Little else took place that day,
  Except the field artillery in line
Would now and then—­for love, they say—­
    Exchange a valentine. 
The old sharpshooting going on. 
Some plan afoot as yet unknown;
So Friday closed round Donelson.

LATER. 
      Great suffering through the night—­
A stinging one.  Our heedless boys
  Were nipped like blossoms.  Some dozen
  Hapless wounded men were frozen. 
During day being struck down out of sight,
And help-cries drowned in roaring noise,
They were left just where the skirmish shifted—­
Left in dense underbrush now-drifted. 
Some, seeking to crawl in crippled plight,
So stiffened—­perished. 
                        Yet in spite
Of pangs for these, no heart is lost. 
Hungry, and clothing stiff with frost,
Our men declare a nearing sun
Shall see the fall of Donelson. 
  And this they say, yet not disown
The dark redoubts round Donelson,
  And ice-glazed corpses, each a stone—­
    A sacrifice to Donelson;
They swear it, and swerve not, gazing on
A flag, deemed black, flying from Donelson. 
Some of the wounded in the wood
  Were cared for by the foe last night,
Though he could do them little needed good,
  Himself being all in shivering plight. 
The rebel is wrong, but human yet;
He’s got a heart, and thrusts a bayonet. 
He gives us battle with wondrous will—­
The bluff’s a perverted Bunker Hill._

The stillness stealing through the throng
The silent thought and dismal fear revealed;
        They turned and went,
    Musing on right and wrong
    And mysteries dimly sealed—­
Breasting the storm in daring discontent;
The storm, whose black flag showed in heaven,
As if to say no quarter there was given
    To wounded men in wood,
  Or true hearts yearning for the good—­
All fatherless seemed the human soul. 
But next day brought a bitterer bowl—­
  On the bulletin-board this stood;

  Saturday morning at 3 A.M. 
    A stir within the Fort betrayed
  That the rebels were getting under arms;
    Some plot these early birds had laid. 
  But a lancing sleet cut him who stared
  Into the storm.  After some vague alarms,
  Which left our lads unscared,
  Out sallied the enemy at dim of dawn,
    With cavalry and artillery, and went
    In fury at our environment. 
  Under cover of shot and shell
    Three columns of infantry rolled on,
    Vomited out of Donelson—­
  Rolled down the slopes like rivers of hell,
    Surged at our line, and swelled and poured
  Like breaking surf.  But unsubmerged
    Our men stood up, except where roared
  The enemy through one gap.  We urged
  Our all of manhood to the stress,
  But still showed shattered in our desperateness. 
      Back set the tide,
  But soon afresh rolled in;