The stillness stealing through the throng...

The stillness stealing through the throng

The silent thought and dismal fear revealed;

They turned and went,

Musing on right and wrong

And mysteries dimly sealed —

Breasting the storm in daring discontent;

The storm, whose black flag showed in heaven,

As if to say no quarter there was given

To wounded men in wood,

Or true hearts yearning for the good —

All fatherless seemed the human soul.

But next day brought a bitterer bowl —

On the bulletin-board this stood;

Saturday morning at A. M.

A stir within the Fort betrayed

That the rebels were getting under arms;

Some plot these early birds had laid.

But a lancing sleet cut him who stared

Into the storm. After some vague alarms,

Which left our lads unscared,

Out sallied the enemy at dim of dawn,

With cavalry and artillery, and went

In fury at our environment.

Under cover of shot and shell

Three columns of infantry rolled on,

Vomited out of Donelson —

Rolled down the slopes like rivers of hell,

Surged at our line, and swelled and poured

Like breaking surf. But unsubmerged

Our men stood up, except where roared

The enemy through one gap. We urged

Our all of manhood to the stress,

But still showed shattered in our desperateness.

Back set the tide,

But soon afresh rolled in;

And so it swayed from side to side —

Far batteries joining in the din,

Though sharing in another fray —

Till all became an Indian fight,

Intricate, dusky, stretching far away,

Yet not without spontaneous plan

However tangled showed the plight;

Duels all over‘ tween man and man,

Duels on cliff-side, and down in ravine,

Duels at long range, and bone to bone;

Duels every where flitting and half unseen.

Only by courage good as their own,

And strength outlasting theirs,

Did our boys at last drive the rebels off.

Yet they went not back to their distant lairs

In strong-hold, but loud in scoff

Maintained themselves on conquered ground —

Uplands; built works, or stalked around.

Our right wing bore this onset. Noon

Brought calm to Donelson.

The reader ceased; the storm beat hard;

‘ Twas day, but the office-gas was lit;

Nature retained her sulking-fit,

In her hand the shard.

Flitting faces took the hue

Of that washed bulletin-board in view,

And seemed to bear the public grief

As private, and uncertain of relief;

Yea, many an earnest heart was won,

As broodingly he plodded on,

To find in himself some bitter thing,

Some hardness in his lot as harrowing

As Donelson.

That night the board stood barren there,

Oft eyes by wistful people passing,

Who nothing saw but the rain-beads chasing

Each other down the wafered square,

As down some storm-beat grave-yard stone.

But next day showed —