You say you’d like to hear me The stirring story tell, Of those who stood the battle And those who fighting fell. Short work to count our losses— We stood and dropped the foe As easily as by firelight Men shoot the buck or doe. And while they fell by hundreds Upon the bloody plain, Of us, fourteen were wounded And only eight were slain. The eighth of January, Before the break of day, Our raw and hasty levies Were brought into array. No cotton-bales before us— Some fool that falsehood told; Before us was an earthwork Built from the swampy mould. And there we stood in silence, And waited with a frown, To greet with bloody welcome The bull-dogs of the Crown. The heavy fog of morning Still hid the plain from sight, When came a thread of scarlet Marked faintly in the white. We fired a single cannon, And as its thunders rolled, The mist before us lifted In many a heavy fold— The mist before us lifted And in their bravery fine Came rushing to their ruin The fearless British line. Then from our waiting cannon Leaped forth the deadly flame, To meet the advancing columns That swift and steady came. The thirty-twos of Crowley And Bluchi’s twenty-four To Spotts’s eighteen-pounders Responded with their roar, Sending the grape-shot deadly That marked its pathway plain, And paved the road it travelled With corpses of the slain. Our rifles firmly grasping, And heedless of the din, We stood in silence waiting For orders to begin. Our fingers on the triggers, Our hearts, with anger stirred, Grew still more fierce and eager As Jackson’s voice was heard: “Stand steady! Waste no powder! Wait till your shots will tell! To-day the work you finish— See that you do it well!” Their columns drawing nearer, We felt our patience tire, When came the voice of Carroll, Distinct and measured, “Fire!” Oh! then you should have marked us Our volleys on them pour— Have heard our joyous rifles Ring sharply through the roar, And seen their foremost columns Melt hastily away As snow in mountain gorges Before the floods of May. They soon re-formed their columns, And, ’mid the fatal rain We never ceased to hurtle, Came to their work again. The Forty-fourth is with them, That first its laurels won With stout old Abercrombie Beneath an eastern sun. It rushes to the battle, And, though within the rear Its leader is a laggard, It shows no signs of fear.