Of the extent to which the war songs and ballads of a people influence the character and destiny of that people, much has been written, and the truth is not yet half told. Our present concern with this literature, however, has less regard to its influence than to its value as historical material. History records the events in a nation's life; poetry, and especially ballad poetry, reflects the character, the aspirations, the passions, and the purposes of a people; and viewed in this light a study of the war ballads and lyrics of our country must fill every reader's mind with hope and courage. Many of the poems presented in these little volumes are rude, some of them being scarcely better than doggerel, while much of the material is poetry of a very high order; but there are certain characteristics common to all the poems, and these are the characteristics that distinguish a virile race which encounters difficulty with stalwart courage and confronts danger with an unruffled mind. It is the poetry of strength and manly self-reliance. There is not a plaint of weakness anywhere in it. It is inspired from beginning to end by a high and unfaltering faith in the truth of the doctrines of human liberty that underlie our entire history and constitute the vital principle of our institutions. The ruder poems are a trifle truculent now and then perhaps, but some little truculence may be allowed as a poetic license to the poet who sings of his countrymen's prowess in just wars. In preparing this little collection the editor has had occasion to read anew the entire body of American war poetry of the ballad and lyric class, and he ends the examination with a feeling of intense satisfaction in the knowledge that there is not an unmanly or a cowardly line in it and scarcely an ungenerous one. [Illustration] [Illustration: THE COLONIAL WARS] [Illustration] LOVEWELL'S FIGHT. [This ballad, written in 1725, soon after the battle of May 8th, in that year, was said by a contemporary writer to be "the most beloved song in all New England," though "Chevy Chace" had been known there almost as well as in old England. The name of the author is lost to us, but his work has been preserved in Penhallow's "History of the Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians," 1726. The ballad is rude and destitute of poetic quality; but it has extraordinary interest as the earliest American war ballad known to us as having been dear to the hearts of the people who sang or recited it. It has interest, also, as a reflection of manners. The commendation bestowed upon the chaplain for _scalping_ Indians as well as killing them is suggestive.--EDITOR.] [Illustration] [Illustration] LOVEWELL'S FIGHT. Of worthy Captain Lovewell, I purpose now to sing, How valiantly he served his country and his king; He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods full wide, And hardships they endured to quell the Indian's pride.