And "How many miles to the Junction?"
The Rhode Island boys cheered us on out of sight,
After giving the following injunction:
"Just keep up your courage, you 'll come out all right,
For it's only nine miles to the Junction."
They gave us hot coffee, a grasp of the hand,
Which cheered and refreshed our exhaustion;
We reached in six hours the long-promised land,
For't was only nine miles to the Junction.
There were not many attempts to describe the battles in which the soldiers took part, and they were left to the poets, who did not see them, and had to depend, not very successfully, upon their imagination. There was, however, a ballad of the Seven Days' Fight before Richmond, evidently written by a soldier, and of some force and vigor. It begins: —