By Isabella McFarlane.
Loud rang the voice of the chieftain,
As the Fifty-fourth rushed on:
'Charge on the guns of Wagner,
Charge—and the fort is won!'
On—like a wave of the ocean,
Dashing against a rock!—
Back—ah! back—all broken,
Like a wave from the fruitless shock.
Thus from the guns of Wagner
The Fifty-fourth surged back:
But the voice of their brave young chieftain
Checked not their backward track
For there, on the sands by Wagner,
The gallant Shaw lay low,
'Midst a heap of his brave black soldiers,
Left in the hands of the foe.
Not a flag was lowered in his honor,
Not a gun its deep voice gave,
When, on the sands by Wagner,
Shaw was laid in the grave.
Not a friend stood over his coffin,
Shedding tears on his gory breast;
But instead, was curse and insult,
Cruel laughter, ribald jest.
Wide and deep was the trench they hollowed,
Where the gallant Shaw was laid,
With forty negro soldiers
Piled over his noble head.
Yes, forty negro soldiers,
Whose hearts were hearts of steel,
Who had fought in the cause of freedom,
Who had died for their country's weal.
Was it then so great dishonor
For that chief so young and brave—
Who had led them on to the battle—
To be with them in the grave?
Nay—most just was the mandate
That in death they should not part,
For he loved his poor black brothers,
With a true and steadfast heart.
Move not his honored ashes—
Let him slumber where he lies,
Till the voice of the great Archangel
Sounds the trumpet-call to the skies![25]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation. By Sir Charles Lyell, F. R. S. Author of 'Principles of Geology,' Elements of Geology,' etc., etc. Illustrated by woodcuts. Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 628 and 630 Chestnut street. 1863
[2] If any one is disposed to doubt that the doctrine that fossil forms are direct creations, and were never living animals at all, is held by any respectable person, we refer them to a book entitled 'Cosmogony, or the Mysteries of Creation,' by Thomas A. Davies, and published by Rudd & Carleton, of New York, of no longer ago than 1857.
[3] Principles of Geology, 9th ed., p. 740.
[4] Professor Louis Agassiz, the most patient, learned, and acute investigator of embryology now living, finds in that science (upon which, in truth, rests the final settlement of the so-called development theory) 'no single fact to justify the assumption that the laws of development, now known to be so precise and definite for every animal, have ever been less so, or have ever been allowed to run into each other. The philosopher's stone is no more to be found in the organic than the inorganic world; and we shall seek as vainly to transform the lower animal types into the higher ones by any of our theories, as did the alchemists of old to change the baser metals into gold.' He also says: 'To me the fact that the embryonic form of the highest vertebrate recalls in its earlier stages the first representatives of its type in geological times and its lowest representatives at the present day, speaks only of an ideal relation, existing, not in the things themselves, but in the mind that made them. It is true that the naturalist is sometimes startled at these transient resemblances of the young among the higher animals in one type to the adult condition of the lower animals in the same type; but it is also true that he finds each one of the primary divisions of the animal kingdom bound to its own norm of development, which is absolutely distinct from that of all others; it is also true that, while he perceives correspondences between the early phases of the higher animals and the mature state of the lower ones he never sees any one of them diverge in the slightest degree from its own structural character—never sees the lower rise by a shade beyond the level which is permanent for the group to which it belongs—never sees the higher ones stop short of their final aim, either in the mode or the extent of their transformation.' He likewise ('Methods of Study in Natural History,' page 140) discusses the matter of breeds as bearing upon diversities of species in a manner to justify his conclusion, that: 'The influence of man upon animals is, in other words, the influence of mind upon them; and yet the ordinary mode of argument upon this subject is, that, because the intelligence of man has been able to produce certain varieties in domesticated animals, therefore physical causes have produced all the diversity existing among wild ones. Surely, the sounder logic would be to infer that, because our finite intelligence may cause the original pattern to vary by some slight shades of difference, therefore a superior intelligence must have established all the boundless diversity of which our boasted varieties are but the faintest echo. It is the most intelligent farmer who has the greatest success in improving his breeds; and if the animals he has so fostered are left to themselves without that intelligent care, they return to their normal condition. So with plants....'—Ed. Con.
[5] In Latin, Sublaqueum, or Sublacum, in the States of the Church, over thirty English miles (Butler says 'near forty,' Montalombert, 'fifty miles') east of Rome, on the Teverone. Butler describes the place as 'a barren, hideous chain of rocks, with a river and lake in the valley.'
[6] Monasterium Cassinense. It was destroyed, indeed, by the Lombards, as early as 583, as Benedict is said to have predicted it would be, but was rebuilt in 731, consecrated in 748, again destroyed by the Saracens in 857, rebuilt about 950, and more completely, after many other calamities, in 1649, consecrated for the third time by Benedict XIII in 1727, enriched and increased under the patronage of the emperors and popes, in modern times despoiled of ts enormous income (which at the end of the sixteenth century was reckoned at 500,000 ducats), and has stood through all vicissitudes to this day. In the times of its splendor, when the abbot was first baron of the kingdom of Naples, and commanded over four hundred towns and villages, it numbered several hundred monks but in 1843 only twenty. It has a considerable library. Montalembert (Monks of the West, ii. 19) calls Monte Cassino 'the most powerful and celebrated monastery in the Catholic universe; celebrated especially because there Benedict wrote his rule and formed the type which was to serve as a model to innumerable communities submitted to that sovereign code.' He also quotes the poetic description from Dante's Paradiso. Dom Luigi Tosti published at Naples, in 1842, a full history of this convent, in three volumes.
[7] Gregor. Dial. ii. 37.