The rest of that gun’s crew,
(The captain of the gun was cut in two);
Then splintering and ripping went—
Nothing could be its continent.
In the narrow stream the Louisville,
Unhelmed, grew lawless; swung around,
And would have thumped and drifted, till
All the fleet was driven aground,
But for the timely order to retire.
Some damage from our fire, ’tis thought,
Was done the water-batteries of the Fort.
Little else took place that day,
Except the field artillery in line
Would now and then—for love, they say—
Exchange a valentine.
The old sharpshooting going on.
Some plan afoot as yet unknown;
So Friday closed round Donelson.
LATER.
Great suffering through the night—
A stinging one. Our heedless boys
Were nipped like blossoms. Some dozen
Hapless wounded men were frozen.
During day being struck down out of sight,
And help-cries drowned in roaring noise,
They were left just where the skirmish shifted—
Left in dense underbrush snow-drifted.
Some, seeking to crawl in crippled plight,
So stiffened—perished.
Yet in spite
Of pangs for these, no heart is lost.
Hungry, and clothing stiff with frost,
Our men declare a nearing sun
Shall see the fall of Donelson.
And this they say, yet not disown
The dark redoubts round Donelson,
And ice-glazed corpses, each a stone—
A sacrifice to Donelson;
They swear it, and swerve not, gazing on
A flag, deemed black, flying from Donelson.
Some of the wounded in the wood
Were cared for by the foe last night,
Though he could do them little needed good,
Himself being all in shivering plight.
The rebel is wrong, but human yet;
He’s got a heart, and thrusts a bayonet.
He gives us battle with wondrous will—
This bluff’s a perverted Bunker Hill.
The stillness stealing through the throng
The silent thought and dismal fear revealed;
They turned and went,
Musing on right and wrong
And mysteries dimly sealed—
Breasting the storm in daring discontent;
The storm, whose black flag showed in heaven,
As if to say no quarter there was given
To wounded men in wood,
Or true hearts yearning for the good—
All fatherless seemed the human soul.
But next day brought a bitterer bowl—
On the bulletin-board this stood:
Saturday morning at 3 A.M.
A stir within the Fort betrayed
That the rebels were getting under arms;
Some plot these early birds had laid.
But a lancing sleet cut him who stared
Into the storm. After some vague alarms,
Which left our lads unscared,
Out sallied the enemy at dim of dawn,
With cavalry and artillery, and went
In fury at our environment.
Under cover of shot and shell
Three columns of infantry rolled on,
Vomited out of Donelson—
Rolled down the slopes like rivers of hell,
Surged at our line, and swelled and poured
Like breaking surf. But unsubmerged
Our men stood up, except where roared
The enemy through one gap. We urged
Our all of manhood to the stress,
But still showed shattered in our desperateness.
Back set the tide,
But soon afresh rolled in;
And so it swayed from side to side—
Far batteries joining in the din,
Though sharing in another fray—
Till all became an Indian fight,
Intricate, dusky, stretching far away,
Yet not without spontaneous plan
However tangled showed the plight:
Duels all over ’tween man and man,
Duels on cliff-side, and down in ravine,
Duels at long range, and bone to bone;
Duels every where flitting and half unseen.
Only by courage good as their own,
And strength outlasting theirs,
Did our boys at last drive the rebels off.
Yet they went not back to their distant lairs
In strong-hold, but loud in scoff
Maintained themselves on conquered ground—
Uplands; built works, or stalked around.
Our right wing bore this onset. Noon
Brought calm to Donelson.
The reader ceased; the storm beat hard;
’Twas day, but the office-gas was lit;
Nature retained her sulking-fit,
In her hand the shard.
Flitting faces took the hue
Of that washed bulletin-board in view,
And seemed to bear the public grief
As private, and uncertain of relief;
Yea, many an earnest heart was won,
As broodingly he plodded on,
To find in himself some bitter thing,
Some hardness in his lot as harrowing
As Donelson.
That night the board stood barren there,
Oft eyed by wistful people passing,
Who nothing saw but the rain-beads chasing
Each other down the wafered square,
As down some storm-beat grave-yard stone.
But next day showed—
MORE NEWS LAST NIGHT.
STORY OF SATURDAY AFTERNOON.
VICISSITUDES OF THE WAR.
The damaged gun-boats can’t wage fight
For days; so says the Commodore.
Thus no diversion can be had.
Under a sunless sky of lead
Our grim-faced boys in blackened plight
Gaze toward the ground they held before,
And then on Grant. He marks their mood,
And hails it, and will turn the same to good.
Spite all that they have undergone,
Their desperate hearts are set upon
This winter fort, this stubborn fort,
This castle of the last resort,
This Donelson.
1 P.M.
An order given
Requires withdrawal from the front
Of regiments that bore the brunt
Of morning’s fray. Their ranks all riven
Are being replaced by fresh, strong men.
Great vigilance in the foeman’s Den;
He snuffs the stormers. Need it is
That for that fell assault of his,
That rout inflicted, and self-scorn—
Immoderate in noble natures, torn
By sense of being through slackness overborne—
The rebel be given a quick return:
The kindest face looks now half stern.
Balked of their prey in airs that freeze,
Some fierce ones glare like savages.
And yet, and yet, strange moments are—
Well—blood, and tears, and anguished War!
The morning’s ba
ttle-ground is seen
In lifted glades, like meadows rare;
The blood-drops on the snow-crust there
Like clover in the white-weed show—
Flushed fields of death, that call again—
Call to our men, and not in vain,
For that way must the stormers go.
3 P.M.
The work begins.
Light drifts of men thrown forward, fade
In skirmish-line along the slope,
Where some dislodgments must be made
Ere the stormer with the strong-hold cope.
Lew Wallace, moving to retake
The heights late lost—
(Herewith a break.
Storms at the West derange the wires.
Doubtless, ere morning, we shall hear
The end; we look for news to cheer—
Let Hope fan all her fires.)
Next day in large bold hand was seen
The closing bulletin:
VICTORY!
Our troops have retrieved the day
By one grand surge along the line;
The spirit that urged them was divine.
The first works flooded, naught could stay
The stormers: on! still on!
Bayonets for Donelson!
Over the ground that morning lost
Rolled the blue billows, tempest-tossed,
Following a hat on the point of a sword.
Spite shell and round-shot, grape and canister,
Up they climbed without rail or banister—
Up the steep hill-sides long and broad,
Driving the rebel deep within his works.
’Tis nightfall; not an enemy lurks
In sight. The chafing men
Fret for more fight:
“To-night, to-night let us take the Den!”
But night is treacherous, Grant is wary;
Of brave blood be a little chary.
Patience! the Fort is good as won;
To-morrow, and into Donelson.
LATER AND LAST.
THE FORT IS OURS.
A flag came out at early morn
Bringing surrender. From their towers
Floats out the banner late their scorn.
In Dover, hut and house are full
Of rebels dead or dying.
The National flag is flying
From the crammed court-house pinnacle.
Great boat-loads of our wounded go
To-day to Nashville. The sleet-winds blow;
But all is right: the fight is won,
The winter-fight for Donelson.
Hurrah!
The spell of old defeat is broke,
The habit of victory begun;
Grant strikes the war’s first sounding stroke
At Donelson.
For lists of killed and wounded, see
The morrow’s dispatch: to-day ’tis victory.
The man who read this to the crowd
Shouted as the end he gained;
And though the unflagging tempest rained,
They answered him aloud.
And hand grasped hand, and glances met
In happy triumph; eyes grew wet.
O, to the punches brewed that night
Went little water. Windows bright
Beamed rosy on the sleet without,
And from the cross street came the frequent shout;
While some in prayer, as these in glee,
Blessed heaven for the winter-victory.
But others were who wakeful laid
In midnight beds, and early rose,
And, feverish in the foggy snows,
Snatched the damp paper—wife and maid.
The death-list like a river flows
Down the pale sheet,
And there the whelming waters meet.
Ah God! may Time with happy haste
Bring wail and triumph to a waste,
And war be done;
The battle flag-staff fall athwart
The curs’d ravine, and wither; naught
Be left of trench or gun;
The bastion, let it ebb away,
Washed with the river bed; and Day
In vain seek Donelson.
The Cumberland
(March, 1862)
SOME names there are of telling sound,
Whose voweled syllables free
Are pledge that they shall ever live renowned;
Such seems to be
A Frigate’s name (by present glory spanned)—
The Cumberland.
Sounding name as ere was sung,
Flowing, rolling on the tongue—
Cumberland! Cumberland!
She warred and sunk. There’s no denying
That she was ended—quelled;
And yet her flag above her fate is flying,
As when it swelled
Unswallowed by the swallowing sea: so grand—
The Cumberland.
Goodly name as ere was sung,
Roundly rolling on the tongue—
Cumberland! Cumberland!
What need to tell how she was fought—
The sinking flaming gun—
The gunner leaping out the port—
Washed back, undone!
Her dead unconquerably manned
The Cumberland.
Noble name as ere was sung,
Slowly roll it on the tongue—
Cumberland! Cumberland!
Long as hearts shall share the flame
Which burned in that brave crew,
Her fame shall live—outlive the victor’s name;
For this is due.
Your flag and flag-staff shall in story stand—
Cumberland!
Sounding name as ere was sung,
Long they’ll roll it on the tongue—
Cumberland! Cumberland!
In the Turret
(March, 1862)
YOUR honest heart of duty, Worden,
So helped you that in fame you dwell;
You bore the first iron battle’s burden
Sealed as in a diving-bell.
Alcides, groping into haunted hell
To bring forth King Admetus’ bride,
Braved naught more vaguely direful and untried.
What poet shall uplift his charm,
Bold Sailor, to your height of daring,
And interblend therewith the calm,
And build a goodly style upon your bearing.
Escaped the gale of outer ocean—
Cribbed in a craft which like a log
Was washed by every billow’s motion—
By night you heard of Og
The huge; nor felt your courage clog
At tokens of his onset grim:
You marked the sunk ship’s flag-staff slim,
Lit by her burning sister’s heart;
You marked, and mused: “Day brings the trial:
Then be it proved if I have part
With men whose manhood never took denial.”
A prayer went up—a champion’s. Morning
Beheld you in the Turret walled
By adamant, where a spirit forewarning
And all-deriding called:
“Man, darest thou—desperate, unappalled—
Be first to lock thee in the armored tower?
I have thee now; and what the battle-hour
To me shall bring—heed well—thou’lt share;
This plot-work, planned to be the foeman’s terror,
To thee may prove a goblin-snare;
Its very strength and cunning—monstrous error!”
“Stand up, my heart; be strong; what matter
If here thou seest thy welded tomb?
And let huge Og with thunders batter—
Duty be still my doom,
Though drowning come in liquid gloom;
First duty, duty next, and duty last;
Ay, Turret, rivet me here to duty fast!”—
So nerved, you fought, wisely and well;
And live, twice live in life and story;
But over your Monitor dirges swell,
In wind and wave that keep the rites of glory.
The Temeraire c
(Supposed to have been suggested to an Englishman of
the old order by the fight of the Monitor and Merrimac)
THE gloomy hulls, in armor grim,
Like clouds o’er moors have met,
And prove that oak, and iron, and man
Are tough in fibre yet.
But Splendors wane. The sea-fight yields
No front of old display;
The garniture, emblazonment,
And heraldry all decay.
Towering afar in parting light,
The fleets like Albion’s forelands shine—
The full-sailed fleets, the shrouded show
Of Ships-of-the-Line.
The fighting Temeraire,
Built of a thousand trees,
Lunging out her lightnings,
And beetling o’er the seas—
O Ship, how brave and fair,
That fought so oft and well,
On open decks you manned the gun
Armorial.d
What cheerings did you share,
Impulsive in the van,
When down upon leagued France and Spain
We English ran—
The freshet at your bowsprit
Like the foam upon the can.
Bickering, your colors
Licked up the Spanish air,
You flapped with flames of battle-flags—
Your challenge, Temeraire!
The rear ones of our fleet
They yearned to share your place,
Herman Melville- Complete Poems Page 3