A WOMAN OF THE WAR.
By ROSSITER JOHNSON.
[The tenderly pathetic story told in this poem is true. Its heroine was Margaret Augusta Peterson, a volunteer nurse in St. Mary’s Hospital at Rochester, New York. She died in the manner related, on the first of September, 1864, and lies buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, as does also the young surgeon, her lover.—Editor.]
And between the spring and the summer time, Or ever the lilac’s bloom is shed, When they come with banners and wreaths and rhyme, To deck the tombs of the nation’s dead,
They find there a little flag in the grass, And fling a handful of roses down, And pause a moment before they pass To the captain’s grave with the gilded crown.
But if perchance they seek to recall What name, what deeds, these honors declare, They cannot tell, they are silent all As the noiseless harebell nodding there.
She was tall, with an almost manly grace, And young, with strange wisdom for one so young, And fair with more than a woman’s face; With dark, deep eyes, and a mirthful tongue.
The poor and the fatherless knew her smile; The friend in sorrow had seen her tears; She had studied the ways of the rough world’s guile, And read the romance of historic years.
What she might have been in these times of ours, At once it is easy and hard to guess; For always a riddle are half-used powers, And always a power is lovingness.
But her fortunes fell upon evil days— If days are evil when evil dies,— And she was not one who could stand at gaze Where the hopes of humanity fall and rise.
Nor could she dance to the viol’s tune, When the drum was throbbing throughout the land, Or dream in the light of the summer moon When Treason was clenching his mailèd hand.
Through the long gray hospital’s corridor She journeyed many a mournful league, And her light foot fell on the oaken floor As if it never could know fatigue.
She stood by the good old surgeon’s side, And the sufferers smiled as they saw her stand; She wrote, and the mothers marvelled and cried At their darling soldiers’ feminine hand.
She was last in the ward when the lights burned low, And sleep called a truce to his foeman Pain; At the midnight cry she was first to go, To bind up the bleeding wound again.
For sometimes the wreck of a man would rise, Weird and gaunt in the watch-lamp’s gleam, And tear away bandage and splints and ties, Fighting the battle all o’er in his dream.
No wonder the youngest surgeon felt A charm in the presence of that brave soul, Through weary weeks, as she nightly knelt With the letter from home or the doctor’s dole.
He heard her called, and he heard her blessed, With many a patriot’s parting breath; And ere his soul to itself confessed, Love leaped to life in those vigils of death.
“Oh, fly to your home!” came a whisper dread, “For now the pestilence walks by night.” “The greater the need of me here,” she said, And bared her arm for the lancet’s bite.
Was there death, green death, in the atmosphere? Was the bright steel poisoned? Who can tell! Her weeping friends gathered beside her bier, And the clergyman told them all was well.
Well—alas that it should be so! When a nation’s debt reaches reckoning-day— Well for it to be able, but woe To the generation that’s called to pay!
Down from the long gray hospital came Every boy in blue who could walk the floor; The sick and the wounded, the blind and the lame, Formed two long files from her father’s door.
There was grief in many a manly breast, While men’s tears fell as the coffin passed; And thus she went to the world of rest, Martial and maidenly up to the last.
And that youngest surgeon, was he to blame?— He held the lancet—Heaven only knows. No matter; his heart broke all the same, And he laid him down, and never arose.
So Death received, in his greedy hand, Two precious coins of the awful price That purchased freedom for this dear land— For master and bondman—yea, bought it twice.
Such fates too often such women are for! God grant the Republic a large increase, To match the heroes in time of war, And mother the children in time of peace.
GLORY HALLELUJAH! OR,
JOHN BROWN’S BODY.
[The strong hold which this song and the three which follow it (“Marching thro’ Georgia,” “The Battle-Cry of Freedom” and “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp”) had upon the favor of the Union soldiers during the war entitles them to insertion here in spite of their lack of poetic merit. The critics, from the time of Mr. Richard Grant White’s collection until now, have condemned them as doggerel, but songs that were sung with enthusiasm by all the soldiers of the republic during the dark years of the Civil War cannot be denied the possession of merit, whether criticism is able to recognize it or not.—Editor.]
GLORY HALLELUJAH! OR
JOHN BROWN’S BODY.
Chorus.—Glory! Glory Hallelujah! Glory! Glory Hallelujah! Glory! Glory Hallelujah! His soul is marching on.
He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord! He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord! He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord! His soul is marching on.—Chorus.
John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back. His soul is marching on.—Chorus.
His pet lambs will meet him on the way, And they’ll go marching on.—Chorus.
They’ll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree, As they go marching on.—Chorus.
Now for the Union let’s give three rousing cheers, As we go marching on. Hip, hip, hip, hip, Hurrah!
