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Long ere the sharp command
Of the fierce rolling drum

Told them their time had come,
Told them what work was sent
For the black regiment

"Now," the flag-sergeant cried, "Though death and hell betide, Let the whole nation see

If we are fit to be

Free in this land; or bound

Down, like the whining hound, —

Bound with red stripes of pain

In our old chains again!”

O, what a shout there went

From the black regiment!

"Charge!" Trump and drum awoke,

Onward the bondmen broke;

Bayonet and sabre-stroke

Vainly opposed their rush.

Through the wild battle's crush,

With but one thought aflush,
Driving their lords like chaff,
In the guns' mouths they laugh;
Or at the slippery brands
Leaping with open hands,

Down they tear man and horse,
Down in their awful course;

Trampling with bloody heel
Over the crashing steel,
All their eyes forward bent,
Rushed the black regiment.

"Freedom!" their battle-cry, -
"Freedom! or leave to die!"
Ah! and they meant the word,
Not as with us 't is heard,
Not a mere party shout:

They gave their spirits out;

Trusted the end to God,

And on the gory sod

Rolled in triumphant blood.

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That they might fall again,

So they could once more see

That burst to liberty!

This was what "freedom" lent

To the black regiment.

Hundreds on hundreds fell;
But they are resting well;
Scourges and shackles strong
Never shall do them wrong.

O, to the living few,
Soldiers, be just and true!

Hail them as comrades tried;

Fight with them side by side;

Never, in field or tent,

Scorn the black regiment.

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JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG.

July 1, 2, 3,

1863.

HA

AVE you heard the story that gossips tell
Of Burns of Gettysburg?

No? Ah, well:

Brief is the glory that hero earns,
Briefer the story of poor John Burns:
He was the fellow who won renown,

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The only man who did n't back down

When the rebels rode through his native town;

But held his own in the fight next day,

When all his townsfolk ran away.

That was in July, Sixty-three,

The very day that General Lee,

Flower of Southern chivalry,

Baffled and beaten, backward reeled

From a stubborn Meade and a barren field.

I might tell how but the day before

John Burns stood at his cottage door,

Looking down the village street,

Where, in the shade of his peaceful vine,
He heard the low of his gathered kine,
And felt their breath with incense sweet;
Or I might say, when the sunset burned
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk that fell like a babbling flood
Into the milk-pail red as blood!

Or how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing among the trees.

But all such fanciful thoughts as these

Were strange to a practical man like Burns, Who minded only his own concerns,

Troubled no more by fancies fine

Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed, kine, Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact,

Slow to argue, but quick to act.

That was the reason, as some folks say,

He fought so well on that terrible day.

And it was terrible. On the right
Raged for hours the heady fight,

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