Classic Poem

For days the combatants were face to face
Behind their breastworks, while each anxious Chief
Waited the crafty movements of the foe.
At length in secret, midst the darksome night,
The Union Army, swiftly, silently,
Swung loose its vast impediments and men.
'Twas wondrous moving of that Northern host —
Marching and counter-marching in wide swaths,
Crowding the roadways, filling all the fields,
Onward and southward winding by dense woods,
O'er treacherous swamps, along confusing paths,
Through stifling dust, unbaffled by the dark,
And under sunlight blazing, blistering.
'Twas magnitude in motion, bravery
Blue-hued and formidable. Old Virginia
Within her sensive breast had never felt
Such strange vibrations, quakings ominous.
Then of a sudden on a shining morn,
Out of the dust the Federal troops emerged.
It was a pageant most magnifical —
Seven score of thousands moving steadily.

At last Grant's mighty Army, past the James,
Stood on Virginia's storied, civic soil,
And faced towards Richmond and towards Petersburg.