Then forward, boys, forward to battle,
    We marched on our wearisome way,
  We stormed the wild hills of Resaca;
    God bless those who fell on that day! 
  Then Kenesaw, dark in its glory,
    Frowned down on the flag of the free,
  But the East and the West bore our standards,
    And Sherman marched on to the sea.

  Still onward we pressed, till our banners
    Swept out from Atlanta’s grim walls,
  And the blood of the patriot dampened
    The soil where the traitor flag falls;
  Yet we paused not to weep for the fallen,
    Who slept by each river and tree;
  We twined them a wreath of the laurel
    As Sherman marched down to the sea.

  Oh! proud was our army that morning,
    That stood where the pine darkly towers,
  When Sherman said:  “Boys, you are weary;
    This day fair Savannah is ours!”
  Then sang we a song for our chieftain,
    That echoed o’er river and lea,
  And the stars in our banner shone brighter
    When Sherman marched down to the sea.

SAMUEL H.M.  BYERS.

* * * * *

ARMY CORRESPONDENT’S LAST RIDE.

FIVE FORKS, APRIL 1, 1865.

  Ho! pony.  Down the lonely road
    Strike now your cheeriest pace! 
  The woods on fire do not burn higher
    Than burns my anxious face;
  Far have you sped, but all this night
    Must feel my nervous spur;
  If we be late, the world must wait
    The tidings we aver:—­
  To home and hamlet, town and hearth,
    To thrill child, mother, man,
  I carry to the waiting North
    Great news from Sheridan!

  The birds are dead among the pines,
    Slain by the battle fright,
  Prone in the road the steed reclines
    That never readied the fight;
  Yet on we go,—­the wreck below
    Of many a tumbled wain,—­
  By ghastly pools where stranded mules
    Die, drinking of the rain;
  With but my list of killed and missed
    I spur my stumbling nag,
  To tell of death at many a tryst,
    But victory to the flag!

  “Halt! who comes there?  The countersign!”—­
    “A friend.”—­“Advance!  The fight,—­
  How goes it, say?”—­“We won the day!”—­
    “Huzza!  Pass on!”—­“Good-night!”—­
  And parts the darkness on before,
    And down the mire we tramp,
  And the black sky is painted o’er
    With many a pulsing camp;
  O’er stumps and ruts, by ruined huts,
    Where ghosts look through the gloam,—­
  Behind my tread I hear the dead
    Follow the news toward home!

  The hunted souls I see behind,
    In swamp and in ravine,
  Whose cry for mercy thrills the wind
    Till cracks the sure carbine;
  The moving lights, which scare the dark,
    And show the trampled place
  Where, in his blood, some mother’s bud
    Turns up his young, dead face;
  The captives spent, whose standards rent
    The conqueror parades,
  As at the Five Forks roads arrive
    The General’s dashing aides.