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Page 132
II.
Come, let us cross the river, those that have gone before,
Crush'd in the strife for freedom, await on yonder shore;
So bright the sunshine sparkles, so merry hums the breeze,
Come, let us cross the river, and rest beneath the trees.
III.
Come, let us cross the river, the stream that runs so dark:
'Tis none but cowards quiver, so let us all embark.
Come, men with hearts undaunted, we'll stem the tide with ease,
We'll cross the flowing river, and rest beneath the trees.
IV.
Come, let us cross the river, the dying hero cried,
And God, of life the giver, then bore him o'er the tide.
Life's wars for him are over, the warrior takes his ease,
There, by the flowing river, at rest beneath the trees.
Charge of Hagood's Brigade.
Weldon Railroad, August 21, 1864.
The following lines were written in the summer of 1864, immediately after
the charge referred to in them, which was always considered by the brigade
as their most desperate encounter.
Scarce seven hundred men they stand
In tattered, rude array,
A remnant of that gallant band,
Who erstwhile held the sea-girt strand
Of Morris' isle, with iron hand
'Gainst Yankees' hated sway.
SECESSIONVILLE their banner claims,
And SUMTER, held 'mid smoke and flames,
And the dark battle on the streams
Of POCOTALIGO:
And WALTHALL'S JUNCTION'S hard-earned fight,
And DREWRY'S BLUFF'S embattled height,
Whence, at the gray dawn of the light,
They rushed upon the foe.
Tattered and torn those banners now,
But not less proud each lofty brow,
Untaught as yet to yield:
With mien unblenched, unfaltering eye,
Forward, where bombshells shrieking fly
Flecking with smoke the azure sky
On Weldon's fated field.
Sweeps from the woods the bold array,
Not theirs to falter in the fray,
No men more sternly trained than they
To meet their deadly doom:
While, from a hundred throats agape,
A hundred sulphurous flames escape,
Round shot, and canister, and grape,
The thundering cannon's boom!
Swift, on their flank, with fearful crash
Shrapnel and ball commingling clash,
And bursting shells, with lurid flash,
Their dazzled sight confound:
Trembles the earth beneath their feet,
Along their front a rattling sheet
Of leaden hail concentric meet,
And numbers strew the ground.
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