“Who talks of Coercion? Who dares to deny
A resolute people the right to be free?”
There is the anonymous “Prosopopeia,” also in the Southern Literary Messenger, which with Timrod’s “Cry to Arms,” written a little later, is the best of the verse of this kind which the period produced. Another widely known poem of the month was St. George Tucker’s “The Southern Cross,” verses patterned after Key’s “Star Spangled Banner,” and which had enormous vogue, and was even set to music, later on. This in so far as can be determined is the first poetic use of the Southern Cross as the symbol of the Confederacy, a figure that was later adopted for the design of her flag, and which finally became, not only her ensign, but as well a symbol of the righteousness of her faith and cause. James Barron Hope’s “Oath of Freedom,”—
Born free, thus we resolve to live:
By Heaven, we will be free.
By all the stars which burn on high,
By the green earth—the mighty sea—
By God’s unshaken majesty
We will be free or die!—
is of a kind with Thompson’s “Coercion,” and was widely copied during this time. Another poem must be mentioned here, as presaging the turmoil to follow, “Fort Sumter,” by “H.,” in the New Orleans Delta, with the command of its refrain, “Carolina, take the Fort.”