Back from the trebly crimsoned field
      Terrible words are thunder-tost;
    Full of the wrath that will not yield,
      Full of revenge for battles lost! 
      Hark to their echo, as it crost
    The Capital, making faces wan: 
      End this murderous holocaust;
    Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN!

    Give us a man of God’s own mould,
      Born to marshal his fellow-men;
    One whose fame is not bought and sold
      At the stroke of a politician’s pen;
      Give us the man of thousands ten,
    Fit to do as well as to plan;
      Give us a rallying-cry, and then,
    Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN!

    No leader to shirk the boasting foe,
      And to march and countermarch our brave
    Till they fall like ghosts in the marshes low,
      And swamp-grass covers each nameless grave;
      Nor another, whose fatal banners wave
    Aye in Disaster’s shameful van;
      Nor another, to bluster, and lie, and rave,—­
    Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN!

    Hearts are mourning in the North,
      While the sister rivers seek the main,
    Red with our life-blood flowing forth—­
      Who shall gather it up again? 
    Though we march to the battle-plain
    Firmly as when the strife began,
      Shall all our offerings be in vain?—­
    Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN!

    Is there never one in all the land,
      One on whose might the Cause may lean? 
    Are all the common ones so grand,
      And all the titled ones so mean? 
      What if your failure may have been
    In trying to make good bread from bran,
      From worthless metal a weapon keen?—­
    Abraham Lincoln, find us a MAN!

    O, we will follow him to the death,
      Where the foeman’s fiercest columns are! 
    O, we will use our latest breath,
      Cheering for every sacred star! 
      His to marshal us high and far;
    Ours to battle, as patriots can
      When a Hero leads the Holy War!—­
    Abraham Lincoln, give us a MAN!

CHAPTER XXV

The Battle-summer of 1863—­A Turn of the Tide—­Lee’s Invasion of Pennsylvania—­A Threatening Crisis—­Change of Union Commanders—­Meade succeeds Hooker—­The Battle of Gettysburg—­Lincoln’s Anxiety during the Fight—­The Retreat of Lee—­Union Victories in the Southwest—­The Capture of Vicksburg—­Lincoln’s Thanks to Grant—­Returning Cheerfulness—­Congratulations to the Country—­Improved State of Peeling at the North—­State Elections of 1863—­The Administration Sustained—­Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg—­Lincoln’s Address—­Scenes and Incidents at the Dedication—­Meeting with Old John Burns—­Edward Everett’s Impressions of Lincoln.