“And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow, Knew it couldn’t be the lighter,—he could not have spoken so; And I tried to answer, ‘Here, sir!’ but I couldn’t make it go! For I couldn’t move a muscle, and I couldn’t make it go!
“Then I thought: It’s all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore: Just another foolish grapevine[1]—and it won’t come any more; But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before: ‘Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton!’ even plainer than before.
“That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light, And I stood beside the river, where we stood that Sunday night, Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, When the river was perdition and all hell was opposite!
“And the same old palpitation came again in all its power, And I heard a bugle sounding, as from some celestial tower; And the same mysterious voice said: ‘It is the eleventh hour! Orderly Sergeant—Robert Burton—It is the eleventh hour!’
“Doctor Austin!—what day is this?”—“It is Wednesday night, you know.” “Yes,—to-morrow will be New Year’s, and a right good time below! What time is it, Doctor Austin?”—“Nearly twelve.” “Then don’t you go!” Can it be that all this happened—all this—not an hour ago!
“There was where the gun-boats opened on the dark, rebellious host, And where Webster semi-circled his last guns upon the coast; There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghost,— And the same old transport came and took me over—or its ghost!
“And the old field lay before me all deserted far and wide; There was where they fell on Prentice,—there McClernand met the tide; There was where stern Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut’s heroes died,— Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died.
“There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin, There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rousseau waded in; Then McCook sent ’em to breakfast and we all began to win— There was where the grape-shot took me, just as we began to win.
“Now, a shroud of snow and silence over every thing was spread; And but for this old blue mantle and the old hat on my head, I should not have even doubted, to this moment I was dead,— For my footsteps were as silent as the snow upon the dead!
“Death and silence!—Death and silence! all around me as I sped! And behold a mighty Tower, as if builded to the dead,— To the Heaven of the heavens, lifted up its mighty head, Till the Stars and Stripes of Heaven all seemed waving from its head!