How mighty they, who steadfast stand
For Freedom’s Flag and Freedom’s Land!”
But the poem which created the greatest enthusiasm at the time of its publication, and which is still a most touchingly inspiring selection, was written at about the same time as the “Address to the American People,” possibly ten days later, and it was given the title of “Scott and the Veteran.” To fully appreciate the power of those verses, one needs to recall the hesitation, and the excitement, and the uncertainty which the nation felt in that dark hour. In a time like that, a few clear, unmistakable words work wonders with a people. Well does the writer recall the electrical effect of that poem in 1861, when read at a patriotic gathering of the yeomen, in a valley of the Berkshire Hills, in Western Massachusetts. The lines were not so polished, nor the words so choice as many other verses which Mr. Taylor had written; but they seem to come again as they were then recited, and awaken memories of mountain glens, and “mountain boys”; of camps and battles, of fields of cotton made fields of carnage; of loved faces looking skyward, cold and still; of a nation saved, redeemed, renewed. The three closing verses we have never forgotten.
“If they should fire on Pickens, let the Colonel in command
Put me upon the rampart, with the flagstaff in my hand:
No odds how hot the cannon-smoke, or how the shells may fly;
I’ll hold the Stars and Stripes aloft, and hold them till I die!
I’m ready, General, so you let a post to me be given,
Where Washington can see me, as he looks from highest heaven,
And say to Putnam at his side, or, may be, General Wayne;