Give her, unspotted, to the God of Fire.
Gather around her sacred ashes, then,
Sprinkle the cherished dust with crimson rain
Die! as becomes a race of freeborn men,
Who will not crouch to wear the bondsmen’s chain.
To the poets of the South, the fate of this city was particularly significant, for if any place may be said to have been the literary centre of the Confederacy, it was Charleston. There, for example, lived Simms and Timrod and Hayne, the leaders of her lyrists, who, in the general destruction of the city, suffered the loss of their homes and libraries. Had Charleston been spared to them and to others, the literary history of the South in the days after the war might have been a different tale. As it was, the disaster to each of these particular men proved irretrievable.
Lee, during the summer months, though stoutly resisting, and adroitly circumventing the enemy at nearly every turn, was nevertheless being forced back against Richmond. The Battles of the Wilderness, May fifth and sixth, the Spottsylvania fighting, on the eighth to the twentieth, and Cold Harbor, on June third, resulted in advantage first to one side and to the other. Then the conflict swung below Richmond to Petersburg, and for the next month, the Union forces were halted before that strongly fortified town. The “Battle of the Crater” was fought on July thirtieth, over ground destroyed by Federal mines, but it was unsuccessful for the Unionists, and their losses were so terrific that for the next winter, at least, Richmond was safe.
The Petersburg siege is noteworthy since during it were written some of the most attractive lyrics of the war, like “Dreaming in the Trenches,” by Gordon McCabe, and “A Bloody Day is Dawning,” by William Munford. It is remarkable that such freshness of phrase could be given to men wearied by three years of disappointing struggle. One may imagine that this is but another indication of the vitality and spirit that was an integral part of the Southern character.
By the end of ’64, the Confederate battle wall had been crumpled and was beaten in, everywhere except in Virginia, before Richmond. Peace for a stricken land was the immediate concern alike of poets and people. Beyond that they did not trust themselves to think: but peace was the universal prayer.
Peace! Peace! God of our fathers, grant us Peace!