The men worked on in silence,
With never a shout or cheer,
Till 'twas whispered from bow to quarter:
"Start forward! all is clear."
Then groaned the ponderous engine,
Then floundered the whirling screw;
And as ship joined ship, the comrades
Their lines of battle drew.
The moon through the fog was casting
A blur of lurid light,
As the captain's latest order
Was flashed into the night.
"Steam on! and whatever fortune
May follow the attack,
Sink with your bows still northward
No vessel must turn back!"
'Twas hard when we heard that order
To smother a rising shout;
For it wakened the life within us,
And we burned to give it out.
All wrapped in the foggy darkness,
Brave Bailey moved ahead;
And stem after stern, his gunboats
To the starboard station led.
Next Farragut's stately flag-ship
To port her head inclined;
And midmost, and most in danger,
Bell's squadron closed behind.
Ah! many a prayer was murmured
For the homes we ne'er might see;
And the silence and night grew dreadful
With the thought of what must be.
For many a tall, stout fellow
Who stood at his quarters then,
In the damp and dismal moonlight,
Never saw the sun again.
Close down by the yellow river
In their oozy graves they rot;
Strange vines and strange weeds grow o'er them,
And their far homes know them not.