“We waited grim and silent till they crossed
The center and began the dread ascent. 
Then brazen bugles rang the clarion call;
Arose as one twice twenty thousand men,
And all our hillsides blazed with crackling fire. 
With sudden crash and simultaneous roar
An hundred cannon opened instantly,
And all the vast hills shuddered under us. 
Yelling their mad defiance to our fire
Still on and upward came our daring foes. 
As when upon the wooded mountain-side
The unchained Loki[D] riots and the winds
Of an autumnal tempest lash the flames,
Whirling the burning fragments through the air—­
Huge blazing limbs and tops of blasted pines—­
Mowing wide swaths with circling scythes of fire,
So fell our fire upon the advancing host,
And lashed their ranks and mowed them into heaps,
Cleaving broad avenues of death.  Still on
And up they come undaunted, closing up
The ghastly gaps and firing as they come. 
As if protected by the hand of heaven,
Rides at their head their gallant leader still;
The tempest drowns his voice—­his naming sword
Gleams in the flash of rifles.  One wild yell—­Like
the mad hunger-howl of famished wolves
Midwinter on the flying cabris’[E] trail,
Swelled by ten thousand hideous voices, shrills,
And through the battle-smoke the bravest burst. 
Flutters their tattered banner on our wall! 
Thunders their shout of victory!  Appalled
Our serried ranks are broken—­but in vain! 
On either hand our cannon enfilade,
Crushing great gaps along the stalwart lines;
In front our deadly rifles volley still,
Mowing the toppling swaths of daring men. 
Behold—­they falter!—­Ho!—­they break!—­they fly! 
With one wild cheer that shakes the solid hills
Spring to the charge our eager infantry. 
Headlong we press them down the bloody slope,
Headlong they fall before our leveled steel
And break in wild disorder, cast away
Their arms and fly in panic.  All the vale
Is spread with slaughter and wild fugitives. 
Wide o’er the field the scattered foemen fly;
Dread havoc and mad terror swift pursue
Till battle is but slaughter.  Thousands fall—­
Thousands surrender, and the Southern flag
Is trailed upon the field.

[D] Norse fire-fiend

[E] Cabri—­the small, fleet antelope of the northern plains, so called by the Crees and half-breeds.

“The day was ours,
And well we knew the worth of victory. 
Loud rolled the rounds of cheers from corps to corps;
Comrades embraced each other; iron men
Shed tears of joy like women; men profane
Fell on their knees and thanked Almighty God. 
Then ’Hail Columbia’ rang the brazen horns,
And all the hill-tops shouted unto heaven;
The welkin shouted to the shouting hills—­And
heavens and hill-tops shouted ’Victory!’