Battle of Nashville

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BATTLE OF NASHVILLE
MAJOR GENERAL GEO H. THOMAS
December 15-16, 1864.

THE PREPARATION.

All day, while gazing from yon lofty tower,
We saw, far gleaming through the mist and smoke,
The camps, like fleets upon a circling sea,
Or snow-drifts sleeping on the frozen hills,
Yet terrible in silence, the blue tide
Of cavalry, the battle's foremost wave;
The gunboats on the left; upon the right
Fort Gillem's bannered staff, and to the South
Fort Negley's [bastions] belting St. Cloud's hill,
And Morton and Casino by its side.
How soon their guns will belch will sulphurous breath
Upon the crimson carnival of Death!

THE NIGHT SCENE.

But when the darkness swallowed up the day,
As if we entered the Elysian fields,
Through the encircling clouds of endless night,
We saw a glowing Paradise of light.
A thousand camp-fires blossomed on the hills,
The flame-leaved lilies of the Field of Mars,
Minerva's bloody roses, passion-flowers,
Planted by sooty Vulcan, whose red disc
Thrive best in crimson showers, and gather strength
Fanned by the moans and sighs of dying men.
Each tented hill a pyramid of fire
Flashed round the dark horizon, till it seemed
A billowed sea of many-twinkling lights,
Or burning girdle of Vesuvian crests
Whose surging lava trembled to overleap
Their glowing craters, and engulf the plains.
Alas, for many a harnessed warrior when
Yon Battle-Titan turns him in his den!
THE PRELUDE.

Hearken! In the murky morning,
Sounds the awful note of warning,
Winding down the river shore,
Tramps the veteran Sixteenth Corps,
Wilson's bugles charm the river,
With the signal of advance,
Twenty thousand guidons quiver
From the horseman's tapering lance;
Twenty thousand chargers' feet
Hurry through the startled street,
Stretching "to the crack of doom"
Till they vanish in the gloom
Of the woods which fringe the West
Round Fort Zollicoffer's crest.
We hear along the Western shore
The sullen battle's opening roar,
While aloft in the clouds, like the Angels of Death.
The white-winged shells poured their sulphurous breath.
Hatch's horsemen spur their steeds,
Croxton's sabres bright are glancing,
Johnson in the vanguard leads,
Still encircling, still advancing,
Onward like a torrent's dashing
Spaulding's carbine fire is flashing,
Like a serpent line of fire-
Steward reels before their ire.
[Rolls] the battle-tumult higher,-
The hero falls-the charger bleeds,
The rebel line recoils!- recedes!
"Charge the batteries" -It is done, -
Stewart's legions turn and fly-
Swells the glad shout of Victory!-
So the first day's strife is won.

THE SECOND DAY.

The morning breaks
With battle thunder,
The city wakes
With fear and wonder,
See the glittering bayonets shine,
Along the front of Steedman's line.
The bugle's call-the rolling drum-
The mad shriek of the flying shell,
The rush- the soldier's frenzied yell,
The crash of the exploding bomb
Careering wildly through the air,
The distant batteries, vivid glare,
The cannon's smoke which jets aloof,
The foaming charger's clattering hoof,
The musketry's incessant shower,
Drifting [its] lead round Acklin's tower;
The cannister's consuming spray,
Where dauntless Steedman cleaves his way;
Or fearless Wood's heroic form
Stern as an oak, confronts the storm,
Startle the eye and stun the ear
As sweeps the battle's wild career.
There is dread and desperation,
There is wrath and trepidation;
They grapple, they reel
In the sharp shock of steel,
They struggle, they bleed,
They rush, they recede;
Death's harvesters labor
With carbine and sabre.
In swaths the dead are falling, and the maimed and bleeding writhe
Before the steady swinging of the ponderous battle-scythe.

THE CHIEF.

Serene and steady as the Polar Star
Whose light no clouds can quench nor billows mar
But shines while tempests lash the deep below,
Thomas surveyed the turbid storm of war
Firm as Gibraltar in the whirlwind's jar,
And gazed and watched to strike the final blow.
With god-like skill to reason and combine-
The moment comes- 'Now charge along the line!"

THE CHARGE.

Freemen of the stern Northwest,
Come with bayonets in rest,
Exiles of East Tennessee
Strike! and make the oppressor flee
Warriors once in fetters bound,
With liberty would you be crowned?
Now or never stand your ground.
Make your naughty massers feel
The vengeance of a freeman's steel,
And with or on your shining shield
Return in glory from the field.
Clenched lips turn pale, but they pale not with fear,
And the soldier's eye gleams like a star in its sphere,-
There's a hush! There's a rumbling and a crush,
Like the breaking of ice in a thawing river's flush,
The solid earth shakes with a universal rush.
The clouds of battle break,
The hills in terror quake,
While fire crackles down their sides like a red volcanic lake-
Beneath whose fiery surge that day full many a bark went down,
And many a soul which morning woke from dreams of high renown.
Face to face and sword to sword-
See the slave confront his lord;
Through the tumult the foam-covered charger is spurred,
And the shrieks of the wounded and dying are heard;
And muskets and carbines are doubled and battered.
And sabres and bayonets to atoms are shattered-
The command and the curse, and the groan and the yell,
Thunder up like the mad bubbling cauldron of hell.
Where is our Chief? His lips compressed,
Smothers the tumult in his breast;
Along the line his clear survey
Scans the sure fortune of the day.
"Forward to the charge once more!"
Then like the Judgement thunder,
Cleaving the clouds asunder,
The shock of battle sweeps from shore to shore
And shakes the rock-ribbed valley with its roar.
Like a tropical tornado, Death pours his crimson rain
In swirling drifts of slaughter along the trampled plain,
Bleeding and torn, and shattered Hood's vanquished legions fly,
And along the Union lines goes up the shout of victory.
Thus Nashville's Two Days Battle by our noble chief was won,
And our hearts were filled with gladness at the setting of the Sun.