Well have they cashed old Lincoln's drafts, Hurrah for the Conscription! Some think the hideous spectacle Should move the heart to sadness, That fetters ought--oh silly thought!-- Sting freemen's hearts to madness. When has the stock of Plymouth rock Been melted to compunction? As for Provos, the wide world knows That chaining is their function. Hurrah for the Conscription, American Conscription, And for the stock of Plymouth rock, Whence sprung this new Conscription! What matter if you 're _sandwiched_ in A host of sable fellows, Well flavored men, your kith and kin, As Abe and Sumner tell us? Is not the war--this _murder_--for The negro, _nolens volens?_ For every three now killed of ye There's just a negro stolen. And then ye have Conscription, American Conscription, Your blood must flow for this, you know. Hurrah for the Conscription! The songs written by the soldiers and sailors themselves, descriptive of their engagements, or incidents of camp and march, or expressing their feelings, were not many, either in folk-ballads or finished poetry. Major J. W. De Forrest's powerful verses, In Louisiana, are almost the only specimen of the latter, and there are but few of the ruder ballads. It may have been because the soldiers and sailors were too much occupied, and that the life in camp and on shipboard was not favorable to poetical reverie, although there were many hours on picket or watch which might have been thus employed; but the fact remains that there was more carving of bone rings than of verses, and more singing than writing in the army and navy. There was not an absolute dearth, however, and the soldiers and sailors sometimes told their own stories or expressed their own feelings in verse. One of the best of these was written during the early days of the war by H. Millard, a member of Company A, Seventy-first Regiment, concerning the march from Annapolis to the Junction, and has the genuine flavor of soldiership as well as a fine spirit of _camaraderie_. It is entitled Only Nine Miles to the Junction:-- The Rhode Island boys were posted along On the road from Annapolis station, As the Seventy-first Regiment, one thousand strong, Went on in defense of the nation. We'd been marching all day in the sun's scorching ray, With two biscuits each as a ration, When we asked Gov. Sprague to show us the way, And "How many miles to the Junction?" How many miles--how many miles, And how many miles to the Junction; When we asked Gov. Sprague to show us the way, And "How many miles to the Junction?"