From redoubt to river, along the whole sweep of devouring flame, the forms of men wither as in a furnace heat. The whole front goes down. For an instant the chirp of the grasshopper and the cricket in the freshly-cut grass might almost be heard; then the groans of the suffering; then the shouts of impatient yeomen, who leap over obstacles to pursue until recalled to silence and to duty. Staggering but reviving, grand in the glory of their manhood, heroic in the fortitude which restores self-possession, with a steady step, in the face of fire and over the bodies of their dead, the remnant dare to renew battle. Again the deadly volley; and the shattered columns, in spite of entreaty or command, move back to the place of starting, and the first shock of battle is over. A lifetime when it is past seems but as a moment! A moment sometimes is as a lifetime. Onset and repulse! Three hundred lifetimes ended in twenty minutes! THE MARYLAND BATTALION BY JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER Spruce Macaronis, and pretty to see, Tidy and dapper and gallant were we; Blooded, fine gentlemen, proper and tall, Bold in a fox-hunt and gay at a ball; Prancing soldados so martial and bluff, Billets for bullets, in scarlet and buff— But our cockades were clasped with a mother’s low prayer, And the sweethearts that braided the sword-knots were fair. There was grummer of drums humming hoarse in the hills, And the bugle sang fanfaron down by the mills; By Flatbush the bagpipes were droning amain, And keen cracked the rifles in Martense’s lane; For the Hessians were flecking the hedges with red, And the grenadiers’ tramp marked the roll of the dead. Three to one, flanked and rear, flashed the files of St. George. The fierce gleam of their steel as the glow of a forge. The brutal boom-boom of their swart cannoneers Was sweet music compared with the taunt of their cheers— For the brunt of their onset, our crippled array, And the light of God’s leading gone out in the fray! Oh, the rout on the left and the tug on the right! The mad plunge of the charge and the wreck of the flight! When the cohorts of Grant held stout Stirling at strain, And the mongrels of Hesse went tearing the slain; When at Freeke’s Mill the flumes and the sluices ran red, And the dead choked the dyke and the marsh choked the dead! “O Stirling, good Stirling! how long must we wait? Shall the shout of your trumpet unleash us too late? Have you never a dash for brave Mordecai Gist, With his heart in his throat, and his blade in his fist? Are we good for no more than to prance in a ball, When the drums beat the charge and the clarions call?”