Roared like the voice of a lion brave Hancock fierce for the fray:
"Hurry the reserve battalions; bring every banner and gun:
Charge on the enemy, Colvill, stay the advance of his lines:
Here—by the God of our Fathers!—here shall the battle be won,
Or we'll die for the banner of Freedom on the Gettysburg hills today."
Shrill rang the voice of our Colonel, the bravest and best of the brave:
"Forward, the First Minnesota! Forward, and follow me, men!"
Gallantly forward he strode, the bravest and best of the brave.
Two hundred and fifty and two—all that were left of us then—
Two hundred and fifty and two fearless, unfaltering men
Dashed at a run for the enemy, sprang to the charge with a yell.
On us their batteries thundered solid shot, grape shot and shell;
Never a man of us faltered, but many a comrade fell.
"Forward, the First Minnesota!"—like tigers we sprang at our foes;
Grim gaps of death in our ranks, but ever the brave ranks close:
Down went our sergeant and colors—defiant our colors arose!
"Fire!" At the flash of our rifles—grim gaps in the ranks of our foes!
"Forward, the First Minnesota!" our brave Colonel cried as he fell
Gashed and shattered and mangled—"Forward!" he cried as he fell.
Over him mangled and bleeding frenzied we sprang to the fight,
Over him mangled and bleeding we sprang to the jaws of hell.
Flashed in our faces their rifles, roared on the left and the right,
Swarming around us by thousands we fought them with desperate might.
Five times our banner went down—five times our banner arose,
Tattered and torn but defiant, and flapped in the face of our foes.
Hold them? We held them at bay, as a bear holds the hounds on his track,
Knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder, we met them and staggered them back.
Desperate, frenzied, bewildered, blindly they fired on their own;
Like reeds in the whirl of the cyclone columns and colors went down.
Banner of stars on the right! Hurrah! gallant Gibbon is come!
Thunder of guns on the left! Hurrah! 'tis our cannon that boom!
Solid-shot, grape-shot and canister crash like the cracking of doom.
Baffled, bewildered and broken the ranks of the enemy yield;
Panic-struck, routed and shattered they fly from the fate of the field.
Hold them? We held them at bay, as a bear holds the hounds on his track;
Knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder, we met them and staggered them back;
Two hundred and fifty and two, we held their mad thousands at bay,
Met them and baffled and broke them, turning the tide of the day;
Two hundred and fifty and two when the sun hung low in heaven,
But ah! when the stars rode over we numbered but forty-seven:
Dead on the field or wounded the rest of our regiment lay;
Never a man of us faltered or flinched in the fire of the fray,
For we bore the banner of Freedom on the Gettysburg hills that day.
Tears for our fallen comrades—cover their graves with flowers,
For they fought and fell like Spartans for this glorious land of ours.
They fell, but they fell victorious, for the Rebel ranks were riven,
And over our land united—one nation from sea to sea,
Over the grave of Treason, over millions of men made free,
Triumphant the flag of our fathers waves in the winds of heaven—
Striped with the blood of her heroes she waves in the winds of heaven.
Tears for our fallen comrades—cover their graves with flowers,
For they fought and fell like Spartans for this glorious land of ours;
And oft shall our children's children garland their graves and say:
"They bore the banner of Freedom on the Gettysburg hills that day."
ADDRESS TO THE FLAG
[After the Battle of Gettysburg.]
Float in the winds of heaven, O tattered Flag!
Emblem of hope to all the misruled world:
Thy field of golden stars is rent and red—
Dyed in the blood of brothers madly spilled
By brother-hands upon the mother-soil.
O fatal Upas of the savage Nile,[[CU]]
Transplanted hither—rooted—multiplied—
Watered with bitter tears and sending forth
Thy venom-vapors till the land is mad,
Thy day is done. A million blades are swung
To lay thy jungles open to the sun;
A million torches fire thy blasted boles;
A million hands shall drag thy fibers out
And feed the fires till every root and branch
Lie in dead ashes. From the blackened soil,
Enriched and moistened with fraternal blood,
Beside the palm shall spring the olive-tree,
And every breeze shall waft the happy song
Of Freedom crowned with olive-twigs and flowers.
Yea, Patriot-Flag of our old patriot-sires,
Honored—victorious on an hundred fields
Where side by side for Freedom's mother-land
Her Southern sons and Northern fighting fell,
And side by side in glorious graves repose,