The Storming Column

Do you remember the storming column
That Banks sent up one night of June?
Do you recall the grandly solemn
Advance withouten star or moon?
The tangled wood and the boding cry
Of owls that jeered us on to die?

Afar in stifling night we heard
The picket rattle rise and fall;
Now and then the leaves were stirred
Above our heads by a random ball;
There were no clamored orders then,
The orders came from whispering men.

Our road by dark battalions ran,
By sections harnessed, man and steed;
We heard them croak, "There goes the van";
And then we knew that we should lead
The battle; but our hearts would roam,
And many thought, "Adieu to home."

The colonel groped before the files
Of bayonets bare and sabres drawn;
We roamed and stumbled dusky miles,
And night had paled to filmy dawn
When yellow earthworks loomed ahead
And howling battle called our dead.

Then officer and soldier yelled,
And wildly charged the old brigade;
The hoarse hurrahs one moment quelled
The rifle crash and cannonade;
I think the very caves of death
Reëchoed that heroic breath.

For the dying shouted as they died,
Cheering their panting comrades on;
And though the clanging bronze replied,
They heard it not, for they were gone;
And thus I think their final call
Entered the gates of Odin's hall.

We reached the trench; our foremost dead
Dotted the smoking mounds with blue;
The bastions flushed with clotting red,
And still the hissing bullets flew;
They hailed along the gullied banks
And thinned the wearied, broken ranks.

In vain supporting cannon roared,
In vain renewed battalions pressed;
The Southern flag triumphant soared,
We could not smoor the flaming crest;
We could not conquer — could but die.
Yet all the war was a victory.