The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864

Disclosed our gallant army in line of battle drawn.
An early zephyr fresh and sweet breathed through the forest shade;
A thousand happy warblers, too, a pleasant music made;
And modest blossoms bathed in dew the morning light revealed:
Oh, who could deem those pleasant shades a savage foe concealed?
With lagging pace the morning hours dragged heavily away,
And yet we wait the coming strife, in battle's stern array.
A solemn stillness reigns around—but hark! a savage yell,
As if ten thousand angry fiends had burst the gates of hell,
Now thrills upon our startled ears. By heaven! the traitors come!
We see their gleaming banners, we hear the throbbing drum.
In solid ranks, their countless hordes from the dense woods emerge,
And roll upon our serried lines like ocean's angry surge.
Our ranks are silent—on each face the light of battle glows:
'Ready!' At once our polished tubes are levelled on our foes.
Now leaps a livid lightning up—from rank to rank it flies—
A fearful diapason rends the arches of the skies.
The wooded hills seem reeling before that fierce recoil;
With fire and smoke the valleys like Etna's craters boil:
From red volcanoes bursting, hissing, hurtling in the sky,
A thousand death-winged messengers like fiery meteors fly:
Within that seething vortex their shattered cohorts reel.
'Fix bayonets!' At once our lines bristle with burnished steel.
'Charge!' And our gallant regiments burst through the feu d'enfer.
Before their furious onset the rebel hosts give way;
And, surging backward, hide again within the forest's shade,
Whose mazes dark and intricate our charging columns stayed.

Now sinks the fiery orb of day, half hidden from our sight
Amid the sulphurous clouds of war dyed red in lurid light;
And soon the smoking Wilderness with gloom and darkness fills;
The dense, damp foliage on the sod a bloody dew distils.
Sleepless we rest upon our arms. Dim lights flit through the shade:
We hear the groans of dying men, the rattle of the spade.
And when the morning dawns at last, resounding from afar
We hear the crash of musketry, the rising din of war.
O comrades, comrades, rally round, close up your ranks again;
Weep not our brethren fallen upon the crimson plain;
For unborn ages shall their tombs with freshest laurels twine;
Their names in characters of light on history's page shall shine:
We all must die; but few may win a deathless prize of life—
Close up your ranks—again the foe renews the bloody strife.
Two days we struggled fiercely against our stubborn foes—
Two days from out the Wilderness the din of conflict rose.
But when the third aurora bathed the eastern sky in gold,
And to our soldiers' anxious gaze the field of death unrolled,
Lo! all was silent in our front. The rebel hosts had fled,
Abandoning in hasty flight their wounded and their dead.

Come, friends of freedom, gather round, loud shouts of triumph give:
The field of blood is won at last—let the republic live!
Our country, O our country, our hearts throb wild and high;
Your cause has triumphed. God be praised! Freedom shall never die.
Our eagle proudly soars to-day, his talons bathed in gore,
For treason's hydra head is crushed—its reign of terror o'er.
Wake, wake your shouts of triumph all through our mighty land,
From California's golden hills to proud Potomac's strand.
Atlantic's waves exulting Pacific's billows call,
And great Niagara's cataracts in louder thunders fall.
We've stayed the tempest black as night that on our country lowers,
And backward dashed its waves of blood. The victory is ours!

A light shines from the Wilderness—far up time's pathway streams—
Through death, and blood, and agony, on Calvary's cross it gleams;
It lights with radiance divine Mount Vernon's humble tomb,
And sparkles on Harmodius' sword bright flashing through the gloom.
Ho! slaves of yesterday, arise, now will your chains be riven.
Ho! tyrants, tremble, for behold a day of vengeance given.
Gaze on our banners stained with blood—think of your brethren slain;
Say, has not freedom, crushed to earth, sprung forth to life again?
Freedom, high freedom, friend of man, sheath not thy crimson steel;
Still let thy cannon thunder loud, still let thy trumpet peal;
Stay not the justice of thy wrath, stay not thy vengeful hand,
Till slavery and treason have been blotted from our land.

TARDY TRUTHS

Under the heading of 'Tardy Truths' The New Nation, of May 7th, republished a compendium of matter some time back given to the world by M. Emile de Girardin, in his paper La Presse, and in pamphlet form. This matter purports to have been written by a so-called ex-commandant in the late Polish insurrection, a certain M. Fouquet, of Marseilles.

Poland has no reason to fear truth. On the contrary, the difficulty has been to find means to set it forth, avenues to the public intelligence and sense of justice, whereby those might be reached who forget the Latin saying: Audi et alteram partem. The Poles are willing to hear reproaches, if such as may be profited by, or if the self-constituted judges be conscientious and unprejudiced.

But, may we not ask why it is that many of these so-called truths, professedly founded upon personal acquaintance with Polish localities, men, and institutions, spring from sources in many respects similar to that of the recent publication in La Presse, from individuals who never were in Poland beyond a few hours spent in Warsaw—who have seen nothing of the country, except as passing in a passenger car from Kracow to Mohilew, a distance of about seven hundred miles, traversed in about twenty-four hours—who never understood one word of Polish, of Rossian, or of any of the cognate tongues—who have never conversed freely with the inhabitants—who may have been entertained during a few hours by Government employés or by cautious and distrustful patriots—who were in a hurry to see St. Petersburg and its elephant, and who learned Polish history in the Kremlin, in the saloons of some former prince from the Altay or the Caucasus, or, at best, in the work of M. Koydanoff?

La Presse, in Paris, undertook the charge of saying things which her franker sisters, Le Nord and La Nation, the avowed organs of Rossian czarism, did not venture to propound. M. de Girardin, whose paper has, since a certain period, taken a liberalistic, even socialistic, infection, is a living example of sundry anomalous eccentricities, such as Alcibiades, Gracchus, Mirabeau, etc., who speak most liberally, and act in a contrary manner. He seems to have been adopted by Rossian diplomatists, and those sanguine of Rossian destiny, as a most convenient defender of czarish ambition—the more so that they found in him a revealer of things never thought of by the czar; as for instance, liberality and even democracy in Great Rossia, on the plains of Okka and Petschora.

We might compare M. Fouquet's account of Poland with Neumann's account of Kosciusko, or Freneau's of Washington, but will content ourselves with referring the reader to better European sources of knowledge, as the Breslau Zeitung, Ost Deutsche Zeitung, Czas, Wiek, La Pologne, etc.

Indeed, it would not be worth our while to pay any attention to M. Fouquet's allegations, had not the Paris letter of April 4th appeared in the above-mentioned paper, and were it not likely to mislead many ignorant of the facts.

The writer tells us that he has 'experienced a great temptation to tell what he has seen,' and to 'expose the result of experience acquired at his own cost, with all attendant risk and danger.' Probably we do not understand the fear of the author of 'Tardy Truths,' and wish to give no extended explanation to his conclusion: 'A rare opportunity occurs at present, and he profits by it.' We have been taught that we must always have courage to speak the truth. Surely no great amount of that noble quality is required to make accusations in a paper far from the scene of action, and pronounce a verdict where there can be no adequate defence, no judges, only the advantage of the fashion of the day, and the craving for problematical benefits and friendship, to which we must apply Moore's comparison:

'Like Dead Sea fruits, that tempt the eye,
But turn to ashes on the lips.'

Let us never be deceived: a free nation in the embrace of absolutism must, sooner or later, fall a prey to the cajoler's hypocrisy and greed.

The correspondent reports that the Polish Committee in Paris declined to give him information or furnish means, and even said that they did not wish volunteers. All this may readily be explained by the consideration that a man who thereafter proved to be so bitter an enemy was not sufficiently diplomatic to deceive even the obtuse perceptions of so undeserving a body as the author describes said committee. On the other hand, it would have been more prudent for the writer to have said less on this topic, as such hesitation in accepting his services might induce the reader to think that the Poles were not so anxious for external aid as he seemed to fancy. We also know that not only at present in Poland, but in former ages, and in our own days, in the happiest of countries, there can be no revolution, no war, which will not attract a host of men covetous of rank or fortune. Lately, in Poland, by certain judicious arrangements, this calamity has been prevented, to the great dissatisfaction of many.

No one can doubt or deny that the interest of various Governments, and the sense of justice among nations, gave the Poles a right to expect foreign aid. The assurances of certain politicians and statesmen even gave reasonable expectation of such a result. Such aid would of course neither be rejected nor treated with indifference. But the assertion that the Poles relied solely on such aid is (in the face of the manifesto of January 22d and July 31st, 1863) either a proof of ill will, or of entire ignorance of the resources upon which Poland was bound to rely, and which could not be intrusted to the discretion of every volunteer or pretended well-wisher to the Polish nation.