AT FORT PILLOW
The Southern yell rang loud and high,
The moment that we thundered in,
Smiting the demons hip and thigh,
Cleaving them to the very chin.
My right arm, bared for fiercer play,
The left one held the rein in slack;
In all the fury of the fray,
I sought the white man, not the black.
The dabbled clots of brain and gore
Across the swirling sabers ran;
To me each brutal visage bore
The front of one accursed man.
Trobbing along the frenzied vein,
My blood seemed kindled into song—
The death-dirge of the sacred slain,
The slogan of immortal wrong.
It glared athwart the dripping glaives—
It blazed in each avenging eye—
The thought of desecrated graves
And some lone sister’s desperate cry!
Wilmington, April 25, 1864.
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