Classic Poem

Lee scanned Grant's purpose, and ere Warren's front
Had reached the edge of the Peninsula ridge,
Longstreet had flung his forces cross the path
And fortressed on the Spotsylvanian hills.

Before the Court House stretched the Southern lines,
Facing Grant's Army, fixed and obdurate.
After six days of fighting desperately,
Where Hooker or McClellan would have quailed,
Grant made assault upon the Salient —
" The Bloody Angle " by Virginians named.
There North and South met in the clutch of death.
Five times Lee hurled Gray ranks on ranks of Blue,
And five times met a slaughterous response.
Across the barrier deadly muskets met
Muzzle to muzzle, bayonets clashing loud,
While men sprang frantic on the summit, fired
In one another's faces, courting death.
Maniacs they were, for knowledge of the need
Of triumph in this desperate embrace
Of battle lashed each man of North, of South,
To deeds which elsewhere had been madmen's signs.

Thus struggled war's demoniacs. Hand to hand
They grappled as they fired, each other dragged
Bleeding and dying under bayonet thrusts
And tearing pistol shots, down, clinched and linked,
Into the gory trenches. Thus they fought
And fell, and fighting on, and falling, died,
Till all the place turned into shambles vast,
While 'neath the pouring rain and battle smoke,
The woods became a furnace. Breastworks torn,
And lined on either side by duellists,
Counting life naught for sake of taking life,
Were piled with dead on which the living climbed,
And stood, and fired, and fell. As corals rise,
Mounted on previous insects yielding life,
To rear the islands of Hawaiian sea,
So they, fate's bondmen, climbed and sacrificed,
Building their crimsoned pyramids of dead.
And thus the slain host waxed, the living waned,
And all the while the ghastly horror spread,
And all the while the frenzied combat raged.
Beyond the wild day's end the madmen strove
Into the night with victory unattained.