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American Civil War Chronicles 1

This series is dedicated to my friend Frank James Ryan Jr

Author’s Note.
If it had not been for Frank suggesting to diversify, this series might never have come into being. It was while thinking of what he said that the idea of writing about the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 came into my mind. I plan to chart the Civil War in poem from its beginning to its eventual end. I will try to be as accurate as I can with my words and order of events.
DVH

BEGINNINGS BEFORE SHOTS WERE FIRED

Wars are only started
when diplomacy fails to win.
So it was in 1859
two years before the civil war began.
Neither side wanted to give an inch,
though the South was easing their stance,
and if the talking went on for another year,
the bloodshed might have been
averted completely.

However, the agitators were out in force,
and through their actions,
the talking began to crumble,
peace died and wither in dust.
When John Brown seized the Federal arsenal
at Harpers Ferry to start a slave insurrection in the South.
It was just one spark that would help ignite a war.
That in four years would pit
brother against brother, and friend against friend.

It was a war that was to shape
a fledgling country, for its future days.
The bitterness it created
was to last for years,
after the fighting
was just a distant memory,
creating distrust with wounds,
burning deep within families,
causing feuding and banditry,
before hatches were finally buried.

25 August 2007

poem by David Harris
Added by Poetry Lover
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