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The combat opened ; and between
The valleys whistling then,
From every sulphur cloud was heard
The cheers of Hooker's men ;
And where the yellow corn had waved
Artillery sowed the field,
With shot and shell that make it still
An iron harvest yield.
'Mid showers of grape and canister,
Along our lines of blue,
The soul of Seventy-Six struck with
The arm of Sixty-Two.
Beneath our flag, the Lord of Hosts
Fought on this reeking sod,
For traitors to their country
Are traitors to their God.
In freedom's holy brotherhood
The Saxon and the Gaul,
Shoulder to shoulder as they fell,
Shared glory's crimson fall.
The Pennsylvania husbandman
And Western mountaineer
Across the swarthy raider lay,
With empty musket, here.
Here fell the dauntless Mansfield,
Whose streaming locks of snow
Could never for a moment chill
The fiery heart below ;
And yonder bridge, that Burnside
So gallantly did hold,
Is now as classic as the pass
The Spartans held of old.
Young Rodman as he prostrate lay
Still waved his flag on high,
And faintly with his dying breath
Sent up a battle cry.
Well might Duryea, as true a knight
As ever couched a lance,
Smile grimly to behold his Zouaves
With springing step advance :
And in their onset Meagher's brigade
Of Erin's hardy sons
Paused not till they were looking down
The muzzles of the guns.
The hardy form of Hooker
Tossed on the surging flood,
'Till he had shown a rifleman
The color of his blood ;