18653 In War Time 



the dismay after Bull Run, the bloody conflicts in 

 the Wilderness - - Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, 

 and Spottsylvania Court House - - the dreary 

 marches and countermarches in the malarial shades 

 of the Chickahominy, the slaughters at Cold Harbor 

 and Malvern Hill, the encouraging victories in the 

 West more than offset, however, by the distressing 

 failure of one general after another in Virginia ; and 

 finally the varying encounters from Petersburg to 

 Appomattox, by which the brave armies of the 

 South were outworn and broken up. 



I read with emotion Stedman's stirring appeal War 



poets 



" Abraham Lincoln, give us a man ! " ] 



and the vivid sea poems 2 of Henry Howard Brownell, 

 a naval officer, our "Battle Laureate," as Oliver 

 Wendell Holmes called him. 



With Lee's dramatic surrender under the old 

 apple tree on the red-clay slope across the stream 



1 Not a leader to shirk the boastful foe 

 And to march and countermarch our brave 

 Till they fade like ghosts in the marshes low, 

 And the swamp grass covers each nameless grave. 

 Nor another whose fateful banners wave 

 Aye in disaster's shameful van: 

 Nor another to bluster, swear, and rave 

 Abraham Lincoln, give us a man! 



2 From "The Bay Fight" I quote the following: 



Drayton strode to the prow, 

 Drayton the courtly and wise, 

 Kindly cynic and wise; 

 You'd hardly have known him now 

 With the flame of fight in his eyes. 



Fear a forgotten form, 



Death a dream of the eyes, 



We were atoms in God's great storm 



That sped through the angry skies. 



C 33 3 



