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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>At Fredericksburg—Dec. 13, 1862</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">GOD send us peace, and keep red strife away; <br>But should it come, God send us men and steel! <br>The land is dead that dare not face the day <br>When foreign danger threats the common weal.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Defenders strong are they that homes defend;<br>From ready arms the spoiler keeps afar. <br>Well blest the country that has sons to lend<br>From trades of peace to learn the trade of war.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thrice blest the nation that has every son <br>A soldier, ready for the warning sound; <br>Who marches homeward when the fight is done, <br>To swing the hammer and to till the ground. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Call back that morning, with its lurid light, <br>When through our land the awful war-bell tolled; <br>When lips were mute, and women's faces white <br>As the pale cloud that out from Sumter rolled. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Call back that morn: an instant all were dumb, <br>As if the shot had struck the Nation's life; <br>Then cleared the smoke, and rolled the calling drum, <br>And men streamed in to meet the coming strife,<br> <br>They closed the ledger and they stilled the loom. <br>The plow left rusting in the prairie farm; <br>They saw but ' Union' in the gathering gloom; <br>The tearless women helped the men to arm; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Brigades from towns—each village sent its band:<br>German and Irish—every race and faith; <br>There was no question then of native land,<br>But—love the Flag and follow it to death.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">No need to tell their tale: through every age <br>The splendid story shall be sung and said; <br>But let me draw one picture from the page— <br>For words of song embalm the hero dead. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The smooth hill is bare, and the cannons are planted,<br>Like Gorgon fates shading its terrible brow; <br>The word has been passed that the stormers are wanted,<br>And Burnside's battalions are mustering now. <br>The armies stand by to behold the dread meeting;<br>The work must be done by a desperate few; <br>The black-mouthed guns on the height give them greeting—<br>From gun-mouth to plain every grass blade in view. <br>Strong earthworks are there, and the rifles behind them<br>Are Georgia militia—an Irish brigade— <br>Their caps have green badges, as if to remind them <br>Of all the brave record their country has made.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The stormers go forward—the Federals cheer them;<br>They breast the smooth hillside—the black mouths are dumb; <br>The riflemen lie in the works till they near them,<br>And cover the stormers as upward they come. <br>Was ever a death-march so grand and so solemn?<br>At last, the dark summit with flame is enlined; <br>The great guns belch doom on the sacrificed column,<br>That reels from the height, leaving hundreds behind. <br>The armies are hushed—there is no cause for cheering:<br>The fall of brave men to brave men is a pain. <br>Again come the stormers! and as they are nearing<br>The flame-sheeted rifle-lines, reel back again. <br>And so till full noon come the Federal masses—<br>Flung back from the height, as the cliff flings a wave;<br>Brigade on brigade to the death-struggle passes, <br>No wavering rank till it steps on the grave. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then comes a brief lull, and the smoke-pall is lifted,<br>The green of the hillside no longer is seen; <br>The dead soldiers lie as the sea-weed is drifted,<br>The earthworks still held by the badges of green. <br>Have they quailed? is the word. No: again they are forming—<br>Again comes a column to death and defeat! <br>What is it in these who shall now do the storming<br>That makes every Georgian spring to his feet? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">' O God! what a pity!' they cry in their cover,<br>As rifles are readied and bayonets made tight; <br>''Tis Meagher and his fellows! their caps have green clover;<br>'Tis Greek to Greek now for the rest of the fight!' <br>Twelve hundred the column, their rent flag before them,<br>With Meagher at their head, they have dashed at the hill! <br>Their foemen are proud of the country that bore them;<br>But, Irish in love, they are enemies still. <br>Out rings the fierce word, ' Let them have it! ' the rifles<br>Are emptied point-blank in the hearts of the foe: <br>It is gueen against green, but a principle stifles<br>The Irishman's love in the Georgian's blow. <br>The column has reeled, but it is not defeated; <br>In front of the guns they re-form and attack; <br>Six times they have done it, and six times retreated; <br>Twelve hundred they came, and two hundred go back. <br>Two hundred go back with the chivalrous story;<br>The wild day is closed in the night's solemn shroud; <br>A thousand lie dead, but their death was a glory<br>That calls not for tears—the Green Badges are proud!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=418981" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Bright honor be theirs who for honor were fearless,<br>Who charged for their fl:ig to the grim cannon's mouth;<br>And honor to them who were true, though not tearless,— <br>Who bravely that day kept the cause of the South. <br>The quarrel is done—God avert such another; <br>The lesson it brought we should evermore heed: <br>Who loveth the Flag is a man and a brother, <br>No matter what birth or what race or what creed.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=John+Boyle+O%27Reilly">John Boyle O'Reilly</a></strong></div>