Book Description:
BATTLE-PIECES AND ASPECTS OF THE WAR. HERMAN MELVILLE. THE BATTLE-PIECES m THIS VOLUME ARE DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND WHO IN THE WAR FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF THE UNION FELL DEVOTEDLY UNDER THE FLAG OF THEIR FATHERS. WITH few exceptions, the Pieces in this volume originated in an impulse imparted by the fall of Richmond. They were composed without reference to collective arrangement, but, being brought together in review, naturally fall into the order assumed. The events and incidents of the conflict making up a whole, in varied am plitude, corresponding with the geographical area covered by the war from these but a few themes have been taken, such as for any cause chanced to im print themselves upon the mind. The aspects which the strife as a memory assumes are as manifold as are the moods of involuntary meditation moods variable, and at times widely at vari ance. Yielding instinctively, one after another, to feelings not inspired from any one source exclusively, and unmindful, without purposing to be, of consist ency, I seem, in most of these verses, to have but placed a harp in a window, and noted the contrasted airs which wayward winds have played upon the strings. CON TENTS. Misgivings 13 The Conflict of Convictions 14 Apathy and Enthusiasm 19 The March into Virginia 22 Lyon 24 BalFs Bluff 28 Duponfs Round Fight 30 The Stone Fleet 31 Donelson 33 The Cumberland -53 In the Turret 55 The Temeraire 58 A utilitarian View of the Monitors Fight 61 Shiloh 63 The Battle for the Mississippi .... 64 Malvern Hill 67 The Victor of Antietam 69 Battle of Stone River 73 Running the Batteries 75 viii Contents. PAGE Stonewall Jackson 79 StonewallJackson ascribedtoa Virginiari 8 1 Gettysburg 84 The Hoiise-top 86 Look-out Mountain 88 Chattanooga The Armies of the Wilderness . . . . 93 On the Photograph of a Corps Commander 105 The Swamp Angel 107 The Battle for the Bay 90 no Sheridan at Cedar Creek 1 16 In the Prison Pen 1 18 The College Colonel 120 The Eagle of the Blue 122 A Dirge for MePherson 124 At the Cannons Mouth 126 The March to the Sea 128 The Frenzy in the Wake 133 The Fall of Richmond 135 The Surrender at . Appomattox A Canticle . . .137 138 The Martyr 141 The Coming Storm 143 Rebel Color-bearers at Shiloh . . . .144 Contents. ix PAGE The Muster 146 Aurora Borealis 148 The released Rebel Prisoner 150 A Grave near . Petersburg, Virginia .153 Formerly a Slav 154 The Apparition 155 Magnanimity Baffled 156 On the Slain Collegians 157 America 160 VERSES INSCRIPTIVE AND MEMORIAL. On the Home Guards who perished in the Defense ofLexington, Missouri . . .165 Inscription for Graves at Pea Ridge, Arkansas 166 The Fortitude of the North under the Disaster of the Second Manassas . .167 On the Men of Maine killed in the Vic tory of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. . .168 An Epitaph 169 Inscription for Maryds Heights, Freder- icksburg 170 The Mound by the Lake 171 On the Slain at . Chickamauga . . .172
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