If you look across the hill-tops that meet the northern sky,
Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry;
And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,
And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride,
And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour:
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!
If you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests shine,
You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line;
And children from their mother's knees are pulling at the weeds,
And learning how to reap and sow against their country's needs;
And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door:
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!
You have called us, and we're coming, by Richmond's bloody tide
To lay us down, for Freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside,
Or from foul treason's savage grasp to wrench the murderous blade,
And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.
Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before:
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!
James Sloan Gibbons.
Meanwhile the Army of Virginia had been formed for the defence of Washington, and placed under the command of General Pope. He at once endeavored to secure the valley of the Shenandoah, and on August 9, 1862, fought a fierce but indecisive battle with Jackson at Cedar Mountain.
CEDAR MOUNTAIN
[August 9, 1862]
Ring the bells, nor ring them slowly;
Toll them not,—the day is holy!
Golden-flooded noon is poured
In grand libation to the Lord.
No mourning mothers come to-day
Whose hopeless eyes forget to pray:
They each hold high the o'erflowing urn,
And bravely to the altar turn.
Ye limners of the ancient saint!
To-day another virgin paint;
Where with the lily once she stood
Show now the new beatitude.