Immortal Songs of Camp and Field

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.

    – Francis Miles Finch.
Francis Miles Finch, the author of The Blue and the Gray, was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1827. He graduated with honor from Yale College in 1845 in his eighteenth year. He studied law and became a practicing lawyer of fine reputation at Ithaca, being elected an associate judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York in 1881. In July, 1853, he read a poem at the centennial celebration of the Linonian Society of Yale, in which several lyrics were introduced, including one on Nathan Hale, the patriot spy of the Revolution. This at once achieved wide popularity. His one poem, however, which will carry his name down to the future is The Blue and the Gray.

Two years after the war of the Rebellion there appeared in the New York Tribune, the following item: “The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by nobler sentiments than many of their sisters, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.” This, coming at a time when a great deal of the soreness of defeat and the bitterness aroused by the war still remained, seemed to be the first indication of an era of more kindly feeling and a more generous Christian spirit.

The eye of a poet is always seeing the poetic possibilities in current incidents, and when Mr. Finch saw this news item in his favorite daily paper, he not only saw the romance and pathos of the situation, but thought that such an exhibition of generosity should be at once met and welcomed in the same temper. It was out of that impulse that The Blue and the Gray grew into being. Mr. Finch sent it to the Atlantic Monthly, where it was published in the September number of 1867, prefaced with the news extract from the Tribune which had suggested it. The poem at once aroused marked attention and became popular throughout the entire country, but especially so in the South.

John Hutchinson was paying a visit to Vinnie Ream, the sculptor, who designed the General Thomas monument in April, 1874. Among the guests were three ex-Confederate generals. At her request Hutchinson sang The Blue and the Gray; when he had finished singing the song, the three Confederates rose simultaneously, and one after the other shook his hand with great heartiness. “Mr. Hutchinson,” they said, “that song is a passport to you anywhere in the South.” Alexander H. Stephens, the ex-vice-president of the Confederacy, upon hearing from these gentlemen of Mr. Hutchinson’s singing, sent a special request to him to come to his hotel and sing The Blue and the Gray. He was wheeled into the room in his chair to listen to the song. At the conclusion he declared that the country was safe when such sentiments became popular.

Mr. Hutchinson himself composed the music for Finch’s famous song. At the great Atlanta Exposition in 1895, Mr. Hutchinson made the journey to Atlanta by special invitation of the management, and was present on “Blue and Gray” Day. He says of the experience: “Who can picture my thoughts on that notable occasion? To think that, at last, the man who had known what it was to be maligned and buffeted in the South, should be received with honor in its chief city, and witness the effects of reconstruction in the great cotton country! It was a ‘New South,’ indeed, that I saw. And there, to the great gathering of Union and Confederate soldiers, I sang the song that had so often in later years been a key to open the Southern heart to the Hutchinsons: —

“‘No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.’”

Perhaps no one thing has done so much to soften the bitterness which civil war left in our country as the beautiful ceremonies connected with Memorial Day. As the years have gone on, and every Memorial Day the Southern soldiers have been more and more wont to cover the graves of their dead foemen with wreaths of Southern flowers, and again and again gray-haired veterans from both the “Blue and the Gray” have met beside the Hudson to do honor to the great commander who at Appomattox said, “Let us have peace,” the coldness of suspicion and distrust have blown away, until, now that the boys from the South as well as from the North have marched together again under the old flag to fight a foreign foe, we see eye to eye.

The birth of Decoration Day deserves to be held in everlasting remembrance. Mrs. John A. Logan, the wife of the great Volunteer General, in company with some friends, made a trip to Richmond in March, 1868. Mrs. Logan was particularly impressed by the evidences of desolation and destruction which she witnessed everywhere, but which seemed to her to be particularly emphasized by the innumerable graves which filled the cemeteries, many of which were those of Confederate soldiers. In the summer before they had all been decorated by wreaths of flowers and little flags, all of which were faded, but which seemed to the tender-hearted woman to be a mute evidence of the devotion and gratitude of those people to the men who had lost their lives to their cause.

On speaking of this to General Logan, on her return, he said it was a beautiful custom and one worthy to be copied, and, as he was then Commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, that he intended issuing an order, asking the entire people of the nation to inaugurate the custom of annually decorating the graves of the patriotic dead as a memorial of their sacrifice and devotion to country. He issued the first order for May 30, 1868, and it was so enthusiastically received that Congress made it a national holiday.

It will thus be seen, that Memorial Day was born out of a partnership between a woman’s tender heart and a man’s noble purpose. It is also sweet to reflect that South and North united at its birth. The Southern mourners were the first to cover the graves of their dead with flowers, as they were the first to decorate the graves of their fallen foes; while their Northern brothers led in calling to it national attention, and made the custom as wide as the country. From henceforth we all unite in the closing couplet of Finch’s noble song: —

“Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.”

RULE, BRITANNIA

When Britain first, at heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.

The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
While thou shalt flourish, great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that rends the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.

Thee, haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame, —
But work their woe and thy renown.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.

To thee belongs the rural reign,
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore encircles thine.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coasts repair,
Blessed Isle! With matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.

    – James Thomson.