In tearful welcome on each gallant son!
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 the South Carolinian. At this time, too, there appeared the fervid “Spirit of ’60,” in the Columbus Times, 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 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 the Southern Literary Messenger for 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 seems closely 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.