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 fearless masters 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 crush, Like the breaking of the 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 the 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 the muskets and carbines are doubled and battered And sabres and bayonets to atoms are scattered-- The command and the curse, and the groan and the yell, Thunder up like the mad-bubbling cauldron of Hell.[B] Eagles of victory, say, on which flag will you alight-- Confederate or Federal? Both deem their cause is right; Never more fearless rivals grappled in mortal fight. No carpet knights are they, but iron-sinewed men, From office, mine, and workshop, from mountain, prairie, glen, From legendary Southern river, from sparkling Northern lake, From Indiana beechwood, or Arkansas cane-brake. All worthy of the highest song that dropped from Homer’s pen. Leonidas at Thermopylæ led on no braver crew Than those who bore the “Stars and Bars”; nor bloody Waterloo, Than the men who carried the “Stars and Stripes” where bullets thickest flew. God speed the day when the boys in Gray shall charge with the boys in Blue, And San Juan and Manila Bay a loving-cup shall brew, And Dewey and Joe Wheeler the old love shall renew. Where is Thomas? His lips compressed, Smother 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 Judgment 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 line goes up the shout of victory.