Down the dismounted cavalrymen fall by ranks,
The Infantry an adamantine wall on the flanks,
Close up briskly on right and left receive
The enflading fire from the brazen crest, breathe
They not a word in complaint, freedom's impulse obey,
Following Butler to New Market heights that day.
Mow the black axe-men tear from the sod the huge logs
Which science and treason placed deep in the bogs,
Skill gave way to freedom's might in the dastardly fight,
And the black brigade, with capless rifles and starry light,
Go through the gap to the Rebel's hell in gallant array,
Following Butler to New Market heights that day.
Volley after volley poured, cannon after cannon roared,
Like reapers in a field a thousand artillerists mowed
In the gap, the brigade's advancing files of four,
Yet on through the flood of death still the brigade pour.
Their battle cry, Remember Fort Pillow, the enemy dismay,
Following Butler to New Market heights that day.
Hark! above the raging carnage swells the shout,
'No quarter to Niggers,' with hope of a rout,
But the brigade was not deterred, they retaliate
The defiant yells, Remember Fort Pillow, the fate
Of its garrison how it fell, on through the fray,
Following Butler to New Market heights that day.
On for the redoubt over the rampart they go,
Not a rifle was fired, not a shot at the foe,
By the weight of the column the redoubt is theirs,
And the enemy routed, the chivalry scattered everywhere
Victorious shouts the empyrean ring in repay,
Following Butler to New Market heights that day.
In the track of the brigade lay the loyal dead,
Afric's hecatomb, her lineage's pyre to liberty wed,
Their upturned countenances to the burning sun,
Were appeals to Mars for their race's freedom won,
Five hundred lives on the patriotic alter lay,
Following Butler to New Market heights that day.
No marble shaft or granate pile mark the spot
Where they fell—their bones lay harvested from sun-rot,
In the Nation's cities of the dead. Hannibal led
No braver than they through Alpine snow, nor wed
To freedom were Greece's phalanx more, who o'er gory clay
Followed Butler to New Market heights that day.
[33] See report of 29th Regiment Connecticut Colored Volunteers in appendix.
[A](Author in the N. Y. Globe.)]
[B](Author in "Voice of a New Race.")