NAME: __________________________________________
Directions:
DATE: _________________
Read the assigned poem that was written about the Civil War (Battles, Soldier Life, or Home Front). As you read
through the poem, write your response to the 5 senses. What do you think the author of the poem wanted the
readers to see, touch, hear, smell, and taste based on the descriptions in the poem? When finished, answer the
questions below.
Sight
Smell
Sound
Taste
Touch
1)
Is your poem written about the Battles, Soldier’s Life, or Home front? _____________________
2)
Was your poem written for the Confederacy or the Union? ______________________________
Created by: Mrs. Amanda Schaefer
A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND DIM
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,
Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.
Curious I halt and silent stand,
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just lift the
blanket;
Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair, and flesh
all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you my dear comrade?
Then to the second I step--and who are you my child and darling?
Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?
Then to the third--a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellowwhite ivory;
Young man I think I know you--I think this face is the face of Christ himself,
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.
Created by: Mrs. Amanda Schaefer
MALVERN HILL
(July 1862)
by Herman Melville
(1819-1891)
Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill
In prime of morn and May,
Recall ye how McClellan's men
Here stood at bay?
While deep within yon forest dim
Our rigid comrades lay -Some with the cartridge in their mouth,
Others with fixed arms lifted South -Invoking so
The cypress glades? Ah wilds of woe!
The spires of Richmond, late beheld
Through rifts in musket-haze,
Were closed from view in clouds of dust
On leaf-walled ways,
Where streamed our wagons in caravan;
And the Seven Nights and Days
Of march and fast, retreat and fight,
Created by: Mrs. Amanda Schaefer
Pinched our grimed faces to ghastly
plight -Does the elm wood
Recall the haggard beards of blood?
The battle-smoked flag, with stars
eclipsed,
We followed (it never fell!) -In silence husbanded our strength -Received their yell;
Till on this slope we patient turned
With cannon ordered well;
Reverse we proved was not defeat;
But, ah, the sod what thousands meet! -Does Malvern Wood
Bethink itself, amd muse and brood?
We elms of Malvern Hill
Remember every thing;
But sap the twig will fill:
Wag the world how it will,
Leaves must be green in spring.
BEAT! BEAT! DRUMS!
By Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)
Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows -- through doors -- burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet -- no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums -- so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities -- over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in
those beds;
No bargainers' bargains by day -- no brokers or speculators --would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums -- you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley -- stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid -- mind not the weeper or payer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums -- so loud you bugles blow.
Created by: Mrs. Amanda Schaefer
HE'LL SEE IT WHEN HE WAKES
by Frank Lee
Amid the clouds of battle smoke
The sun had died away,
And where the storm of battle broke
A thousand warriors lay.
A band of friends upon the field
Stood round a youthful form,
Who, when the war cloud's thunder pealed,
Had perished in the storm.
Upon his forehead, on his hair,
The coming moonlight breaks,
And each dear brother standing there
A tender farewell takes.
But ere they laid him in his home
There came a comrade near,
And gave a token that had come
From her the dead held dear.
A moment's doubt upon them pressed,
Created by: Mrs. Amanda Schaefer
Then one the letter takes
And lays it low upon his breast -"He'll see it when he wakes."
0 thou who dost in sorrow wait,
Whose heart in anguish breaks,
Though thy dear message came too late,
"He'll see it when he wakes."
No more amid the fiery storm
Shall his strong arm be seen,
No more his young and manly form
Tread Mississippi's green;
And e'en thy tender words of love -The words affection speaksCame all too late; but O thy love
Will "see them when he wakes!
No jars disturb his gentle rest,
No noise his slumber breaks;
But thy words sleep upon his breast -"He'll see them when he wakes."
THE LAST CHARGE AT APPOMATTOX
by Henry Jerome Stockard
Scarred on a hundred fields before,
Naked and starved and travel-sore,
Each man a tiger hunted,
They stood at bay as brave as Huns-Last of the Old South's splendid sons,
Flanked by ten thousand shotted guns,
And by ten thousand fronted.
They turned in sullen, slow retreat -Ah, there are laurels of defeat -Turned, for the chief had spoken;
With one last shot hurled back the foes,
And prayed the trump of doom to blow,
Now that the Southern stars were low,
The Southern bars were broken.
Scorched by the cannon's molten breath,
They'd climbed the trembling walls of death
And set their standards tattered -Had charged at the bugle's stirring blare
Through bolted gloom and godless glare
From the dead's reddened gulches, where
The searching shrapnel shattered.
Some time the calm, impartial years
Will tell what made them dead to tears
Of loved ones left to languish: -What nerved them for the lonely guard,
For cleaving blade and mangling shard, -What gave them strength in tent and ward
To drain the dregs of anguish.
They formed -- that Carolina band -With Grimes, the Spartan, in command.
And, at the word of Gordan,
Through splintered fire and stifling smoke -They struck with lightning's scathing stoke, -Those doomed and desperate men -- and broke
Across the iron cordon.
But the far ages will propound
What never sage hath lore to sound; -Why, in such fires of rancor,
The God of love should find it meet
For Him, with Grant as sledge to beat
On Lee, the anvil at such heat,
Our nation's great sheet-anchor.
Created by: Mrs. Amanda Schaefer
THE JACKET OF GRAY
by Caroline Augusta Ball
Fold it up carefully, lay it aside;
Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride;
For dear to our hearts must it be evermore,
The jacket of gray our loved soldier-boy wore.
Can we ever forget when he joined the brave
band
That rose in defense of our dear Southern land,
And in his bright youth hurried on to the fray,
How proudly he donned it -- the jacket of
gray?
His fond mother blessed him and looked up
above,
Commending to Heaven the child of her love;
What anguish was hers mortal tongue cannot
say,
When he passed from her sight in the jacket of
gray.
But her country had called and she would not
repine,
Though costly the sacrifice placed on its shrine;
Her heart's dearest hopes on its altar she lay,
When she sent out her boy in the jacket of
gray.
Months passed and wars thunders rolled over
the land,
Unsheathed was the sword and lighted the
brand;
We heard in the distance the sound of the fray,
And prayed for our boy in the jacket of gray.
Created by: Mrs. Amanda Schaefer
Ah, vain, all in vain, were our prayers and our
tears,
The glad shout of victory rang in our ears;
But our treasured one on the red battle-field
lay,
While the life-blood oozed out of the jacket of
gray.
His young comrades found him, and tenderly
bore
The cold lifeless form to his home by the
shore;
Oh, dark were our hearts on that terrible day,
When we saw our dead boy in the jacket of
gray.
Ah! spotted and tattered, and stained now with
gore,
Was the garment which once he so proudly
wore;
We bitterly wept as we took it away,
And replaced with death's white robes the
jacket of gray.
We laid him to rest in his cold narrow bed,
And graved on the marble we placed o'er his
head
As the proudest tribute our sad hearts could
pay -"He never disgraced it, the jacket of gray."
Then fold it up carefully, lay it aside,
Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride;
For dear must it be to our hearts evermore,
The jacket of gray our loved soldier boy wore!