Collection Name
About
Media Items
While Sumner, Meade and Sedgwick,
Like old campaigners, made
Raw striplings breast like regulars
The gallant cannonade.
Historic Maryland ! Such deeds
Have made, with brilliant gleam,
A Marathon of every plain,
A Nile of every stream ;
And nevermore would Europe boast
Of her scarred grenadiers,
Could she have seen the work that day
Done by our volunteers.
Four times yon wood was won and lost,
Where lay the foe entrenched,
And to its staff our banner clung
In scarlet rain, bedrenched ;
When onward swept the brawny troops
That never charged in vain,
Our lion-souled Green Mountain boys
And lumbermen of Maine.
And from their masked entrenchments
The veteran ranks within
Were hurled as if each bayonet
A thunderbolt had been.
Ah ! sweetly by the planter's porch
The orange tree will rise,
But never more its snowy bloom
Will cheer his wistful eyes.
For many a year to come his blood,
That blade or bullet drew,
Will make thy roses, Maryland,
Spring with a redder hue.
Thin grew the host that fought beneath
The fallen stars, and then,
Like gray wolves, backward, inch by inch,
Retreating to their den.
Unto the cover of their works
The baffled horde withdrew,
And soon upon the dust of strife
The evening sprinkled dew.
Then martial strains rose from our camp,
And as the wounded listened,
The nerveless hand was clenched again—
Again the glazed eye glistened ;
Some thought of fair ones, who afar
Would name them from the pillow,
Or maidens who that night would sit
Alone beneath the willow