Then the gallant McDowell
Drove madly the rowel
Of spur that had never been "won" by him,
In the flank of his steed,
To accomplish a deed,
Such as never before had been done by him;
And the battery called Sherman's
Was wheeled into line
While the beer-drinking Germans
From Neckar and Rhine,
With minie and yager,
Come on with a swagger,
Full of fury and lager
(The day and the pageant were equally fine).
Oh! the fields were so green, and the sky was so blue,
Indeed 'twas a spectacle pleasant to view,
As the column pushed onward to Richmond.
Ere the march was begun,
In a spirit of fun,
General Scott in a speech
Said the army should teach
The Southrons the lesson the laws to obey,
And just before dusk of the third or fourth day,
Should joyfully march into Richmond.
He spoke of their drill,
And their courage and skill,
And declared that the ladies of Richmond would rave
O'er such matchless perfection, and gracefully wave
In rapture their delicate kerchiefs in air
At their morning parades on the Capitol Square.
But alack! and alas!
Mark what soon came to pass,
When this army, in spite of his flatteries,
Amid war's loudest thunder,
Must stupidly blunder
Upon those accursed "masked batteries."
Then Beauregard came,
Like a tempest of flame,
To consume them in wrath,
In their perilous path;
And Johnson bore down in a whirlwind to sweep
Their ranks from the field,
Where their doom had been sealed,
As the storm rushes over the face of the deep;
While swift on the centre our President pressed,
And the foe might descry,
In the glance of his eye,
The light that once blazed upon Diomede's crest.
McDowell! McDowell! weep, weep for the day,
When the Southrons you met in their battle array;
To your confident hosts with its bullets and steel,
'Twas worse than Culloden to luckless Lochiel.
Oh! the generals were green, and old Scott is now blue,
And a terrible business, McDowell, to you,
Was that pleasant excursion to Richmond.
John R. Thompson.
At the North news of the defeat caused a bitter discouragement, which soon gave place to determination to push the war through. On July 22, 1861, Congress authorized the enlistment of five hundred thousand men. The term of enlistment was for three years, or during the war, and the North girded itself anew for the conflict.
CAST DOWN, BUT NOT DESTROYED
Oh, Northern men—true hearts and bold—
Unflinching to the conflict press!
Firmly our country's flag uphold,
Till traitorous foes its sway confess!
Not lightly was our freedom bought,
By many a martyr's cross and grave;
Six weary years our fathers fought,
'Midst want and peril, sternly brave.
And thrice six years, with tightening coil,
Still closer wound by treacherous art,
Men—children of our common soil—
Have preyed upon the nation's heart!