The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865

And, a little later to part,
Our Captain, noble and dear—
(Did they deem thee, then, austere?
Drayton!—O pure and kindly heart!
Thine is the seaman's tear.)

All such,—and many another,
(Ah, list how long to name!)
That stood like brother by brother,
And died on the field of fame.

And around—(for there can cease
This earthly trouble)—they throng,
The friends that had passed in peace,
The foes that have seen their wrong.

(But, a little from the rest,
With sad eyes looking down,
And brows of softened frown,
With stern arms on the chest,
Are two, standing abreast,—
Stonewall and Old John Brown.)

But the stainless and the true,
These by their President stand,
To look on his last review,
Or march with the old command.

And lo, from a thousand fields,
From all the old battle-haunts,
A greater Army than Sherman wields,
A grander Review than Grant's!

Gathered home from the grave,
Risen from sun and rain,—
Rescued from wind and wave,
Out of the stormy main,—
The Legions of our Brave
Are all in their lines again!

Many a stout Corps that went,
Full-ranked, from camp and tent,
And brought back a brigade;
Many a brave regiment,
That mustered only a squad.

The lost battalions,
That, when the fight went wrong,
Stood and died at their guns,—
The stormers steady and strong,

With their best blood that bought
Scarp, and ravelin, and wall,—
The companies that fought
Till a corporal's guard was all.

Many a valiant crew,
That passed in battle and wreck,—
Ah, so faithful and true!
They died on the bloody deck,
They sank in the soundless blue.

All the loyal and bold
That lay on a soldier's bier,—
The stretchers borne to the rear,
The hammocks lowered to the hold.

The shattered wreck we hurried,
In death-fight, from deck and port,—
The Blacks that Wagner buried,
That died in the Bloody Fort!

Comrades of camp and mess,
Left, as they lay, to die,
In the battle's sorest stress,
When the storm of fight swept by:
They lay in the Wilderness,—
Ah, where did they not lie?

In the tangled swamp they lay,
They lay so still on the sward!—
They rolled in the sick-bay,
Moaning their lives away;—
They flushed in the fevered ward.

They rotted in Libby yonder,
They starved in the foul stockade,—
Hearing afar the thunder
Of the Union cannonade!

But the old wounds all are healed,
And the dungeoned limbs are free,—
The Blue Frocks rise from the field,
The Blue Jackets out of the sea.

They've 'scaped from the torture-den,
They've broken the bloody sod,
They're all come to life agen!—
The Third of a Million men
That died for Thee and for God!