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 cannons’ 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 Lion-like, 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, And gazed and watched to strike the final blow, The Rock of Chickamauga, braving the whirlwind’s jar. THE CHARGE.