John Brown's Body (1928)
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JOHN BROWN'S BODY
STEPHEN
VINCENT BENÉT
SPANISH BAYONET
YOUNG ADVENTURE
HEAVENS AND EARTH
YOUNG PEOPLE'S PRIDE
THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM
FIVE MEN AND POMPEY
JOHN BROWN'S BODY
JEAN HUGUENOT
TIGER JOY
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
1928
DOUBLEDAY, DORAN
AND COMPANY, INC.
JOHN
BROWN'S
BODY
BY
STEPHEN VINCENT
BENÉT
BY STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
AFTER THE PRINTING OF 201 DE LUXE COPIES
TO MY MOTHER
AND TO THE MEMORY
OF MY FATHER
NOTE
As this is a poem, not a history, it has seemed unnecessary to me to encumber it with notes, bibliography, and other historical apparatus. Nevertheless—besides such original sources as the Official Records, the series of articles in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, and the letters, memoirs, and autobiographies of the various leaders involved—I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to Channing's The War for Southern Independence and McMaster's The United States Under Lincoln's Administration, to Oswald Garrison Villard's John Brown: A Biography Fifty Years After, to the various Lives of Lincoln by Lord Charnwood, Carl Sandburg, and Ida Tarbell and the monumental work of Nicolay and Hay, to Natalie Wright Stephenson's Abraham Lincoln: An Autobiography, and, finally, my very particular debt to that remarkable first-hand account of life in the Army of the Potomac, Four Brothers in Blue, by Captain Robert Goldthwaite Carter, from which the stories of Fletcher the sharpshooter and the two brothers at Fredericksburg are taken.
In dealing with known events I have tried to cleave to historical fact where such fact was ascertainable. On the other hand, for certain thoughts and feelings attributed to historical characters, and for the interpretation of those characters in the poem, I alone must be held responsible.
The account of the defeated Union army pouring into Washington after the first Bull Run is founded on a passage in Whitman's Specimen Days and Collect.
The Black Horse Troop is an entirely imaginary organization and not to be confused with the so-called Black Horse Cavalry. In general, no fictional character in the poem is founded upon a real person, living or dead.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT.
Neuilly-sur-Seine, April, 1928.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1943, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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