“To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond—to the south and the north…”
Category: poems
Maryland, My Maryland (Randall, 1861)
“She meets her sisters on the plain-
‘SIC SEMPER!’ ’tis the proud refrain…”
Star-Spangled Banner (Key, 1814)
What’s the connection between the US National Anthem, militant slave uprisings, and the burning of the White House?
Picket Guard (Beers & Hewitt, 1861)
“His musket falls slack, his face dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep–
For their mother–may Heaven defend her.”
Come up from the fields, father (Walt Whitman, 1865)
Come up from the fields, father (Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: Drum Taps, 1865)
Southern Girl with the Homespun Dress
“Many a woman who never before held a plow, is now seen in the corn-field…”
Uncle Sam’s Farm: “One grand, ocean-bound republic”
Stephen A. Douglas (1858): “This Union will not only live forever, but it will extend and expand until it covers the whole continent, and makes this confederacy one grand, ocean-bound Republic…”
Home, Sweet Home: “Had we not had the river between us”
One private’s account of the power & presence of music after a terrible battle:
Vacant Chair (Root & Washburn, 1861)
George Root’s setting of Henry S. Washburn’s popular poem …
Battle Hymn of the Republic (Howe, 1861)
Written in November 1861 by abolitionist poet Julia Ward Howe, this song seems to glimpse the fiery trial ahead:
The Hardtacks 