APPEAL TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON, IN BEHALF OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.
Oh, pardon the captive! his power has fled;His banner lies low with his numberless dead, Never more to unfurl in its glory:Then spare but the life of the stricken old chief,Whose days, at the most, will be weary and brief, In a land that already is gory.
His flower of manhood has faded and gone,Its leaves lie unheeded and withered alone, The tottering stem is decaying;Then oh! touch it not with a merciless hand,But heed the wild plea of a desolate land That now for its chieftain is praying.
Yes, kneeling we pray, by the hopes that have flown,By all the wild anguish and woe we have known, By hearts that are bleeding and broken,By the shades of the heroes who sleep in their gore,
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