Opened loudly a hundred of cannon or more,
And the path of the balls was mapped out in our gore.
We were brave, but some tasks are too fearful for man;
We faltered, we turned—who could help it?—we ran.
We tried it again with another rebuff;
And again, till we found we’d been hammered enough;
And then by the river at close of the day,
With the wounded, the men who came out of the fray—
And I tell you right glad to be certainly back—
Lay there on the ground. ’Twas a mournful bivouac,