Perhaps they seemed little or nothing,
Our losses, our toil, and our pain,
The rush of the war ponies, tearing
Through cornfields and yellowing grain;
The whoop of the hostile at midnight,
The glare of the flaming log shacks,
A beacon of hate and destruction
As we fled, with the foe at our backs;
Our women and young driven, weeping,
Exhausted, half-naked, afraid,