Edward William Thomson: Verses about Life

WE talked of Abraham Lincoln in the night,
Ten fur-coat men on North Saskatchewan’s plain—
Pure zero cold, and all the prairie white—
Englishman, Scotchman, Scandinavian, Dane,
Two Irish, four Canadians—all for gain

Of food and raiment, children, parents, wives,
Living the hardest life that Man survives,
And secret proud because it was so hard
Exploring, camping, axeing, faring lean.—
Month in and out no creature had we seen

Except our burdened dogs, gaunt foxes gray,
Hard-feathered grouse that shot would seldom slay,
Slinking coyotés, plumy-trailing owls,
Stark Indians warm in rabbit-blanket cowls,
And, still as shadows in their deep-tracked yard,

The dun vague moose we startled from our way.

We talked of Abraham Lincoln in the night
Around our fire of tamarac crackling fierce,
Yet dim, like moon and stars, in that vast light
Boreal, bannery, shifting quick to pierce


Ethereal blanks of Space with falchion streams
Transfigured wondrous into quivering beams
From Forms enormous-marching through the sky
To dissolution and new majesty.
And speech was low around our bivouac fire,

Since in our inmost heart of hearts there grew
The sense of mortal feebleness, to see
Those silent miracles of Might on high
Seemingly done for only such as we
In sign how nearer Death and Doom we drew,

While in the ancient tribal-soul we knew
Our old, hardfaring father-Vikings’ dreams
Of Odin at Valhalla’s open door,
Where they might see the Battle-father’s face
Glowing at last, when Life and Toil were o’er,


Were they but staunch-enduring in their place.

We talked of Abraham Lincoln in the night.—
Oh sweet and strange to hear the hard-hand men
Old-Abeing him, like half the world of yore
In years when Grant’s and Lee’s young soldiers bore

Rifle and steel, and proved that heroes live
Where folk their lives to Labor mostly give.
And strange and sweet to hear their voices call
Him “Father Abraham,” though no man of all
Was born within the Nation of his birth.

It was as if they felt that all on Earth
Possess of right Earth’s greatest Common Man,
Her sanest, wisest, simplest, steadiest son,
To whom The Father’s children all were one,
And Pomps and Vanities as motes that danced


In the clear sunshine where his humor glanced.

We talked of Abraham Lincoln in the night
Until one spoke, “We yet may see his face,”
Whereon the fire crackled loud through space
Of human silence, while eyes reverent

Toward the auroral miracle were bent
Till from that trancing Glory spirits came
Within our semi-circle round the flame,
And drew us closer-ringed, until we could
Feel the kind touch of vital brotherhood

Which Father Abraham Lincoln thought so good.

THEY call me now the Indian Priest,
Their fathers' fathers did not so,
The very Mandan name hath ceased
From speech since fifty years ago;
I am so old my fingers fail
My trembling rosary beads to tell,
Yet all my years do not avail
My Mandan memories to quell.

The whole flat world I've seen how changed
Within my lifetime's hundred years;
O'er plains where herding buffalo ranged
Came strange new grass with white men's steers,
The lowing cattle passed as dreams,
Their pastures reared a farmer race,
Now city windows flash their gleams
Nigh our old Monastery's place.

The Prior gives to me no more
Even a task of inward praise,
The Brethren bear me through our door
To bask me here on summer days;
I am so old I cannot kneel,
I cannot hear, I cannot see,
Often I wonder if I feel
The very sunbeams warming me.

Yet do I watch the Mandan dogs
And Mandan ponies slain for meat
That year the squaws chewed snakes and frogs
That babes might tug a living teat,
And Mandan braves, in daylight dance,


Gashed side and arm and painted breast
Praying The Manitou might trance
No more the buffalo from their quest.

A circled plain all horse-high grassed
Our mounting scouts beheld at dawn,
They saw naught else though far they passed
Apart before the sun was gone;
Each night's ride back through starlit lanes
They saw the tepee sparks ascend,
And hoped, and sniffed, and knew their pains
Of famine had not yet an end.

Alone within his magic tent
The new-made Midi wrought the spell
That soothed Life's Master to relent
In years the Old remembered well.
He cried,–'The Mission Priests have wreaked
Some curse that balks the Ancient Art!'
'Thou useless Fool,' the war-chief shrieked,
And sped the knife-thrust to his heart.

With that, 'What comes?' my mother screamed–
How quick the squatted braves arose!
Far in the south the tallest deemed
He saw the flight of up-scared crows;
Above the horse-high grass came slow
A lifted Cross, a tonsured head,–
And what the meaning none could know
Until the black-robed rider said:–

'Mandans, I bear our Mission's word,–
Your children, brought to us, shall eat.'
Scarce had the fierce young War-chief heard
Ere fell the Blackrobe from his seat;
The Chief held high the reeking knife,
He frowned about the Woman's Ring,
And yet my mother's face took life
Anew in pondering the thing.

She stole at night the dead Priest's scrip,
His meagre wallet's hard-baked food,


His crucifix, his waist-rope strip
All blackened with his martyr blood;
Through dark, day-hidden, hand in hand,
We traced his trail for ninety mile,
She starved herself that I might stand,
She spoke me comfort all the while:–

'So shalt thou live, my little son,
The white men's magic shalt thou learn,
And when the hungry moons are run,
Be sure thy mother shall return;
Oh, sweet my joy when, come again,
I find thy Mandan heart untamed,
As fits a warrior of the plain,
That I, thy mother, be not shamed.'

She left me while the black-robed men
Blest and beseeched her sore to stay;
No voice hath told my heart since then
How fared my mother's backward way.
Years, years within the Mission School,
By love, by prayer they gained my heart;
It held me to Our Order's rule,
From all the Mandan life apart.

From tribe to tribe, through sixty years,
The Mandan Priest for Christ he wrought,
And many an Indian heart to tears,
And many a soul to God he brought;
Yet do I hear my mother's voice
Soft lingering round her little son,
And, O dear Lord, dost Thou rejoice
In all my mother's child hath done?

ALREADY Appomattox day
Seemed to our hearts an age away,
Although the April-blossomed trees
Were droning with the very bees
That bumbled round the conference

Where Lee resigned his long defence,
And Grant’s new gentleness subdued
The iron Southern fortitude.

From smouldering leaves the smoky smell
Wreathed round Virginian fields a spell

Of homely aromatic haze,
So like New Hampshire springtime days
About the slopes of Moosilauke
It numbed my homesick heart to talk,
And when the bobolinks trilled “Rejoice!”

My comrade could not trust his voice.

We were two cavalrymen assigned
To safeguard Pinckney womankind,
Whose darkies rambled Lord knows where
In some persuasion that they were

Thenceforth, in ease, at public charge
To live as gentlemen at large—
A purpose which, they’d heard, the war
Was made by “Massa Linkum” for.

The pillared mansion, battle-wrecked,

Yet stood with ivied front erect,
Its mossy gables, shell-fire-torn,
Were still in lordliness upborne
Above the neighboring barns, well stored
With war-time’s rich tobacco hoard;

But on the place, for food, was naught
Save what our commissary brought
To keep the planter’s folk alive
Till Colonel Pinckney might arrive
Paroled from northward, if his head

Lay not among the prisoner dead.

We’d captured him ten days before,
When Richard Ewell’s veteran corps,
Half-naked, starving, fought amain
To save their dwindling wagon-train.

Since they were weak and we were strong,
The battle was not overlong.
Again I see the prisoners stare
Exultant at the orange glare
Of sunlit flame they saw aspire

Up from the train they gave to fire.
They’d shred apart their hero flags
To share the silk as heart-worn rags.
The trampled field was strewn about
With wreckage of the closing rout—

Their dead, their wounded, rifles broke,
Their mules and horses slain in yoke;
Their torn-up records, widely spread,
Fluttered around the muddy dead—
So bitter did their hearts condemn

To ruin all we took with them.

Ten days before! The war was past,
The Union saved, Peace come at last,
And Father Abraham’s words of balm
Gentling the war-worn States to calm.

Of all the miracles he wrought
That was the sweetest. Men who’d fought
So long they’d learned to think in hate,
And savor blood when bread they ate,
And hear their buried comrades wail,

How long, O Lord, doth wrong prevail?
List’ning alike, in blue or gray,
Felt war’s wild passions soothed away.

By homely touches in the air
That morning was so sweet and rare

That Father Abraham’s soul serene
Seemed brooding over all the scene;
And when we found the plough, I guess
We were so tired of idleness
Our farmer fingers yearned to hold

The handles, and to sense the mould
Turning the earth behind the knife.

Jim gladdened as with freshened life;—
“Say, John,” said he, “I’m feeling beat
To know what these good folks will eat

When you and I are gone. Next fall
They’re sure to have no crop at all.
All their tobacco’s confiscate
By Washington—and what a state
Of poverty they’re bound to see!

Say, buddy, what if you and me
Just hitch our cavalry horses now
Up to this blamed Virginia plough,
And run some furrows through the field?
With commissary seed they’d yield


A reasonable crop of corn.”
“They will,” said I, “as sure’s you’re born!”

Quickly we rigged, with rope and straps
And saddle leathers—well, perhaps
The Yankiest harness ever planned

95
To haul a plough through farming land.
It made us kind of happy, too,
Feeling like Father Abraham knew.

The Pinckney place stood on a rise,
And when we’d turned an end, our eyes

Would see the mansion war had wrecked,—
Such desolation! I suspect
The women’s hearts were mourning sore;
But not one tear we saw—they bore
Composed the fortune fate had sent—


But, O dear Lord, how still they went!
I’ve seen such quiet in a shroud,
Inscrutably resigned and proud.

Yet, when we’d worked an hour or two,
And plain was what we meant to do,

Mother and daughters came kind-eyed,—
“Soldiers—my soldier husband’s pride
Will be to thank you well—till then
We call you friendly, helpful men—”
It seemed she stopped for fear of tears.

She turned—they went—Oh, long the years
Gone by since that brave lady spoke—
And yet I hear the voice that broke.

We watched them climb the lilac hill,
Again the spring grew strangely still

Ere, far upon the turnpike road,
Across a clattering bridge, where flowed
Through sand the stream of Pinckney Run,
We heard the galloping of one
Who, hidden by the higher ground,

Pounded as fast as horse could pound.
Then—all again was still as death—
Till up the slope, with laboring breath,
A white steed rose—his rider gray
Spurring like mad his staggering way.


The man was old and tall and white,
His glooming eyes looked dead to light,
He rode with such a fateful air
I felt a coldness thrill my hair,
He rode as one hard hit rides out


In horror from some battle rout,
Bearing a cry for instant aid—
That aspect made my heart afraid. [Page 63]

The death-like rider drew no rein,
Nor seemed to note us on the plain,

140
Nor seemed to know how weak in stride
His horse strove up the long hillside;
When down it lurched, on foot the man
Up through the fringing lilacs ran,
His left hand clutching empty air

As if his sabre still hung there.

’T was plain as day that human blast
Was Colonel Pinckney home at last,
And we were free, since ordered so
That with his coming we might go;


Yet on we ploughed—the sun swung high,
Quiet the earth and blue the sky—
Silent we wrought, as men who wait
Some half-imagined stroke of fate,
While through the trembling shine came knells


Tolling from far-off Lynchburg bells.

The solemn, thrilling sounds of gloom
Bore portents of tremendous doom,
On smoky zephyrs drifted by
Shadows of hosts in charging cry,


In fields where silence ruled profound
Growling musketry echoed round,
Pale phantom ranks did starkly pass
Invisible across the grass,
Flags ghosted wild in powder fume


Till, miracled in memory’s room,
Rang the old regiment’s rousing cheer
For Father Abraham, smiling queer.

’T was when we turned a furrow’s end
We saw a martial form descend

From Mansion Hill the lilac way,
Till in our field the veteran gray
Stood tall and straight as at parade,
And yet as one with soul dismayed.
That living emblem of the South

Faced us unblenching, though his mouth
So quivered with the spoken word
It seemed a tortured heart we heard;—
“Soldiers”—he eyed us nobly when
We stood to “attention”—“Soldiers—men,

For this good work my thanks are due—
But—men—O God—men, if you knew,
Your kindly hands had shunned the plough—
For hell comes up between us now!—
Oh, sweet was peace—but gone is peace—

185
Murder and hate have fresh release!—
The deed be on the assassin’s head!—
Men—Abraham Lincoln’s lying dead!”

He steadied then—he told us through
All of the tale that Lynchburg knew,

190
While dumbly raged my anguished heart
With woe from pity wrenched apart,
For, in the fresh red furrow, bled
’Twixt us and him the martyred dead.

That precious crimson ran so fast

195
It merged in tinge with battles past,—
Hatcher’s, Five Forks, The Wilderness,
The Bloody Angle’s maddened stress;
Down Cemetery Hill there poured
Torrents that stormed to Kelly’s Ford,

200
And twice Manassas flung its flood
To swell the four years’ tide of blood,
And Sumter blazed, and Ellsworth fell,
While memory flashed its gleams of hell.

The colonel’s staring eyes declared

205
In visions wild as ours he shared,
Until—dear Christ—with Thine was blent
The death-transfigured President. [Page 65]

Strange—strange—the crown of thorns he wore,
His outspread hands were piercèd sore,


And down his old black coat a tide
Flowed from the javelin-wounded side;
Yet ’t was his homely self there stood,
And gently smiled across the blood,
And changed the mystic stream to tears

That swept afar the angry years,
And flung me down as falls a child
Whose heart breaks out in weeping wild.



Yet in that field we ploughed no more,
We shunned the open Southern door,


We saddled up, we rode away,—
It’s that that troubles me to-day.

Full thirty years to dust were turned
Before my pondering soul had learned
The blended vision there was sent

In sign that our Belovèd meant;—
Children who wrought so mild my will,
Plough the long furrow kindly still,
’T is sweet the Father’s work to see
Done for the memory of me.

LOW in the fertile vale by Tunstall’s Run
A rainy rifle skirmish closed the day.

Beyond the April-swollen, narrow stream,
Lee’s stubborn rearguard veteran raggedies
Lay prone amid last year’s tobacco stalks,

Shooting hot Enfields straight from red-mud pools,
While from their rear four angry howitzers,
High set on Armistead’s Plantation Hill,
Flamed shrieking shell o’erhead across the bridge
That Custer raged to seize before black night

Should close his daylong toil in mud and rain.

Thrice did we gallop vainly at the planks,
Then vainly strove on foot the pass to win,
Till through the drizzling dark but flashes showed
The points where sullen rifles opposite rang,

And back we straggled, stumbling up the slope
Where Union buglers shrilled the bivouac.

Ninety unanswering voices told our loss,
While silence ruled so deep we heard the rain’s
Small rataplan on ponchos and on hats,

Until the crackling rail-fence Company fires
Lighted the piney length of Custer’s Ridge.

That night John Woolston served as orderly,
The John who strokes to-day his white old beard
And sees himself, scarce downy of the lips,

Eyeing young long-haired Custer through the smoke
Across a flaming pyre, that steaming slaves
Of Tunstall fed afresh with Tunstall rails.

Down in the shrouded vale about the Run
Three score of boys John Woolston knew in life

Lay scattered round an old-hoed, red-mud field,
Peaceful with scores of veteran boys in gray,
Whose bodily particles were resurrect
As corn for bread, and leaf for smokers’ pipes,
Before the Americans of now were born

To share, through common-soldier sacrifice,
The comrade Union of the States to-day.

A rail-heap seated Custer with his aide,
Their drowsing bugler opposite leaned on John,
While overhead the swaying boughs of pine

Creaked in an upward-rushing draught of warmth,
And from our solitary surgeons’ tent
Came smothered ecstasies of mortal pain,
And in the outer darkness horses stamped
And bit and squealed and enviously eyed

The huddling regiments about the fires,
Pipes lit, hats slouched to fend the rain and glare.

As Woolston watched lean Custer’s martial face,
It seemed the hero heard not flame nor bough,
Nor marked the groans, nor knew at what he stared,

So deep intent his mind ranged o’er the Run
And up the opposite-sloping Arm’stead hill,
As questioning if the murderous howitzers
Would hold the bridge at dawn, or march by night,
And so, perchance, next eve, afar repeat

The dusky fight, and cost him ninety more
He would fain range about the field of fields
Where lion Lee, enringed, must stand at bay,
Choosing to greatly die, or greatlier yield.

At last he shook his aide. “Get up! Go bring

A prisoner here.” And when the head-hurt man
In butternut stood boldly to his eyes,
He asked one word alone: “Your general’s name?”

“My general’s name!” stared Butternut, then proud,
As ’t were a cubit added to his height,

He spoke,—“My general’s name is R. E. Lee!”

“I mean who fights Lee’s rearguard?” Custer said,
“Who held the bridge to-night? His name alone.”

And then the bitter man in butternut
Smiled ghastly grim, and smacked as tasting blood;

“It’s General Henry Tunstall, his own self,
And if you find our ‘Fighting Tunce’ alive
When daylight comes, there’ll be red hell to pay
For every plank that spans that trifling bridge.”

“Good man!” said Custer. “Spoke right soldierly!

Here—take this cloak—to save your wound from rain”:
And gave the brave the poncho that he wore.

Then up flamed Butternut: “Say, General,
You’re Yank, and yet, by God, you’re white clean through.
And so I kind of feel to tell you why

Them planks will cost you so almighty dear.
You’re camped to-night on ‘Fighting Tunce’s’ land;
Cross yonder, on the hill his guns defend,
Is where his lady lives, his promised wife,—
God bless her heart!—Miss Mary Armistead.

She’s there herself to-night—she’d never run.
Her widowed father fell at Fredericksburg,
Three brothers died in arms, one limps with Lee.
Herself has worked their darkies right along
Four years, to raise our army pork and pone,

And she herself not twenty-four to-day!

Will Tunstall fight for her? Say, General,
Your heart can guess what hell you’ll face at day.”

“You’re right, my man,” said Custer. “That will do.”
And off they marched the ponchoed prisoner.

“By heaven!” spoke Custer then, and faced his aide,
“I know why Tunstall’s gunners spared the bridge.
It’s ten to one he means to swarm across,
After his hungry Johnnies get some rest,
To strike us here and hard before the dawn.

His heart was forged in fire and enterprise!
His bully-boys will back his wildest dare!
Lieutenant—pick me out two first-rate men—
Morton for one, if ‘Praying Mort’ ’s alive—
Tell them I go myself to post vedettes.

Now—mind—I want a pair of wideawakes.—
You, Orderly, go saddle up my bay.”

“I want to go with Morton,” blurted John.

“You! Call yourself a wideawake, my lad?”

“Yes, sir,” said Woolston.—
“But you’re just a boy.”

“Well, General, Uncle Sam enlisted me
For man, all right.” Then Custer smiled, and mused.
“Farm boy?” he asked.—
“Exactly what I am.”
“All right,” he said. “If once I see he’s keen,
A likely farm boy’s just the man for me.

When back his aide returned the General spoke:
“It’s barely possible we march to-night.
You’ll see that every man about the fires
Splits torch stuff plenty from the pitchy rails.”
And with the words he reined toward Arm’stead’s Hill.

Down hill, beyond the flares, beyond the pines,
Beyond his foothill pickets, through the rain,
He led as if his eyes beheld the way;
Yet they, who followed close his bay’s fast walk
By sound alone, saw not their horses’ heads,

Saw not the hand held up to blotch the gloom.
No breath of wind. The ear heard only hoofs
Splashing and squattering in the puddle field,
Or heard the saddle-leathers scarcely creak,
Or little clanks of curbing bit and chain.

Scattered about whatever way they trod
Must be the clay that marched but yesterday,
And nervously John listened, lest some soul
Faint lingering in the dark immensity
Might call its longing not to die alone.


Sudden a crash, a plunge, a kicking horse,
Then “Praying Morton” whispering cautiously:
“A post-hole, General! My horse is done.
His off fore-leg is broke, as sure as faith!
Oh, what a dispensation of the Lord—”

“Hish-sh. Save the rest!” said Custer. “Broke is broke!
Get back to camp whatever way you can.”

“Me, General! What use to post the boy?
You, Woolston, you get back. I’ll take your horse.”

“Not much, you won’t,” said Woolston angrily.


And Custer chuckled crisply in the dark.
“Enough,” he ordered. “Morton, get you back!
Be cautious when you near my picket post,
Or else they’ll whang to hit your pious voice,
And I may lose a first-rate soldier man.”

Then Morton, prayerful, mild, and mollified:
“The merciful man would end a beast in pain—
One shot.”
“No, too much noise. You get right back!
Horses, like men, must bear the luck of war.”


III

Again the plashing hoofs through endless drip,

Until the solid footing of their beasts
Bespoke them trampling in a turnpike road,
And Custer reined with: “Hish-sh, my man—come here.
Now listen.” Then John’s ears became aware
Of small articulations in the dark,

Queer laughters, as of countless impish glee,
And one pervasive, low, incessant hum,
All strange till Custer spoke: “You hear the Run?
All right! Now, mind exactly what I say.
But no. First hold my horse. I’ll feel the bridge.

Maybe I’ll draw their fire; but stay right here.”

On foot he went, and came, so stealthily
John could not hear the steps ten feet away.
“All right!” He mounted. “Not one plank removed.”
Then, communing rather with himself than John:

“No picket there! It’s strange! But surely Tunce
Would smash the bridge unless he meant to cross
And rip right back at me in dark or dawn.
Now, private—mind exactly what I say;
You’ll listen here for trampers on the bridge,

And if you hear them reach the mud this side,
With others following on the planks behind,
You’ll get right back—stick to the turnpike, mind—
And tell my challenging road-guard picket post
They’re coming strong. That’s all you’ve got to do

Unless—” he paused—“unless some negro comes
Bringing the news they’re falling back on Lee;
Then—if he’s sure—you’ll fire four carbine shots
Right quick—and stay until you see me come.
You understand?”
“I do. I’m not to shoot

In case they’re coming on. But if they’re off,
I’ll fire four shots as fast as I can pull.”

“That’s right. Be sure you keep your wits awake.
Listen for prowlers—both your ears well skinned.”

John heard the spattering bay’s fast-walking hoofs


Fainter and fainter through the steady pour,
And then no sound, except the beating rain’s
Small pit-a-pat on poncho, and the Run
Drifting its babbling through the blinding mirk.



How long he sat, no guessing in the slow

Monotony of night, that never changed
Save when the burdened horse replaced his hoofs,
Or seemed to raise or droop his weary head,
Or when some shiver shook the weary boy,
Though sheltered dry from aching neck to spurs:

A shiver at the dream of dead men nigh,
Beaten with rain, and merging with the mud,
And staring up with open, sightless eyes
That served as little cups for tiny pools
That trickled in and out incessantly;

A shiver at the thought of home and bed,
And mother tucking in her boy at night,
And how she’d shiver could she see him there—
Longing more sore than John to wrap him warm;

A shiver from the tense expectancy

Of warning sounds, while yet no sound he heard
Save springtime water lapping on the pier,
Or tumbling often from the clayey banks
Lumps that splashed lifelike in the turbid flood.

His aching ears were strained for other sounds,

And still toward Arm’stead’s Hill they ached and strained,
While, in the evening fight of memory,
Again he saw the broad Plantation House
Whene’er a brassy howitzer spouted flame,
Suddenly lighting up its firing men,

Who vanished dim again in streaking rain;
And then, once more, the Enfields in the vale
Thrust cores of fire, until some lightning piece
Again lit all the Arm’stead buildings clear.

From visioning swift that wide Plantation House

John’s mind went peering through its fancied rooms.
And who were there? And did they sleep, or wake?
Until he found Miss Mary Armistead
And General Henry Tunstall in the dream.

It seemed those lovers could not, could not part,

But murmured low of parting in the dawn,
Since he must march and fight, and she must stay
To hold the home, whatever war might send—
And they might never, never meet again.

So good she looked, described by Butternut’s

“God bless her heart,” and he so soldier bold
In “fire and enterprise,” by Custer’s words,—
So true and sorrowful they talked in dream,
Of Love and Life that walk the ways of Death,—
The dreamer’s under lip went quivering.


Until the startled horse put up his head
And stood, John knew, stark stiff with listening
To that kalatta-klank beyond the Run,
As if some cowbell clattered far away
Once, twice, and thrice, to cease as suddenly.


Then John, once more keen Yankee soldier boy,
Gathered his rein, half threw his carbine breech,
Made sure again of cartridge ready there,
Felt for the flap of holster at his thigh,
Listened alert for that most dubious bell,—

Thinking of bushwhackers in campfire tales
Impressively related to recruits;

How, in deep night, some lone vedette might hear
An innocent-seeming klatta-klatta-klank,
And never dream but that some roaming cow

Ranged through the covering woodland nigh his post,—
Till—suddenly—a bullet laid him low!
Or, perhaps, guerillas crept before the bell,
Their footsteps deadened by its klatta-klank,
Till, rushing in, they clubbed the youngster down,

So “gobbling” him unheard, a prisoner,
Then, sneaking through the gap, on sleeping posts,
They killed, and killed, and killed—so horridly
That green recruities’ hairs would stand on end.

John, shrewdly discounting the veteran yarns,

Yet knew full well that klatta-klatta-klank,
Which came again, might mean the enemy
Intent on stratagem to search the dark,
Tempting some shot or challenge to reveal
If any Union picket held the bridge.

Or else the steady-coming, clanging knell
Might signify some party far advanced,
Creeping all noiselessly, and listening keen
For any sound of Custer, horse or man.

Even it might be that the ridgy road

Ten yards, or five, or three from where he sat,
Concealed some foeman hungry for a move
That might betray precisely where their rush
Should be, to seize his tightened bridle-rein,
Or grasp the poncho’s skirt to pull him down.


John half inclined to lift the neck-yoke off
And lay the armless cloak on saddle-bow,
Lest it encumber him in sudden fight,
Or give the foremost foe a strangling hold.
Yet sat he motionless, since such a sound

As slicking glaze might guide an enemy.
And still the klatta-klatta-klank came on.

It surely neared the bridge! Yet John sat still,
With Custer’s orders clearly in his brain,
Waiting to learn the meaning of the thing.

It trod the planks. It moved with solid hoofs,
Hoofs that declared to farm-bred Woolston’s ear
Most unmistakably an actual cow!
But then! Oh, mystery! For rolling wheels
Rumbled upon the planking of the Run!


As up went Woolston’s horse’s head asnort,
Upon the bridge the other beast stood still.
The clanking ceased. Again no mortal sound
Blent with the tittering tumult of the stream.
Until a clear young voice of lady tone

Inquired in startled accents,—“Who goes there?”
Yet John, in utter wonder, spoke no word.
“If there’s a Yankee cavalry picket there,”
The voice proclaimed, “I wish to pass the line.”
And still the Yankee knew not what to say,

Since Custer’s orders covered not the case,
And since, alas, the wondrous lady voice
Might possibly denote some stratagem.
And yet—suppose ’t was only just a girl!
John sickened with a sense of foolishness.


“Go on,” she cried, and seemed to slap her beast,
Which moved some doubtful steps, and stopped again.
Then calmly scornful came the lady tones:—
“Oh, Mister Yankee picket, have no fear
To speak right up. No dangerous man am I.

Only a woman. And she’s got no gun,
No pistol, bayonet, knife, or anything.
And all she asks is just to pass your line,
A prisoner if you like.” But there she broke,
Or choked, and wailed, “O God, it’s life or death!

Oh, soldier, soldier, let me pass the line.”

So John, half desperate, called, “Young lady, come.
I don’t care what the orders are. Come on.”

“Get up,” she slapped again. But then she called:—
“My cow won’t move! She sees you, I suppose,

All armed and threatening in the middle road.
Please go away. Or ride a bit aside;
Perhaps then she’ll come. Yes, now she moves along.
You’ll pass me through?—But are there surgeons there
Where, hours ago, I saw your campfires glow?

If not, I may as well turn back again.”

“No need,” said John. “We’ve got a surgeon there.
But what’s the trouble, Miss? Yourself been hurt?”

“The trouble is I’ve got a soldier here
With desperate wounds—if still alive he be.

Oh, help me save him.” And she broke again.

“Why, Miss,” said Woolston, melting at the heart,
“Was there no surgeon on the Arm’stead Hill
To help your wounded live?”
“No, none,” she said,
“No man remained. At eve the negroes fled,

Or followed close behind the wagon train
He urged, with every soldier, back toward Lee.
We two were left alone. I thought you’d come.
For hours and hours I waited, all in vain.
His life was flowing fast. One chance remained.

We women placed him in our best barouche,
The only vehicle our rearguard spared.
Alone I hitched this cow, the only beast
I kept from rations for our starving men.
I led her here. Oh, soldier, help me soon

To pass your lines, and reach a surgeon’s care.”

Then Custer’s orders flashed again to John;—
“Hold hard one moment, Miss, I’ve got to shoot.”
The carbine rang. “Thank God, that’s done,” said John.
“We’ll wait right here. A surgeon’s sure to come

With Custer’s march, for march I guess he will.
He’ll turn you round, I think, and see you home.
I s’pose your name’s Miss Mary Armistead?
I hope that’s not your General wounded there.”
She could but choke, or weep, and spoke no word.


It seemed long hours they waited silently,
Save once John heard the hidden carriage creak,
And guessed she rose beside the dying man
Beneath the drumlike pattering, sheltering hood.

At last, the bugles blared on Custer’s Ridge.

Then, far away, a lengthening stream of flare
Came round the distant, curtaining screen of pines,
And down the hill the torches, borne on high
By fifteen hundred horsemen, formed a slope
Of flame that moved behind the bugles’ call,

Till on the level road a fiery front
Tossing, yet solid-seeming, walked along.
And in the van rode Custer, beardless, tall,
His long hair dabbled in the streaming rain.

John rode to meet him. There he called the halt,


And came, with twenty torches, round the chaise.

Then first they saw Miss Mary Armistead,
Her honorable, fearless, lifted eyes
Gazing on Custer’s bare and bended head,
While General Henry Tunstall’s countenance,

Supported close within her sheltering arm,
Leaned unto hers in pallid soldier death.
“Madam,” said Custer, “would that I had known
The bravest of the brave lay needing aid.
Lady, the great heroic name he won

Held me from marching onward to your hill,
Held me expecting from him night attack,
Till now in vain we bring a surgeon’s help,—
And words are useless. Yet again I say—
Because a soldier’s heart compels the due—

He lived the bravest of the bravest brave
That ever faced the odds of mighty war.
May God sustain yourself for years and years
The living shrine of Tunstall’s memory.”

She bowed her noble head, but answered naught.


Then past the chariot streamed our wondering men
Behind tall Custer in the foremost front,
Trampling as thunder on the bridging planks,
Their torches gleaming on the swirling Run;
A tossing, swaying column o’er the flat,


A fiery slope of fours abreast the hill,
And on, unresting on, through night and rain,
Remorseless, urgent, yet most merciful,
Because the Nation’s life demanded war,
Relentless, hurrying swift to force an end,

And banish night, and bring a peaceful dawn.

But old John Woolston sees across the years,
Beneath the black, cavernous carriage hood,
Flaring in torchlight, Tunstall’s face of death
Beside a lovely, living, haloed face,

Heroic, calm, ineffably composed
With pride unconquerable in valiant deeds,
With trust in God our Lord unspeakable—
The sainted Woman of the Perished Cause,
The chastened soul of that Confederacy


Which marches on, no less than John Brown’s soul,
Inspiring, calling on the Nation’s heart,
Urging it dauntlessly to front stark death
For what ideals the Nation’s heart holds true.

Straight rain streaks downward through the torches’ flare,


And solemn through the ancient darkness sound
The small, bewildered, lingering, million tones
Of atoms streaming to the eternal sea.