Photo of the Day

The veteran soldier.

A passage from Stephen Vincent Benét’s epic poem about the American Civil War.¹

Federal troops march in New York City on July 4, 1860, nine months before the beginning of the Civil War.

Look at that column well, as it passes by,

Remembering Bull Run and the cocksfeather hats,

41st New York Infantry troops near Bull Run, 1861.

The congressmen,

the raw militia brigades

Who went to war with a flag and a haircloth trunk

Union soldier and his kit early in the war.

In bright red pants

and ideals and ignorance,

Ready to fight like picture-postcard boys

Fancy Union uniforms early in the war.

While fighting still had banners and a sword

And just as ready to run in blind mob-panic....

Defeated Union troops flee the battlefield at Bull Run, 1861. A Congressman observing the battle said of the retreating soldiers, "a cruel, crazy, mad, hopeless panic possessed them.”

These men were once those men. 

These men are the soldiers,

Good theives,

good fighters,

excellent foragers,

Veteran Union soldiers in camp.

The grumbling men

who dislike to be killed in war

And yet will hold

when the raw militia break

Confederate soldiers taken prisoner at Gettysburg, July 1863.

And live where the raw militia needlessly die,

Having been schooled to that end.

Members of Company G of the 71st New York Infantry, 1861.

The school is not a pretty school.

Confederate dead following the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia. May 1864.

They wear no cocksfeather hats.

Union burial crew at Antietam, September 1862.

Some men march in their drawers and their stocking feet.

They have handkerchiefs round their heads,

they are footsore and chafed,

15th New York Engineers in Virginia, May 1863.

Their faces are sweaty leather.

And when they pass

The little towns where the people wish them godspeed,

Lee's Army of Northern Virginia marches through Frederick, Maryland, to engage Union troops at Antietam, September 1862.

A few are touched by the cheers

and the crying women

Battle-hardened young Union soldiers.

But most have seen a number of crying women,

Her father was killed in the war. She holds his photo.

And heard a number of cheers.

******************************

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

1. Benét’s work, entitled “John Brown’s Body,” was published in 1928 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1929.