Loud and hearty the cheers of the regiments upon the other shore. The men of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts would give anything to be there. All the while the cannon are roaring, hurling solid shot and shell into the doomed city.
"They leaped in the rocking shallops.
Ten offered where one could go;
And the breeze was alive with laughter
Till the boatmen began to row.
"Then the shore, where the Rebels harbored,
Was fringed with a gush of flame,
And buzzing, like bees, o'er the water
The swarms of their bullets came.
"Not a whisper! Each man was conscious
He stood in the sight of death;
So he bowed to the awful presence,
And treasured his living breath.
"And many a brave, stout fellow,
Who sprang in the boats with mirth,
Ere they made that fatal crossing,
Was a load of lifeless earth.
"But yet the boats moved onward;
Through fire and lead they drove,
With the dark, still mass within them,
And the floating stars above.
"Cheer after cheer we sent them,
As only armies can,—
Cheers for old Massachusetts,
Cheers for young Michigan!
"They formed in line of battle;
Not a man was out of place.
Then with levelled steel they hurled them
Straight in the Rebels' face.
"'O help me, help me, comrade!
For tears my eyelids drown,
As I see their starry banners
Stream up the smoking town.'"[10]