Or mark the spot with loving hands, where sleeps the form so dear;
But comrades knew their honest worth, the sacrifice they made,
And they have marked with thoughtful care where sleep our fallen braves.
III.
We left our heroes at Fair Oakes, we dug their honored graves,
Beside the Chickahominy, with its dull, dreary waves.
Not alone they fell in battle, not alone by steel and lead,
The fell malaria swept them off, as fruits fall, ripe and red.
And where the southern laurels bloom, and oleanders wave,
In the swamp lands, drear and deadly, they sleep, our fallen braves.