside—a “Requiem for 1861,” by H. C. B. It is not of any particular excellence or poetic merit, but it is worthy of note for its expression of sincere sorrow for the conflict that was severing a land of brothers; and for a sense of the horror that war had brought to the South.

Year of terror, year of strife,Year with evil passions rifePass, with seething angry flood,Pass, with garments dipped in blood,—Born ’mid hopes, but raised in fears,With thy dewdrops changed to tears,With thy springtime turned to blight,And with darkness quenching light.War’s fierce tread upon our landSevering once a kindred band,Child and father ranged for strife,Brother seeking brother’s life!Thou who doth unsheathe the swordBy the power of Thy Word,And can by Thy mighty willTo the waves say “peace, be still”Gather up this storm once more,Where “Thy judgments are in store,”Send Thy holy dove of Peace,And our fettered land release!

Year of terror, year of strife,Year with evil passions rifePass, with seething angry flood,Pass, with garments dipped in blood,—

Year of terror, year of strife,

Year with evil passions rife

Pass, with seething angry flood,

Pass, with garments dipped in blood,—

Born ’mid hopes, but raised in fears,With thy dewdrops changed to tears,With thy springtime turned to blight,And with darkness quenching light.

Born ’mid hopes, but raised in fears,

With thy dewdrops changed to tears,

With thy springtime turned to blight,

And with darkness quenching light.

War’s fierce tread upon our landSevering once a kindred band,Child and father ranged for strife,Brother seeking brother’s life!

War’s fierce tread upon our land

Severing once a kindred band,

Child and father ranged for strife,

Brother seeking brother’s life!

Thou who doth unsheathe the swordBy the power of Thy Word,And can by Thy mighty willTo the waves say “peace, be still”

Thou who doth unsheathe the sword

By the power of Thy Word,

And can by Thy mighty will

To the waves say “peace, be still”

Gather up this storm once more,Where “Thy judgments are in store,”Send Thy holy dove of Peace,And our fettered land release!

Gather up this storm once more,

Where “Thy judgments are in store,”

Send Thy holy dove of Peace,

And our fettered land release!

The same longing for peace is shown in the verses “Christmas Day, A. D. 1861,” by M. J. H. But it must be a peace with victory. That was the earliest conception. By the lives of her sons who had died for her in the year just passed, the South was resolved on whatever sacrifice it might cost her to prevail, despite the fact that she was already weary of the struggle. No better expression of her unchecked purpose may be found than in Mrs. War field’s lines, written in the spring months before Manassas, “The Southern Chant of Defiance.” With Timrod’s “Ethnogenesis,” and Randall’s “Maryland,” it stands the finest poetry which the year produced in the Confederacy.

1862 began with the Confederacy prevailing. Nevertheless, the first six months of the year seemed to bring to the South nothing but gloom. In February of ’62, came news of the capture of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, February sixth, and on February eighth, of the fall of Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland. There was much more importance in these two defeats than at first appeared to the poets; for these forts were the two most valuable gateways to the Southwestern Confederacy, and their fall meant not only the first break in the Confederate line, but as well, direct menace of Southern control of the Mississippi,and New Orleans. It foreshadowed the later evacuation of Nashville, before Grant.

In January, the month before, the chief theme of the Southern poets had been the meditated burning of the cotton crop, by the Southern planters, and this cry of “Burn the Cotton!” had brought forth at least one finely phrased poem. In February, the themes concerned the siege and evacuation of Donelson, and there began the days of wretched anxiety that were to possess the Confederacy until the end of July, when the land was to know that the Virginia part of her line still held, and Richmond was safe. In March McClellan assumed chief control of the Union forces, and began his Peninsula campaign, in response to Lincoln’s reiterated cry, “On to Richmond.” On the eighth of the month, the Confederate ram “Merrimac” out from Norfolk, succeeded in breaking the Federal blockade of Hampton Roads, much to the consternation of the North. The next day, however, in her encounter with the “cheesebox” Monitor, “the turtle” Merrimac was too badly hurt to be of further or immediate use, and the elation of the day before gave way to depression, which was in no way relieved by the events of the next few months. April saw the practical occupation of the Mississippi, with the fall of Corinth, the evacuation of Fort Pillow, and on the lower river, Farragut and Porter’s occupation of New Orleans. Of the Mississippi line, there remained to the Confederates only Vicksburg and Port Hudson. For the South everything depended on the defeat of McClellan’s “On to Richmond” march, since on the sixth of the month, Albert Sidney Johnston, attempting to retrieve the disaster to the middle line in Tennessee, had engaged Grant at Shiloh and Pittsburgh Landing, with tremendous carnage. The battle had proved an incomplete Confederate defeat, but what was worse for the South, had occasioned Johnston’s death.

To all of the many events of these opening months, the Southern poets made continuous response. National songs inspiring faith and courage, as for example, Hewitt’s “Lines Written During These Gloomy Times, To Him Who Despairs,” spoken at the Richmond “Varieties” by Mr. Ogden, Wednesday night, May 7, 1862,—occasional verses suggested by various incidents and episodes of the war’s progress, camp catches and marching ballads praising individual troops and regiments, the poets poured forth in unstinting measure. However, the death of Albert SidneyJohnston, at Shiloh, made a deeper impression on the poets than any event of these spring months. The affection and pure love which the Southerners lavished on their leaders is one of the several remarkable phenomena of the war. In no other war, and in no other country do the leaders appear to have been so beloved, so idolized. To us today, the expression of sentiment seems extravagant and excessive. One attribute it has, however, and one that is not to be denied. The praise of the South for her great men is always passionately sincere. During the war, the Southerners were, as never before, a band of brothers. There was, therefore, in their relations with their great men, a personal contact and appeal which in the North was not so keenly felt. Albert Sidney Johnston, who with Beauregard, had been one of the heroes of Manassas, was the first of Confederate heroes to fall. The South mourned him, as she did all of her sons who fell in her defence, truly and warmly.

When “Stonewall” Jackson died, after Chancellorsville, almost a year later, the outburst of the poets with dirges and elegies was quite typical. S. A. Link quotes T. C. de Leon, the editor ofSouth Songs(1866), as saying:13“I had in my collection no fewer than forty-seven monodies and dirges on Stonewall Jackson, some dozen on Ashby, and a score on Stuart.” Even today there are extant a round dozen of poems lamenting the death of Albert Sidney Johnston.

With all the sorrow that came to the South in these first months of depression, it is pleasant to see that she had not lost the saving humor and satiric sense that was so to strengthen her in the evil days which followed. On April sixteenth, for example, the Confederate Congress, alarmed by the condition of the Southern army, passed a measure for conscription. This was commented upon in theSouthern Literary Messengerfor the month, with a delightful epigram:

Let us hail in this crisis the prosperous omenThat our senate shows virtue higher than Roman;It has spurned all titles of honor, for ratherThan claim that each member be called “Conscript Father,”All self-aggrandizement they lay on the shelves,And declare all men conscripts, excepting themselves!

Let us hail in this crisis the prosperous omen

That our senate shows virtue higher than Roman;

It has spurned all titles of honor, for rather

Than claim that each member be called “Conscript Father,”

All self-aggrandizement they lay on the shelves,

And declare all men conscripts, excepting themselves!

During May and June of ’62 Jackson and Lee endeavored to arrest McClellan’s progress by their counter campaign in the Shenandoah. For the South it was a most successful move. Not only were the Southern arms carried to victory, but, through the unfortunate wounding of Joseph E. Johnston at Seven Pines, Lee, whose fame had grown in the Shenandoah, was placed in supreme command of the army of Northern Virginia. The turning point of the Southern fortunes had arrived. The battle of the Chickahominy, Malvern Hill, and the Seven Day’s fighting before Richmond, resulted in the defeat of McClellan’s campaign, and Richmond, for the next two years, was saved.

The army of the Confederacy, through the hardships and reverses of the first year of fighting, had become a seasoned and experienced (though, thanks to the blockade, a sadly ill-equipped) machine. Its three great leaders were Lee and Jackson and Beauregard. The Southerners at home were beginning to be accustomed to the privations of war. They were all as confident as ever of the righteousness of their war. Thus with a united Confederacy behind him and after another victory at “Second Manassas,” in ’62, Lee began his ill-starred Maryland campaign, as a counter-stroke against the Army of the Potomac. Lee’s part of the Confederate line, the Army of Northern Virginia, was the only part of the original battle wall still intact. Butler and his forces were in possession of New Orleans, the fall of Vicksburg, already in siege, was but a matter of time, and in the West, uncertainty still prevailed. John R. Thompson’s spirited “A Word to the West,” was written when Joseph E. Johnston was dispatched to relieve Vicksburg. It was at the same time an answer to A. J. Requier’s impassioned plea, “Clouds in the West.”

Those were anxious days, indeed. September saw the desperate conflict at Sharpsburg, the bloodiest single day’s battle of the war, which, although it was not a conclusive defeat, left the Confederate forces wretchedly crippled, and brought deepest anguish to the South. The gloom, however, was relieved in December by Lee’s victory at Fredericksburg. So the second year of war closed on a people and a nation, whose hearts were sick of the conflict. A second Christmas came to the Confederacy to find only the grim realities of life instead of the plumes and pomp of circumstance with which the war had begun. Mrs. Preston drew the picture for her countrywomen, inBeechenbrook:

How saddening the change is! The season’s the same,And yet it is Christmas in nothing but name:No merry expression we utter today—How can we, with hearts that refuse to be gay?We look back a twelfthmonth on many a browThat graced the home hearthstone—and where are they now?We think of the darling ones clustering there,But we see, through our tears, an untenanted chair.

How saddening the change is! The season’s the same,

And yet it is Christmas in nothing but name:

No merry expression we utter today—

How can we, with hearts that refuse to be gay?

We look back a twelfthmonth on many a brow

That graced the home hearthstone—and where are they now?

We think of the darling ones clustering there,

But we see, through our tears, an untenanted chair.

None the less, the South was still firm in her resolve to battle to the end. No sacrifice could be demanded so great that it would not be willingly offered on the altar of Liberty—

Thank God! there is joy in the sorrow for all—He fell—but it surely was blessed to fall;For never shall murmur be heard from the mouthOf mother or wife, through our beautiful South,Or sister or maiden yield grudging her part,Tho’ the price that she pays, must be coined from her heart.

Thank God! there is joy in the sorrow for all—

He fell—but it surely was blessed to fall;

For never shall murmur be heard from the mouth

Of mother or wife, through our beautiful South,

Or sister or maiden yield grudging her part,

Tho’ the price that she pays, must be coined from her heart.

1863 proved another “Year of terror, year of strife.” In the far South, Butler, in possession of New Orleans, had begun his reign of terror that was the savage inspiration of several poems. From Hayne, in particular, it wrung one of the most powerful lyrics of the war.14Up the river, the siege of Vicksburg still continued. How spring came to the land was most poignantly expressed by Henry Timrod, in “Spring.”

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the airWhich dwells in all things fair,Spring, with her golden suns and silver rainIs with us once again.Ah! who would couple thoughts of war and crimeWith such a blessed time.Who in the west-wind’s aromatic breathCould hear the call of Death!Oh! standing on this desecrated mould,Methinks that I behold,Lifting her bloody daisies up to God,Spring kneeling on the sod,And calling with the voice of her rillsUpon the ancient Hills,To fall and crush the tyrants and the slavesWho turn her meads to graves.

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the airWhich dwells in all things fair,Spring, with her golden suns and silver rainIs with us once again.

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air

Which dwells in all things fair,

Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain

Is with us once again.

Ah! who would couple thoughts of war and crimeWith such a blessed time.Who in the west-wind’s aromatic breathCould hear the call of Death!

Ah! who would couple thoughts of war and crime

With such a blessed time.

Who in the west-wind’s aromatic breath

Could hear the call of Death!

Oh! standing on this desecrated mould,Methinks that I behold,Lifting her bloody daisies up to God,Spring kneeling on the sod,

Oh! standing on this desecrated mould,

Methinks that I behold,

Lifting her bloody daisies up to God,

Spring kneeling on the sod,

And calling with the voice of her rillsUpon the ancient Hills,To fall and crush the tyrants and the slavesWho turn her meads to graves.

And calling with the voice of her rills

Upon the ancient Hills,

To fall and crush the tyrants and the slaves

Who turn her meads to graves.

Spring brought with it another bloody engagement and Confederate victory, the Battle of Chancellorsville, fought in the first four days of May. In that, however, it caused the death of Stonewall Jackson it was, next to the actual surrender of the Southern army, the worst blow the Confederacy could have sustained. His death, some one once said, was like the death of an army. Certainly it took from Lee, already overburdened, his good right hand.

The outburst of mourning that followed on Jackson’s death, has already been noted. The South and her poets loved him, not only as a leader, but personally, as a great and good man. He represented, moreover, that element of faith and religious fervor which was one of the essential factors of the Southern character, and without which the faith that sustained the Confederacy through four years of war, and the days of ruin that followed, is inexplicable.

“Let me say,” wrote Dr. Gildersleeve,15“that the bearing of the Confederates is not to be understood without taking into account the deep religious feeling of the army and its great leaders. It is a historical element, like any other, and is not to be passed over in summing up the forces of the conflict.” Many are the poems, the “Prayers for the South,” and the individual supplications which still remain to attest the fact. For example, there is the “Battle Hymn of the Virginia Soldier,” an anonymous lyric of striking beauty. There is the simpler, yet equally sincere and devout “Soldier’s Battle Prayer” from theSouthern Literary Messengerfor April, ’62. “A Mother’s Prayer,” is another very touching poem, in the same theme: and there could be no more impressive evidence of the true religious strain in Southern hearts, than the verses, terrible in their satire, and burning in their indignant phrases, “The War Christians’ Thanksgiving,” by S. Teackle Wallis of Maryland, occasioned by the Union proclamation for a day of prayer in the North, and “Respectfully Dedicated to the War-Clergy of the United States, Bishops, Priests andDeacons.” Written as it was by a prisoner then in the dungeon of Fort Warren, it is one of the most powerful human documents of the War. At the same time, the South held her own days of national prayer and fasting: and the verses which her poets wrote on these occasions, were quite in character with the national temper.

In the dark days of the next two years, the South was to find need for all her faith and confidence in the right. As if Jackson’s death was not sufficient evil, July first to third brought Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg, and on the day after this battle, the fall of Vicksburg, on the Mississippi. This meant the complete breaking of the Confederate line in the Southwest, and the return of the Army of Northern Virginia to its original position in Virginia. To complete the rout of the Confederate line, the Union forces now began to beat through the Southern defense in Tennessee and Kentucky, while Lee, back once more in Virginia, maneuvered to and fro against Meade. In the Southern campaign, the Confederates were steadily forced out of Tennessee, and Chattanooga, the objective of the Union troops. This, (which was with Richmond, the last important strategic point left to the Confederacy) was wrested from Bragg, and occupied by Rosecrans on the ninth. The latter thought that the fall of the city would be sufficient warning to the Southerner, and that he and his forces would at once withdraw. Far from doing that, however, Bragg engaged him, ten days later, at Chickamauga. It was a two days’ battle, on the nineteenth and twentieth, and was, next to Sharpsburg, the bloodiest engagement of the War. Though a Confederate victory, it was dearly bought. Yet even after all her suffering, the South willingly paid the price. Verses in the RichmondSentinelcalled the river “Chickamauga, The Stream of Death,” where the foe—

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