The Southern war poetry of the Civil War

by Esther Parker Ellinger

“Our own poetry,” he continues elsewhere,[3] “excels as a recognizable voice in utterance of the emotions of a people. The storm and stress of youth have been upon us, and the nation has not lacked its lyric cry.... One who underrates the significance of our literature, prose or verse, as both the expression and the stimulant of national feeling, as of import in the past and to the future of America, is deficient in that critical insight which can judge even of its own day unwarped by personal taste or deference to public impression. He shuts his eyes to the fact that at times, notably throughout the years resulting in the Civil War, this literature has been a ‘force.’”

That the poetry written in the Confederate States during the days of the Civil War was a “force” in potency second only to the army in the field, is a fact that has been too long unnoticed by commentators on the literature of our country. In the rare cases when its influence was recognized, its quality has been mistaken, its character misunderstood, its quantity and volume under-estimated. Due perhaps in part to the intensity of feeling engendered between victors and vanquished in the Lost Cause, the darkness of the days following the close of the war effectively hid from view and kept from national circulation the verses and songs which the war had produced in the South. This was the primary cause which prevented them from attaining the universal and critical appreciation of their value that was the right of so large and important a movement in the history of American letters. The ruin of the South financially and economically, prevented her from calling attention to her own achievement: while the widespread destruction and dispersal of property, as well as the necessarily ephemeral nature of many of her publications, offers not the least satisfactory explanation for the comparative restriction of Southern Civil War verse to the land whence it sprang.

If, however, to the modern critic these poems and songs are comparatively unknown, by the Southerner of Civil War days their value was understood and appreciated to the full. Within a year after war broke out, early in the days of ’62, at least two definite attempts to assemble the fast multiplying verses and songs were being made, the first[4] by Professor Chase and John R. Thompson of Richmond, editor of the Southern Field and Fireside; the second by “Bohemian,” Mr. W. G. Shepperson, who was a correspondent for the Richmond Despatch. The latter effort resulted, in the spring of ’62, in a volume of “War Songs of the South,” containing some one hundred and eight poems, and with the following significant words in the Preface:

“Written contemporaneously with the achievements which they celebrate, [these poems] possess all the vitality and force of the testimony of eye-witnesses to a glorious combat, or even of actors in it. The spontaneous outburst of popular feeling, they give the lie to the assertion of our enemy that this revolution is the work of politicians and party leaders alone.

“Through the Poets’ Corner in the newspaper, they have sped their flight from and to the heart and mind of the people. They showed which way the wind was blowing when the war arose ‘a little cloud like a man’s hand,’ and black as the heavens may now appear, they bravely sing above the storm, soaring so high that their wings are brightened by the sun behind the clouds.

“They cannot fail to challenge the attention of the philosophic historian by their origin, and their influence.... In every age, martial songs have wrought wonders in struggles for national independence.

“And surely these newspaper waifs have played no unimportant part in the actual drama which surrounds us....

“A single volume of ordinary size cannot contain a tithe of the songs which have already appeared, and are daily appearing. This, however, offers enough to show that during the present eventful period, what was said of the early Spaniard is true of the Southron: ‘He has been unconsciously surrounding history with the light of imagination, linking great names with great deeds, concentrating those universal recollections in which everyone feels he has a part, and silently building up the fabric of national poetry on the basis of national enthusiasm.’”

Fifty years later another Southerner, William Malone Baskerville,[5] wrote this: “A young Marylander, a stripling just from college, was dreaming dreams from which he was awakened by the guns of Sumter. One sleepless night in April, 1861, he wrote the poem, ‘My Maryland,’ which may not inaptly be called the first note of the new Southern literature ... ‘new in strength, new in depth, new in the largest elements of beauty and truth.’ He that had ears to hear might have heard in the booming of those guns not only the signal for a gigantic contest, but also the proclamation of the passing away of the old order, and along with it the waxflowery, amateurish and sentimental race of Southern writers.” The passing of this school, of course, meant the passing of what usually has been recognized as the typical literary mode of the South. It meant, however, much more than this: for the changing order was made possible only by the passing of the particular type of civilization that had fostered it, and this, in its turn indicated a complete and thorough renaissance not only of life and letters, but also of Southern soul and spirit.

The type of civilization that endured in the South, to the days of the Civil War, was one of the most picturesque periods of society that can be imagined, but not one that induced or encouraged serious literature. In the North, on the other hand, where there were to be found many large cities as centres of population, and the great national colleges, literature had developed with the people. The earliest settlers of New England had been of a religious, thoughtful, and philosophical disposition, and their manners and mode of life had served to strengthen these tendencies in their descendants. Even the climate of the country had a marked influence in emphasizing New England’s bent towards literature. Rigorous winters and inclement temperatures led to long enforced periods of indoor life, conducive to study and reflection. The effort and stress required to wring a living from the stubborn soil made them an active and a vigorous people. At the same time the comparatively small size of their territory, the number of their towns and cities and the ease of travel over the hard and rocky roads brought them much in contact with each other, and insured communication of thought. Theirs was a civilization founded on civil ties. Farms were small, cultivated usually by the family of the owners, with a few “hired help,” and centered about the smaller villages and townships, which in their turn were satellites of the towns. The towns, again, clustered around the cities, which were thus as hubs in the wheels of society. The rising individual graduated from the town to the city, where were gathered the leading spirits and forces of the day. From the cities back to the smaller communities returned the great newspapers and magazines, whose spiritual and mental authority went unchallenged, and which served the more to amalgamate into a living thoughtful whole the inhabitants of the farthest corner of the countryside. For everyone life was hard and plain; and there followed the accepted corollary of high and resolute thought.