Classic Poem

I

'Twas a battle of States:
'Twas Georgia, Alabama,
And North Carolina;
'Twas South Carolina
And Tennessee.
But Virginia starred the drama
To make the South free
From the board of trade, the bank, the factory.
'Twas a battle of States
With New York for the banks,
With sixty-eight regiments of steel in ranks.
'Twas a masque of the Fates
Traveling with tents,
With machine Massachusetts with eighteen regiments;
'Twas a butchery of hates
With Ohio of oil with thirteen regiments,
Standing by Connecticut of mouse-traps and clocks
With five bloody regiments,
Having there for mates
Illinois, Vermont full of merchant ire,
Hiding in the rocks,
With Maine, Minnesota and New Hampshire
Behind the stone-wall, the ditch and the fence
With Wisconsin, Rhode Island and Michigan,
Regiments, regiments, regiments,
A hundred and forty foot-regiments,
And thirty-eight cavalries
And four score batteries,
Something altogether like ninety thousand men,
With four hundred cannon, and a full commissary
All lined up by the Gettysburg Cemetery,
Led by Humphreys, Reynolds and Hays
Favored by Fate, whom to favor betrays;
Led by Hancock battle-keyed;
Led by Birney, Crawford, and Gibbon,
Led by Meade;
Leaders and led of all those regiments
Believing it was treason they were fighting there;
Believing that to conquer Robert E. Lee
Was to save the Union, and to make the people free;
Believing they were acting for Providence,
And helping the white man, the pioneer,
And ending the bondsman and slavery;
Not ending the farm, but giving it aid;
Not giving the hip-lock to ships and trade.
Nor was it of any captain seen,
Neither of Humphreys, Hancock, Meade,
That the one-eyed genius of the machine
Was sprawling on the rocks of the battle scene,
Was stalking the orchards as he gazed and glowered,
Over the Ridges and the July meadow,
Throwing his giant and viewless shadow
On fields and hills as he paused and towered,
Taking a one-eyed reconnaissance,
Of those enemy regiments.

II

'Twas the Loki of luck, the treacherous Tyche,
She with the rudder who guides amiss,
She with a ball for token and toy
Which rolls out of hand for Nemesis,
Who staged the battle and gave the crown
Of victory at Gettysburg town.
Else never had Stephen Pomeroy,
Climbed over mountains for seventeen miles,
Rode horseback for the latter half
Of the way to reach the telegraph,
And send the word over Pennsylvania
That Lee was coming, and scatter the news,
That the army of Lee was coming for cattle,
For horses, clothing and shoes,
For food, for Harrisburg gold in the banks;
Tramping, all flushed with the victory
At Fredericksburg, with unconquerable ranks
Coming to win another battle
Under the iron audacity
Of Virginia commanded by Lee.
'Twas Tyche that kept the historic clown
From fighting the battle at Cashtown,
And saved the Muses the shamefulness
Of the Cashtown address.
'Twas Tyche that kept Jeb Stuart squandering
Precious time with circuitous wandering,
And let Longstreet hang with long complaining
Talk on Lee, and logic straining,
And thereby lose the day.
'Twas Tyche that sent Meade to Culp's Hill,
Where his troops dug in and fortified
The rocks from which to watch and kill.
And it was Tyche satire-eyed
Who chose George Pickett to make the charge,
Since Pickett owed to Lincoln all
His West Point training.
But it was blindness breathed like mist
Upon those armies ranged in wrath
Which brought them by a fateful path,
And led them to the bloody marge,
And made them mad-men for a cause,
For freedoms and for laws
Which never did exist.
Their wills heroical,
Their spirits mystical,
Their courage, loyalty,
Their dreams of liberty,
Their vision of a people who had sinned;
Their very souls were used and blown
As odors of blossoms leveled prone
By an unregarding wind.

III

First there was the thunder of the guns!
And Culp's Hill answers to the thunder of the guns;
And the woodlands echo to the thunder of the guns.
And the crows rise and scatter
With the thunder of the guns;
And the crackles soar and chatter
With the thunder of the guns.
For the battle commences behind the stone fences,
There are racing cattle, as the roar and rattle
Of the ridges and the hills reverberate the battle.
There are whinnying horses, as they pile up the corses
By the wagons and caissons.
White clouds look down
On these hell-fire passions;
White clouds look down
On Seminary Ridge,
On Cemetery Ridge,
Olympian, cool, white clouds,
Calm as eternity
Look down on spire and bridge,
Look down
On Gettysburg town;
Look down on Lee and Meade.
And the open eye of the sun,
And the cloud eye-lids that shadow
Stay not to see what will be done,
Nor to count those soon to be lying dead
By ridges, orchards and meadow.

IV

'Twas Tyche that led Lee's men to believe
That the cannonade had shattered the lines,
That the thunder of the guns had battered the lines
Of Meade in Cemetery Ridge;
And now it was time to achieve,
Time to fight, time for vengeance wines,
Time to charge from Seminary Ridge.
And from the wood and orchards poured
That impetuous horde
Of men in gray, in butternut,
In motley regimentals, in rags,
Waving their battle-flags!
And forth they streamed
With bayonets which gleamed
Under the crucible hot
July sun.
One line comes forth, another one,
All steady and well aligned,
And all with equal tread
And all with fearless mind,
Come forth, advance file after file
From the woods, and cross that mile
Of meadow-land to Cemetery Ridge
Whose guns were double-charged with lead.
And soon these men of Pickett saw
The Union line two miles in length
With bayonets and batteries
Behind the rocks in strength
Of cannon and musketries.
And Pickett's men began to draw
The long-range guns upon them,
And bursting shells upon them,
And grape-shot and grenading
And Round Top's enfilading;
But on they went,
Regiment after regiment.
Till at last the Union infantry
Rose from the fences, rocks and rails
And poured their musketry
On Pickett's men, whose will no more avails,
No more, since now the cannon double-shotted
Are let go in their faces,
And thousands, blown in air, are blotted
From the scene in empty spaces,
Toward the blue of the sky, where the white cloud races.
Still on they went, scattered like chaff
To be beat back by rammer and staff
As they scaled the walls around oak trees
And perished, vanished paid the cost
Of the battle lost.

V

The peach orchard, the oak trees,
The graves of those long dead,
The pastures where the cattle fed,
The old farm houses in the meadow,
The rocks in Culp Hill's shadow,
The old bridges and wooded ridges,
Waited through many years for these
To come to them for this event,
Fulfilling their fated destinies
By the road of Emmitsburg,
Near Gettysburg,
Where perished Pickett's regiment.
None passing this spot for many a year
Saw in oak trees and in peach trees
The demon of luring sorceries,
As a place where thousands in wonderment
Should suddenly see the implacable Fear
Under a summer sky,
With white clouds drifting high.

VI

Then the grackles returned,
And the crows flew over the field,
Trodden, bloodied and burned,
Back and forth to the quiet woods.
And the cattle broods
Browsed as the sun went down
Behind the hills of Gettysburg town.
And Nature took these solitudes
For hers again, and starred the sky
With stars which twinkled on meadow and hill.
They glimmered in many a soldier's eye,
Who stared and lay so still.