“What troops are these?”
Some one replied, “Hays’ Mississippi Brigade.”
He turned quickly in an attempt to escape. A shower of bullets fell about him. He leaned forward as if to protect himself, but a ball struck him in the spine. He reeled and fell.
Under the white flag of truce, General Lee sent his remains to General Hooker, who had the body transported to New York, where it was interred with becoming honors.
“Oh, evil the black shroud of night of Chantilly,
That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried.”
KEARNEY AT SEVEN PINES
SO that soldierly legend is still on its journey,—
That story of Kearney who knew not how to yield!
’Twas the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney,
Against twenty thousand he rallied the field.
Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest,
Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine,
Where the aim from the thicket was surest and nighest,—
No charge like Phil Kearney’s along the whole line.
When the battle went ill, and the bravest were solemn
Near the dark Seven Pines, where we still held our ground
He rode down the length of the withering column,
And his heart at our war cry leapt up with a bound.
He snuffed like his charger, the wind of the powder,—
His sword waved us on and we answered the sign;
Loud our cheer as we rushed, but his laugh rang the louder,
“There’s the devil’s own fun, boys, along the whole line!”
How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten,
In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth!
He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten,
But a soldier’s glance shot from his visor beneath.
Up came the reserves to the mellay infernal,
Asking where to go in,—through the clearing or pine?
“O, anywhere! Forward! ’Tis all the same, Colonel!
You’ll find lovely fighting along the whole line!”