Pebbles and Shells (Hawkes collection)/That Last Wild Charge at Gettysburg
THAT LAST WILD CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG!
That last wild charge to scale the height—It was a grand, yet awful sight! Though thirty years have passed away, It seems to me but yesterday—That hour we stood on gory banksAnd watched Lee's gray-clad gleaming ranks Charge out across the peaceful plain, From whence they turned not back again.
Fair Gettysburg lies far below,Beside the creeks still peaceful flow, Upon the meadows o'er the way The harvesters are making hay,And low of cattle from the hillsAnd liquid laughter from the rills And song of bird from near and far Sound not like harbingers of war.
Out of the South, with roll of drum,The blue and gray-clad armies come, Creeping along in silent files, Marching abreast for sixty miles,Watching each other day and night—Watching and waiting for the fight. Thus came they when the sun went down, And camped about the little town.
Three weary days, from height to height,The battle rolled from morn till night; Three dreary days the cannon's breath Belched forth its messengers of death,Till earth and sky grew dark with dreadAnd many thousand men lay dead— Then silently the remnant gray Closed up its ranks and stole away.
'Twas on the third day "Charge!" was said—The day that last wild charge was led; They fired no shot from ten till one, Each gunner rested on his gun;A breathless hush and a deathlike calmForetold the coming of the storm.
Then like some mighty tidal crestThat rises high above the rest And madly dashes on the shore With thund'rous shock and deaf'ning roar,There rose a mighty sea of menWhere peaceful fields of grain had been, And half the Southern army wheeled And charged across the quiet field.
They shook the ridges with their yells—We could not hear their bursting shells—They ploughed our breastworks with their shot— The July air grew thick and hot—They strewed the hillside with our dead;They shook the vale with thund'rous tread; And yet no answer from the hill, Our grinning guns were deathly still.
But when the Rebel line swept down Upon the road that led to town, The Union rank its silence broke
And every frowning cannon spoke.I've seen the forked lightning's play Until the night was bright as day; I've heard the dreaded thunder's wrathThat seemed to shake the very earth.Then like the lightning's blinding flash, Then like the thunder's deaf'ning crash, Three hundred cannons' vengeful ire
Burst forth in shot and shell and fire.A mighty flame lit earth and sky— I saw a host of heroes die— I heard the crash of shattered steel—I felt the boulders rock and reel;Then all the scene grew black as night, As hotter, fiercer grew the fight. 'Midst sick'ning smoke and flying sand,The dead so thick we scarce could stand, 'Midst solid shot and bursting shell And every horror known in hell, We fought as men ne'er fought before And turned the tide of cruel war.
As darkness flees at break of day,As every tempest dies away, So ceased the storm on hill and plain, The fall of leaden sleet and rain.Then came a gentle evening breathAnd kissed the fevered fields of death, And blew aside the friendly screen And showed us where the fight had been.We saw no shattered army then,With broken lines of flying men; We heard no sound of rushing feet, Of scattered corps in wild retreat;We saw no banner rise and fall,We heard no drum or bugle call, Only a crimson field instead, With an endless stretch of sleeping dead,The Southern army widely slain,Gone like a leaf in the hurricane.
All honor to the charge they made!All glory to the men who stayed That fearless charge, with a fearless stand For Freedom and their native land!We praise them with our mingled cheers, We grieve them with our mingled tears, And a nation springs to the bugle call, And the starry flag floats over all.God grant that this may ever beThe land of love and liberty, And that Old Glory's stripe and star Shall ne'er again be raised in war!